The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis

Book:  The Boy in the Suitcase 

Authors:  Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis 

Grade:  B

Recommended To:  Steig Laarsen Fans, Mystery and Thriller Fans. 

I cannot rave enough about how much I like getting good books for 99 cents in the Kindle Daily Deal.  Seriously, if you haven't signed up for the KDD yet, now is the time to do it.  They send you an email every morning with one or two books for dirt cheap.  Initially, because the books were so cheap, I thought they would be terrible, the books that the publishers had to push on the Kindle World in order to generate some publicity.  But, I have had enormous success with these books and I definitely recommend The Boy in the Suitcase as one of those successes.

This book has a lot of characters and their names are Eastern European, so it took some time to get used to the language and characters in the book.  But, at itscore this book is about a stolen little boy, aged 3, who is found by a good Samaritan type named Nina Borg.  She unravels the clues in an attempt to discover the boy's mother and some very nasty characters along the way.

This mystery is very well done.  One of my more recent pet-peeves is when an author has no sense of dialogue and how to make dialogue work well.  These authors were excellent at creating meaningful dialogue and suspense without overdoing it.  I appreciate that and because of that skill, I recommend this book to pretty much everyone.

Turns out that I read this book just in time because Lene Kaaberbol has a new book called Invisible Murder coming out tomorrow!  That book also follows Nina Borg and I can only hope that it is as good as the first.  Plus, I think we all know by now how much I love series books that follow the same characters through different adventures.  Fave!

Happy Reading!!

The 13th Hour by Richard Doetsch

Book:  The 13th Hour 

Author:  Richard Doetsch

Grade: C

Recommended To:  Thriller fans, People who can't read clocks. 

I feel a little bad giving this book a C, but I give way too many B+'s and honestly I liked this book, but it has an audience that is limited to fast-paced thriller fiction.

This book starts out with the last chapter and works its way backward into time and the story.  The premise is very fresh, which was why I liked this book so much.  The main dude is at home and sees his wife get murdered right in front of him.  Then, as he is being questioned as the murderer, a mysterious man appears and gives him a watch that makes him go back in time an hour at a time until he figures out who killed his wife.

This book has a lot of action and a lot of twists and turns that are totally unexpected.  I liked that the premise was original.  And, instead of a story that just goes in "forward" motion - this book kept me thinking about what had happened previously and this meant that I couldn't just veg out while reading. 

I recommend this book to anyone that likes thriller/action books.  I checked out Doetsch's website and evidently he is an extreme sports enthusiast who enjoys "100 foot drops into water without anything to slow his descent."  Crazy.  But, he writes well - so hopefully he doesn't kill himself before coming up with something else captivating.

Happy Reading!!

Eyes Wide Open by Andrew Gross

Book:  Eyes Wide Open 

Author:  Andrew Gross 

Grade:  C+ 

Recommended To:  People who like thrillers but who don't mind the plot giveaways half way through. 

I think Andrew Gross might be a new author.  I'm just guessing.  I didn't even google him to find out - but I think that because I won this book on LibraryThing and I've never heard of him.

This book was right up my genre-alley because it is billed as a thriller with lots of murder and crime solving - perfect.

Some parts of this book were good.  The writing was pretty well done.  It flowed well and the plot was pretty original, but needed a good editor.

Here's what I didn't like:

First, the dialogue.  This was fine sometimes, and terrible other times.  There was a LOT of dialogue, even during the parts where someone was fighting for their life.  I can't imagine holding a conversation if I'm trying to defend myself.  But, apparently Gross thinks that's how it would happen.  

Second, the reinteration of the spooky parts.  There's one part where this women kills a bunch of chickens and in two separate parts different characters come to the conclusion that "she's never going back home, because the chickens were her only friends."  Okay, great.  This doesn't have to be spelled out for the reader like that.  Just say she killed the chickens.  We already know that she considers them her only friends.  Give your readers some credit, man.  We aren't idiots, and this isn't a super important part of the story anyway, so let me jump to some conclusions by my self.

Third, the plot was original, but it was a stretch.  I don't want to give too much away, but mostly a few current murders are linked to a cult from 30 years ago.  But, most of the people are at least middle aged, if not old, and also in jail.  So, please, tell me how a cult leader can orchestrate murders from a super max security prison?  No.  You can't tell me that, because it wouldn't happen.  These bits were unbelievable.

This was generally a story that held my interest though  and for me these days (to be posting on a thursday!) it was a really fast read.  I've started Cleopatra, A Life by Stacy Schiff and it is totally awesome so far.  So, look forward to that review in the coming week!

Happy Reading!