by Finzzzz
February is here and spring is just around
the corner.
The weather is still pretty dismal here, but it’s a
great time to catch up on your reading. Here are some
mysteries and thrillers to keep you up at night.
 A Darkness
More Than Night
by Michael Connelly
A riveting crime novel from Michael Connelly that stars
two favorites: Terrence McCaleb, the retired FBI agent
from the bestseller Blood Work, and LAPD homicide
detective Harry Bosch. Terrence McCaleb is asked by the
LAPD to help them investigate a series of murders that
have them baffled. They are the kind of ritualized
killings that McCaleb specialized in solving with the
FBI, and he is reluctantly drawn from his peaceful new
life back into the horror and excitement of tracking down
a terrifying homicidal maniac. More horrifying still, the
suspect who seems to fit the profile that McCaleb
develops is someone he has known and worked with in the
past: Detective Harry Bosch. A Darkness More Than Night
is a fresh and lightning-paced excursion into the dark
side of Los Angeles and the hidden corners of the human
heart, by a writer hailed by the Los Angeles Times as one
of the top rank of a new generation of crime writers.
This book will definitely be on my top ten list for the
year. If you haven’t discovered Connelly, run,
don’t walk to your nearest independent bookstore. I
suggest The Poet, Blood Work, and Trunk Music. In his
newest novel, Connelly merges his two most popular
characters and pits them against each other over a murder
case. The plot is suspenseful, the mystery is fun to
solve, and you’ll be surprised at how Connelly
cleverly manages to ties the threads together.
 Projection
by Keith Ablow
In his stunning debut novel, Denial, Keith Ablow took us
deep into the workings of the criminal mind. In this
electrifying new book he takes us back to that same
territory--but with a horrifying new twist. In a
psychiatric hospital just outside Boston, Trevor Lucas, a
brilliant but psychopathic plastic surgeon on trial for a
grisly serial murder, has taken over a locked unit for
the criminally insane. The murderous inmates are holding
staff members hostage, and they will die unless Lucas
gets what he wants--a meeting with forensic psychiatrist
Frank Clevenger. Clevenger and Lucas have a past--they
share a secret that, if revealed, would end Clevenger's
career and, quite possibly, his freedom. It's the
perfect, diabolical bargaining chip, and Lucas uses it,
refusing to negotiate with anyone but Clevenger. As an
army of police, tanks, and helicopters mass outside the
hospital, Clevenger enters the locked unit, and the stage
is set: two extraordinary men, both doctors, enmeshed in
deep conflict that threatens to erupt into mass murder.
Unrelenting, fueled by its characters' ferocious
intelligence, Projection is destined to take its place
among the classic psychological thrillers.
Ablow wrote one of my favorite thrillers a few years ago
(Denial) and this sequel to it lives up to its
predecessor. Ablow does and outstanding job writing his
main character, a forensic psychiatrist hooked on booze,
drugs, and sex who has enough demons of his own without
worrying about his patients. His antagonist Dr. Clevenger
could give Hannibal Lechter a few pointers. Well plotted
and barreling to a satisfying conclusion you’re sure
to be surprised by this new find. Lots of sex and
violence in this so if you’re squeamish you may want
to steer clear.
 The Girls
He Adored
by Jonathan Nasaw
For ten years, the charmingly disheveled veteran FBI
Special Agent E.L. Pender has been investigating the
apparently random disappearances of a dozen women across
the country. The only detail the cases have in common is
the strawberry blond color of the victims' hair, and the
presence of a mystery man with whom they were last seen.
Then, in Monterey, California, a routine traffic stop
erupts into a scene of horrific violence. The local
police are stunned by a disemboweled strawberry blond
victim and an ingenious killer with multiple alternating
personalities. Pender is convinced he has found his man,
but before he can prove it, the suspect stages a cunning
jailbreak and abducts his court-appointed psychiatrist,
Irene Cogan. In a house on a secluded ridge in Oregon,
Irene must navigate through the minefield of her captor's
various egos -- male and female, brilliant and naive,
murderous and passive -- all of whom are dominated by
Max, a seductive killer who views her as both his
prisoner and his salvation. Irene knows that to survive
she must play along with Max's game of sexual perversion.
Only then will she be able to strip back the layers to
discover a chilling story of a shattered young boy -- and
all the girls he adored.
An interesting premise, let’s have one serial killer
and give him several personalities. Nasaw does an
excellent, if not horrifying job, of portraying a
tortured soul, the psychiatrist who tries to make him
whole again, and the FBI agent who tracks him down.
 Big Trouble
by Dave Barry
Dave Barry makes his fiction debut with a ferociously
funny novel of love and mayhem in south Florida. In his
career, Dave Barry has done just about everything --
written bestselling nonfiction, won a Pulitzer Prize,
seen his life turned into a television series. And now,
at last, he has joined the long list of literary figures
from Jane Austen to Tolstoy who have made the transition
from humor columnist to novelist...and done it with a
style and inventiveness that establishes that, yes, he is
very good at that, too. In the city of Coconut Grove,
Florida, these things happen: A struggling adman named
Eliot Arnold drives home from a meeting with the Client
From Hell. His teenage son, Matt, fills a Squirtmaster
9000 for his turn at a high school game called Killer.
Matt's intended victim, Jenny Herk, sits down in front of
the TV with her mom for what she hopes will be a peaceful
evening for once. Jenny's alcoholic and secretly
embezzling stepfather, Arthur, emerges from the maid's
room, angry at being rebuffed. Henry and Leonard, two hit
men from New Jersey, pull up to the Herks' house for a
real game of Killer, Arthur's embezzlement
apparently not having been quite so secret to his
employers after all. And a homeless man named Puggy
settles down for the night in a treehouse just inside the
Herks' yard. In a few minutes, a chain of events that
will change the lives of each and every one of them will
begin, and will leave some of them wiser, some of them
deader, and some of them definitely looking for a new
line of work. With a wicked wit, razor-sharp
observations, rich characters, and a plot with more
twists than the Inland Waterway, Dave Barry makes his
debut a complete and utter triumph.
Few books make me laugh out loud, this was one of them.
I’m not a Dave Barry fan, so I was pretty hesitant
in picking this up. Boy was I surprised. Barry certainly
knows how to spin a humorous tale with irrelevant
characters, and preposterous plots. If you enjoy the
works of Carl Hiaasen and James Hall, you’ll enjoy
this comedic gem.
February
Book of The Month
 Instruments
of Night
by Thomas Cook
On a humid summer evening in 1963, following a hard day's
work in the field, twelve-year-old Paul Graves came home
to a nightmare. Snatched by a stranger, strapped to a
chair in a sweltering farmhouse, he watched in horror as
the man orchestrated the slow, deliberate, night-long
brutalization and murder of his older sister.... Now,
more than thirty years later, Graves is a marginally
successful writer who has lost himself in the anonymity
of Manhattan and in the mind-numbing world of his crime
fiction. But still held captive by his memories, still
haunted by this sister's agonized whispers, he writes
chilling tales of cruelty and sadism, of evil triumphing
over good. Stories so convincing, they have earned him an
invitation to the Riverwood Estate. But not to practice
his craft as a writer. Alison Davies, who runs the
retreat, is convinced he's the one man capable of
bringing closure
to the mystery that has haunted her own family, asking
him to investigate the fifty-year-old unsolved murder of
16-year-old Faye Harrision, Alison's best friend, who was
tortured, strangled, and left to molder in the dark
confines of a cave. Graves, more than anyone, knows where
to look for the truth, where the instruments of night are
brought to bear: In the deep basements, the dark caves,
the lonely farmhouses where cowardice bows before
corruption, where love cannot withstand the intimidation
and pain. Compelled to peer into the chaos of twisted
motives and tainted passions, he will confront the
ultimate atrocity. Not about who killed Faye Harrison, or
who killed his sister. Not about what he has witnessed
and could never reveal. But about what he is capable
of...and what he has done.
This month’s featured Book of the Month is one of my
all time favorite books. Thomas Cook is a wonderful
writer who writes with passion and style. His plots are
so clever and the twists, so unexpected. Remember that
special moment in The Sixth Sense when you realized what
was happening? You’ll feel it also in the book. Go
out and read this Edgar Award winning author. You will
not be disappointed. And please, after you’ve read
it, let me know what you think. Please E-Mail me at Finzzzz@aol.com . I’d like to
hear your comments about these and any other books you
may have read.
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