The Ascendant by Drew Chapman Simon & Shuster, $25.00, 388 pages, ISBN 978-1-4767-2588-8 Anyone who’s watched television lately knows that the most interesting man in the world is busy selling Mexican beer . . . but have you ever wondered just what the smartest man in the world is up to? Well, wonder no more . . . the MBR has the answer for you . . . he’s
Chance by Kem Nunn Scribner, $26.00, 320 pages, ISBN 978-0-7432-8924-5 Some of the best thriller and crime fiction stories are built around the premise of an ordinary person being put into an extraordinary situation. For example . . . Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider and as a result, develops supernatural powers which totally change his life as he becomes 'The Amazing Spiderman,' a crusading crime fighter
Going Dark by James W Hall Minotaur Books, $25.99, 295 pages, ISBN 978-1-250-00500-7 My old friend Caywood was opposed to modern technology. He hated microwave ovens and cell phones, but most of all he hated computers. He’d say, only half joking, “Computers are the work of the Devil, and when we’re totally dependent on ‘em . . . that damned old Devil’s gonna shut off all the electricity. You
A Nasty Piece of Work by Robert Littell Thomas Dunne Books/St Martins Press, $24.99, 259 pages, ISBN 978-1-250-02145-8 When one of the best and most well-known living writers of espionage spy thrillers turns his hand to crime fiction, you bet we’re going to pay attention here at the Mysterious Book Report. Robert Littell, author of blockbuster novels like The Company, Legends and The Stalin Epigram, has turned his hand
Game by Anders de la Motte Atria/Simon & Shuster, PB $16.00, 386 pages, ISBN 978-1-4767-1288-8 One of the greatest things about the Mysterious Book Report is its ability to jump around in time and place. Thus, we can go from post WWII Vienna, Austria, to present day Stockholm, Sweden, in the blink of an eye, migrating from an introspective, complex and densely populated intellectual novel, to a fast-paced techno-thriller
Save Yourself by Kelly Braffet Crown Publishing/Random House, $25.00, 310 pages ISBN 978-0-385-34734-1 There’s a saying my old Irish Grandmother repeated that goes like so: God made the countryside and man built the cities . . . but the devil made the small town. I’ve thought about that old saw over the years, and what I think she meant was this: in a small town everyone knows everyone else’s
The Boyfriend by Thomas Perry Mysterious Press, $25.00, 298 pages, ISBN 978-0-8021-2606-1 There are people in the world who are so expert in their chosen fields of work that they have the skill and the ability to make the most difficult tasks look easy. You know the ones I mean: the accountant who takes the most insurmountable stack of receipts and sloppy bookkeeping and turn them into an on-time,
A Killer In The Wind by Andrew Klavan Mysterious Press, $25.00, 296 pages, ISBN 978-0-8021-2067-0 Have you ever had a premonition that came true? A dream perhaps, so lifelike and real that you could almost swear it actually happened? Maybe . . . you’re one of the millions of us who did inhale, way back there in college . . . or even one who tried some of the
Black Fridays by Michael Sears Putnam, $25.99, 341 pages, ISBN 978-0-399-15866-7 Back in the nineteenth century, Mark Twain wrote, “There is no distinctly American criminal class . . . except Congress.” If he was still living today, he might amend that to say, “. . . except Congress and Wall Street Operators,” because as anyone who pays the least bit of attention to the news knows, hardly a month
The Wrath of Angels by John Connolly Atria, $26.00, 481 pages, ISBN 978-1-444-75644-9 This week’s MBR is different. It’s different because the novel we’re reviewing represents a new type of fiction that blends two different genres together. In this instance a crime drama is combined with elements of the supernatural. Think Sam Spade meets Steven King and you’ve got the general idea. As an enthusiast of both of the