Peter and Pauli Winter are brothers, born to a wealthy German in­dus­tri­al­ist and his American wife at the end of the nineteenth century. They proudly serve as young officers in the German military in the Great War, live through the tumultuous 1920s in Berlin, but go in very different directions, and end up on opposite sides in World War II. Peter, the elder, is a brilliant lawyer and talented pianist. Pauli, loyal but less talented, bonds with other embittered veterans of the First War, serves in the Freikorps, and joins the Nazi party early, rising …continue.

Jacqi Garza was abducted when she was eight. She got away but her life has gone far off course in decade since. Now she's the prime witness to a murder. Phelan Tierney, a former lawyer, has taken her under his wing, but she's not easy to help.

This is dark and disturbing, if ultimately hopeful. It's a portrait of a town in distress and of some of its citizens. Some are still trying to make a difference, while others are too lost in their own pain …continue.

The drug smugglers who bring their mer­chan­dise in through the Florida Keys need some local expertise and decide that Breeze Albury is their man. Although he has no desire to be involved, they force him to take part. When they need a convenient fall guy and set him up, he turns on The Machine and on the corrupt local cops. Revenge is sweet.

Although it's set in Florida, this early Hiaasen novel lacks the humor of his more famous books. Still, Breeze is an engaging character and …continue.

Sequel to A.K.A. Jane.

Jane Nichols' parents were murdered in front of her on a Greek hillside when she was six. An MI5 operation triggers some dormant memories and she starts to suspect who was re­spon­si­ble. An attempt on her life confirms that she's not imagining it. She returns to her life in Savannah to lay a trap.

Another en­ter­tain­ing entry in the Jane series. The last, presumably, since it's nearly 20 years old.

Jane Nichols, burnt-out MI5 agent and novelist, has gotten out of the Service, but she wants revenge on the man who caused the death of her lover. The target, Jim O'Neil, is a re­spectable busi­ness­man in Savannah, Georgia. Jane rents a room from the Savannah chief of police, sexy Alex Callaghan, posing as the novelist she is, so that she kill O'Neil. She gets tangled up in Callaghan's serial killer case too.

En­ter­tain­ing, fast-paced thriller with a likeable and believable lead character.

Three people are nearly all that's left of the elite “Meshed” caste. They stay one step aside of the hunters and live off the proceeds from making and selling the highly addictive “Staze”. They flee to a long-abandoned planet and discover a new lifeform, which takes over in both meatspace and the shared virtual reality, infecting the dreams of the Staze-addicted.

While there were some in­ter­est­ing ideas in this book, I didn't enjoy it very much.

An NSA analyst spots a suspicious cor­re­la­tion between the NSA station chief in Ankara and a crusading journalist, and she reports it to the director of the NSA. The station chief promptly dies in a car crash and the journalist is abducted by Syrian terrorists, and she starts to worry. As the ever-more au­thor­i­tar­i­an director goes further off the deep end, her worry grows—with good reason. And the director's hatchet man who is assigned to monitor her un­ex­pect­ed­ly turns out to have human feelings.

This is a classic …continue.

Ray Dudgeon is a Chicago PI hired to guard a Hollywood location manager who witnessed the Outfit at work. The client is murdered, Ray gets caught up in a Mafia power struggle, and the body count rises.

A well-written, fast-paced story that I gobbled up.

A quirky novella about Com­mis­sario Montalbano of the Italian Polizia. A series of “ac­ci­dents” have been happening at con­struc­tion sites. Montalbano receives an anonymous letter warning that another “accident” will happen, too late to prevent it. He attempts to cover it up, while still in­ves­ti­gat­ing, and realizes that he's infringing on the carib­inieri's ju­ris­dic­tion, a no-no.

Moderately en­ter­tain­ing.

Pinkerton agent Frederick Chase arrives at Re­ichen­bach Falls just after Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty have plunged to their deaths. With Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard—­sure­ly one of Holmes's most ardent stu­dents—he travels to London on the trail of an American master criminal, Clarence Devereaux. De­v­ereaux's gang is moving quickly and ruthlessly to seize control of the vacuum left by Moriarty. But not all is it appears and the American gang receive bloody setbacks. Could Moriarty be alive after all?

While I mostly enjoyed the book, I was ex­as­per­at­ed …continue.