Suspense

The Victim of the System by Steve Hadden

 

FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Partners In Crime Book Tours in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

The Victim of the System by Steve Hadden was a great book.  I chose to review this book because the plot seemed different from books I have read lately, and I am so glad that I decided to review this book.  I know I will be checking out more books by him in the future because I really enjoyed his writing.  I felt so bad for Jack in this story.  I don’t think he should get away with what he did but I did understand why he did it.  This book left me thinking about how our justice system is and how things like this might happen in the world.  This book was one that made me think and I enjoyed that about it.  I wasn’t the biggest fan of Ike through the entire book and even after I finished the book I didn’t like him.  He is just one of those characters that I don’t like.  I know you will enjoy this book if you love thrillers and are looking for something different to read.

About The Book

Genre: Thriller
Published by: Telemachus Press
Publication Date: April 3rd 2018
Number of Pages: 330
ISBN: 9781948046039
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Twenty-two years ago, Ike Rossi’s life was shattered when his parents were murdered in cold blood. He surrendered his football scholarship and returned home to find their killer and raise his nine-year-old sister. Now, the crime of a local ten-year-old genius, Jack Cole, threatens to unearth old wounds rather than provide the closure Ike desperately wants.

When Ike meets Jack inside the Pittsburgh courthouse, he doesn’t see a murderer but instead a boy who has been victimized by a system that has left them both without justice. Despite knowing the case will resurrect the painful demons of his parents’ unsolved murders, Ike agrees to clear Jack’s name. The court of public opinion and the district attorney have an airtight case. Worse, taking Jack’s side thrusts Ike into the crosshairs of the most powerful family in Pittsburgh, the Falzones.

Now, with only days before the trial, Ike confronts the Falzones’ crumbling empire to find the shocking evidence that could save Jack. At the same time, he races to decipher a series of cryptic clues from Jack’s dead father that could hold the key to his son’s freedom. But each step closer to the truth draws them further into danger, and as three fractured families collide, Ike is forced to choose between saving Jack-and saving himself.

The Victim of the System is an intriguing and entertaining thriller about the justice system, closure and the abyss between them.

 

About The Author

Steve Hadden was born in Columbus, Ohio but spent much of his childhood in North Severna Park, Maryland. Building a short-wave radio with his father (an electrical engineer), frequent trips to the US Naval Academy, and the gift of a chemistry set, sparked his interest in chemistry and mathematics at an early age. At the end of elementary school, Steve’s family moved to Columbus, Indiana where he developed his love for basketball and where his favorite book was Stranger Than Science by Frank Edwards. Two years later, Steve moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where his junior high school creative writing teacher sparked his interest in writing. Steve attended North Allegheny High School and fell in love with Clive Cussler’s Raise the Titanic.

He attended Penn State, graduated with a degree in chemical engineering, and began a career in the oil and gas business, where he’s worked in engineering, management, and advisory roles. He’s traveled to intriguing places around the world and met fascinating people. His experience in the oil and gas business ultimately led to the idea for his first thriller, The Sunset Conspiracy. His interest in biology and science formed the foundation for his next four thrillers, Genetic Imperfections and The Swimming Monkeys Trilogy. He returned to his hometown of Pittsburgh with his latest thriller, The Victim of the System, a story with a mind-bending scientific twist.

Steve now lives in the foothills of the Cascades outside of Seattle. When he’s not working on his next intriguing thriller, Steve is hiking the trails with his wife and two Labrador retrievers, playing guitar or piano, reading great books, listening to music and consulting on business matters.

Visit Steve Hadden at stevehadden.com, Goodreads, & Facebook!

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Lying, Cheating, and Occasionally Murder by Ginny Fite

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Partners In Crime in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

Lying, Cheating, and Occasionally Murder by Ginny Fite was a great book.  It has been awhile since I have read a book that I enjoyed as much as I enjoyed this book.  I think that this is the first book that I have read by this author and I can’t wait to read more books by her in the future.  I hoped through the entire book that Charlotte was the one who did it because it would have made this book different from most of the other ones that I have read.  I fell in love with this author writing and her characters right from the start.  This is one that left me sad when it was over because I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to these characters yet. At times I was annoyed with Lagarde from time to time, but that always happens when the author makes the characters come to life for me.  If you love mystery books like I do I am sure you will love this book as much as I did.

About The Book

Genre: Fiction-Murder Mystery
Published by: Black Opal Books
Publication Date: February 10th 2018
Number of Pages: 270
ISBN: 9781626948 (ISBN13: 9781626948648)
Series: Sam Lagarde Mystery Series, Book 3 (Each is a Stand Alone Novel)
Purchase Links: Amazon  | Barnes & Noble  | Kobo  | Goodreads 

When it comes to murder, even brilliant scientists aren’t immune.

The night Harold Munson is shot dead in his car, the primary suspect is the man’s brainiac wife. But Charlotte, who has a passion for science and sex with strangers, swears all she wants is a Nobel Prize for curing brain cancer, even if that requires fudging her research and a few dead patients along the way.

When the next body drops, all signs point to Charlotte, but Detective Sam Lagarde doggedly follows the clues until he has his own Eureka moment.

 

About The Author

Ginny Fite is an award-winning journalist who has covered crime, politics, government, healthcare, art, and all things human. She has been a spokesperson for a governor, a member of congress, a few colleges and universities, and a robotics R&D company. She has degrees from Rutgers University and Johns Hopkins University and studied at the School for Women Healers and the Maryland Poetry Therapy Institute. She is the author of I Should Be Dead by Now, a collection of humorous lamentations about aging; three books of poetry, The Last Thousand Years, The Pearl Fisher, and Throwing Caution; a short story collection, What Goes Around; as well as two previous Detective Sam Lagarde mysteries: Cromwell’s Folly and No Good Deed Left Undone. She resides in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.

Catch Up With Ginny Fite On:
Website , Goodreads , Twitter , & Facebook !

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Ice by Lauren Carr

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from iRead Book Tours in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

Ice by Lauren Carr was a book.  This is new series from this author and I think it is my favorite series that this author has.  This book has to do with a cold case and I loved that.  I love learning about cold cases, so this book was right up my alley and I really enjoyed it.  I love how this author writes her stories and can make me feel like I am there with the characters.  I loved that even though this book didn’t have Gnarly in it there was other dogs that made me laugh.  She does a great job making all her characters come to life even the animals and I love that.  She also has a list right at the start of the book explaining all the characters and how they are related or know each other.  I know you will love this book if you are a true crime lover like I am.  These books are super easy to read, and I can’t wait to read more in this series in the future.  Have you read any books by this author and if so what is your favorite?

About The Book

Book Title: ICE by Lauren Carr
Category: Adult fiction, 380 pages
Genre: Mystery, Crime Fiction, Police Procedural, Cozy
Publisher: Acorn Book Services
Release date: February 26, 2018
Tour dates: April 2 to 30, 2018
Content Rating: PG (It’s a murder mystery and there is mild violence. Very mild swearing no F-bombs. No on-stage sex scenes.)

The clues for a close-to-the-heart missing person’s case heat up when Chris Matheson starts chipping away at the ice on the cold case.

When Sandy Lipton and her unborn child disappear, the court of public opinion finds young Chris Matheson guilty. Decades later, the retired FBI agent returns home to discover that the cloud of suspicion cast over him and his family has never lifted. With the help of a team of fellow retired law enforcement officers, each a specialist in their own field of investigation, Chris Matheson starts chipping away at the ice on this cold case to uncover what had happened to Sandy and her baby and the clues are getting hot!

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About The Author

Lauren Carr is the international best-selling author of the Mac Faraday, Lovers in Crime, and Thorny Rose Mysteries-over twenty titles across three fast-paced mystery series filled with twists and turns!
Now, Lauren has added one more hit series to her list with the Chris Matheson Cold Case Mysteries. Set in the quaint West Virginia town of Harpers Ferry, Ice introduces Chris Matheson, a retired FBI agent, who joins forces with other law enforcement retirees to heat up those cold cases that keep them up at night.
Book reviewers and readers alike rave about how Lauren Carr’s seamlessly crosses genres to include mystery, suspense, crime fiction, police procedurals, romance, and humor.
Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She lives with her husband, and three dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.
Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook ~ Instagram

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Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2018 Margaret Margaret

Act of Revenge by Dale Brown

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Partners In Crime Book Tours in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

Act of Revenge by Dale Brown was a book that I wasn’t sure if I was going to like, but I ended up loving the book.  I found it very ironic that I was reading this book Easter weekend because that is when this book starts.   I have never read any books by this author before, and I don’t know that I have read a book in this genre either and this one made me want to read more.  I loved that the author gave us a list of the characters and a little bit of the backstory for each of them.  I liked this because it meant he could jump in with the story and I didn’t feel lost or confused about who was who.  I also loved that I was able to go back and look at it again if I forgot how the characters were related to each other.  I can’t say enough good things about this book, and I can’t wait to read more books by this author in the future.  I think that anyone who loves thrillers would enjoy this book just as much as I did.

About The Book

Genre: Thriller
Published by: William Morrow
Publication Date: January 30th 2018
Number of Pages: 528
ISBN: 0062411322 (ISBN13: 9780062411327)
Series: Puppet Master #2

Grab Act of Revenge on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, HarperCollins, and add it to your Goodreads list!

When terrorists attack Boston, Louis Massina races against time to save the city with a high-tech counteroffensive . . .

On Easter Sunday morning, the city of Boston is struck by a widespread and coordinated series of terrorist attacks: an explosion in the T, a suicide bomber at Back Bay Police Station, and heavily armed gunmen taking hostages at the Patriot Hotel.

For robotics innovator Louis Massina, aka the Puppet Master, this is far more personal than a savage act of political terrorism. Boston is his city—and one of his employees, Chelsea Goodman, is among the hostages facing certain death. As Chelsea fights from the inside, Massina leads his team of tech geniuses at Smart Metal to deploy every bot, drone, and cyber weapon at their disposal to defeat the fanatics and save his city and friend.

That’s step one. Step two: Find the twisted mastermind behind the attacks and make him pay.

About The Author

Dale Brown is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous books, from Flight of the Old Dog (1987) in 1987, to, most recently, Iron Wolf (2015). A former U.S. Air Force captain, he can often be found flying his own plane over the skies of Nevada. Jim DeFelice is the co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller American Sniper. DeFelice is the author of Omar Bradley: General at War, the first in-depth critical biography of America’s last five-star general. He also writes a number of acclaimed military thrillers, including the Rogue Warrior series from Richard Marcinko, founder of SEAL Team 6, and the novels in the Dreamland series with Dale Brown.

Catch Up With Our Dale Brown On his Website, Goodreads Page, Twitter, & Facebook Page!

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Flash forward

Boston, Easter Sunday High noon

Louis Massina paced back and forth in the small high-security area, worried, anxious, and
angry. But most of all, impotent. Boston was under attack.

The lives of dozens, maybe hundreds, of his friends were directly threatened. One of his closest employees, a young woman with tremendous promise, was among the hostages. Maybe even dead.

And all he could do, for all his money, for all his inventions—his robots, his drones, his computers, his software—was walk back and forth, trying desperately to suppress what could not be suppressed.

Anger. Rage. The enemy of reason, yet the core of his being, at least at this moment. There were other alternatives. Prayer, for one. Prayer is impotence. Prayer is surrender.

The nuns who taught him would slap his face for thinking that. They held the exact opposite: Prayer was strength, tenfold. But while in many ways Massina was a man of faith, he had never been much given to prayer. In his mind, actions spoke more effectively than words.

Prayers were all well and good, but they worked—if they worked at all—on a realm other than human. And the action needed now was completely human. Not even the Devil himself could have concocted the evil his city faced.

Light flashed in the center of the far-right monitor.

“They’re going in,” said the operator watching the hotel where Massina’s employee had been taken hostage. The light had come from a small explosion at the side of the building. “They’re going in.”

Almost in spite of himself, Massina started to pray.

Two hours earlier

Boston, Massachusetts Easter Sunday morning

There were few better hotels in Boston than the Patriot Hotel if you wanted to soak up the city’s history: city hall was practically next door, Faneuil five minutes away. You could catch a trolley for the Old Town tour a block or two down the street. Bunker Hill was a hike, but then the British had found that out as well. The rooms were expensive—twice what they would go for at similarly appointed hotels nearby—but money had never been a major concern for Victoria Goodman, Chelsea Goodman’s favorite aunt. Victoria had gotten a job as a secretary for Microsoft very soon after it started, and when she cashed out her stock in the early 1990s, invested in real estate in and around San Francisco, most notably Palo Alto and Menlo Park—the future homes of Facebook and Google. Victoria had that kind of luck.

Despite her luck, and her money, Victoria was especially easygoing, self-assured yet casual. She met Chelsea in the hotel lobby wearing a blue-floral draped dress that showed off toned upper arms and legs that remained trim and shapely despite the fact that she had recently passed sixty.

“Just on time,” declared Victoria, folding Chelsea to her chest. “I hope you’re hungry.”

“I wouldn’t mind breakfast,” answered Chelsea.

“How far did you run this morning?”

“It’s not the distance, it’s the attitude,” replied Victoria. “Only five miles. But it felt wonderful. It’s so marvelous running through the city.”

“You’ll have to try for the Marathon.”

“Those days are gone, dear,” said Victoria lightly. “I’d never qualify. But thank you for the thought. You didn’t bring your young friend?”

“We’ll meet her at the Aquarium,” Chelsea said. “She had to go to church with her dad.”

“Well, it is Easter.”

“Actually, they’re Russian Orthodox, so it’s Palm Sunday. He’s a single father, and lately he’s been trying to instill religion in her.”

Chelsea followed Victoria across the paneled lobby to the restaurant entrance, where a maître d’ greeted them with a nod. He had a fresh white rose in his lapel and the manner of someone who’d been looking forward to this encounter the entire morning. He showed the two women to a seat at the far end of the room, then asked if they would care for something to drink while they looked at the menus.

“Mimosas,” said Victoria. “And coffee.”

“Mimosas?” asked Chelsea.

“Why not? You don’t have to work today, and champagne always puts me in the mood for sightseeing.”

Chelsea was just about to ask how exactly that worked when a loud crack shook the room. The metallic snap was followed by two more, each louder than the other. The noise was unfamiliar to most of the people in the restaurant, but Chelsea had lately had a singular experience that not only made the sound familiar, but warned her subconscious that there was great danger nearby.

She leaped up from her seat, and before her aunt could respond, had grabbed her and pushed her to the floor.

“Someone is shooting!” Chelsea told Victoria as the crack of a fresh round of bullets echoed against the deep wood panels of the room. “We have to get out of here!”

Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2018 Margaret Margaret

Lullaby Road by James Anderson

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Blogging For Books in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

Lullaby Road by James Anderson was a very interesting book.  I loved that this book takes place in the same state that I live in because it seems like books never take place here.  There is one book before this one and I am for sure going to go back and read that now.  You don’t have to read the first one in order to understand what is going on in this one so if the first book doesn’t interest you then you don’t have to worry about reading it.  This book wasn’t one that kept me on the edge of my seat, but it did hold my attention and made me want to keep reading until I finished the book.  I enjoyed this authors writing and he did a great job of making me feel and understand why the characters did what they did.  I can’t think of anything bad to say about this book because I just really enjoyed the entire thing.

About The Book

Ben Jones, protagonist of the glowingly reviewed Never-Open Desert Diner, returns in a devastatingly powerful literary crime novel about parenthood, loss, and the desert in winter.

Winter has come to Highway 117, a remote road through the Utah desert trafficked only by oddballs, fugitives, and those looking to escape the world. So when local truck driver Ben Jones finds an abandoned, mute Hispanic child at a lonely gas station along his route, far from any semblance of proper civilization, he knows something has gone terribly awry. With the help of his eccentric neighbors, Ben sets out to help the kid and learn the truth. In the process he makes new friends and loses old ones, finds himself in mortal danger, and uncovers buried secrets far more painful than he could have imagined.

About The Author

James Anderson was born in Seattle, Washington and raised in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. He received his undergraduate degree in American Studies from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and his Masters Degree in Creative Writing from Pine Manor College in Boston Massachusetts.

Undergraduate thesis: Word-man/Poet: The Poetry and Poetics of Lew Welch
Masters thesis: The Never-Entered Kingdom: Beyond Linguistics in the Rendering of the Literary Child in Adult Fiction

His first publication in a national magazine, a poem entitled Running It Down, occurred at age nineteen, in Poetry Northwest. The poem was later anthologized. His poems, short fiction, essays, reviews and interviews have appeared in Northwest Review, New Letters, The Bloomsbury Review, Solstice Magazine and many others.

In 1974, while still an undergraduate, Anderson founded Breitenbush Books, a book publisher specializing in literature and general interest trade titles. From 1974 to 1991 Anderson served as publisher and executive editor. Breitenbush received many awards for its books, including three Western States Book Awards, juried by Robert Penn Warren, Elizabeth Hardwick, N. Scott Momaday, Jonathan Galassi, Jorie Graham, Denise Levertov, William Kittredge and others. Notable authors published include Mary Barnard, Bruce Berger, Clyde Rice, Naomi Shihab Nye, Michael Simms, William Greenway, John Stoltenberg, Sam Hamill and Gary Miranda.

From 1995 to 2002 Anderson co-produced documentary films, including Tara’s Daughters, narrated by Susan Sarandon. The film, which won Best Documentary at the New York Film Festival, chronicled the plight of Tibetan women refugees as carriers of Tibetan culture in the diaspora.

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The Twofer Murder by Lauren Carr

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from iRead Book Tours in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

The Twofer Murder by Lauren Carr was another great book.  I have reviewed several other books by this author, and I have liked all of them.   I always worry as I read more and more books because I figure at some point I will find a book that I don’t like so I still fear that the book I am reading is the one that doesn’t like.  I love how all of her books intertwine so that you always basically know who everyone is and how they are all related to each other.  I am a huge fan of Mac and his dog Gnarly, so I always love when they are in the book as well.  This book didn’t keep me on the edge of my seat, but I also wasn’t able to figure out how it ended so I always enjoy books like that.  I loved just about everything about this book, and I can’t wait to read the next installment in this series.

About The Book

Book Title: Twofer Murder by Lauren Carr
Category: Adult fiction, 400 pages
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Acorn Book Services
Release date: November 17, 2017
Tour dates: Dec 4 to Jan 19, 2018
Content Rating: PG + M (Please be aware that TWOFER MURDER is a murder mystery. There are depictions of murder and some violence–though easy on the gore contents. No f-words but there may be some mild profanity, and mild religious expletives such as “damn”, “hell” and “Oh God!”. Some depictions of brief sexual content (kissing). No drug use or underage drinking among the protagonists.)

Twofer murder? What’s a twofer murder?

Twofer Murder is a treat for fans of best-selling author Lauren Carr’s fast-paced mysteries! Lauren’s latest novel contains the main characters from her three successful series: Mac Faraday, Lovers in Crime, and Thorny Rose mysteries. The guys go away for a fishing weekend only to get caught up in the murder of a journalist investigating fraud at a timber company. Meanwhile, the ladies are spending the weekend in the presidential suite at a posh resort where Jessica Faraday is to accept a lifetime achievement award for her late grandmother at a murder mystery writers conference. But before they have time to get their facials, they get wrapped up in their own real mystery when an up and coming author ends up dead!

Lauren Carr’s Twofer Murder is a 2-for-1-making it a must-read for any mystery fan!

To read more reviews, please visit Lauren Carr’s page on iRead Book Tours.

About The Author

Lauren Carr is the international best-selling author of the Mac Faraday, Lovers in Crime, and Thorny Rose Mysteries-over twenty titles across three fast-paced mystery series filled with twists and turns!

Book reviewers and readers alike rave about how Lauren Carr’s seamlessly crosses genres to include mystery, suspense, romance, and humor.

Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She lives with her husband, and three dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.

Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook ~ Instagram

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