Book Reviews by Elizabeth A. White

Yesterday I reviewed Cold Call, the first book in Los Angeles Times bestselling author Dianne Emley’s Iris Thorne mystery series, which is being reissued after a bit of a hiatus. Today I am pleased to welcome Dianne to talk about her walk down memory lane revisiting books she hadn’t looked at in well over a decade.

Thank you, Elizabeth, for allowing me to share your blog today. Thank you also for your terrific review on this space yesterday of Cold Call, my debut novel that was published in 1993. Cold Call was the first of five books in my mystery series featuring Iris Thorne–a savvy, sexy, and sassy investment counselor who prowled the streets of Los Angeles in her red Triumph sports car in the “greed is good” late 1980s and early 1990s.

The Iris Thorne mysteries, long out-of-print, are being reissued as e-books and trade paperbacks. Cold Call and the series second, Slow Squeeze, are out now. The remaining three—Fast Friends, Foolproof, and Pushover—will be out in 2012.

Cold Call holds a place in my heart as not just my first published novel, but it was also the first novel I’d ever written. While toiling in business middle management, I harbored a faint yet persistent dream to be a novelist. I wrote Cold Call over three years, writing from 4:30 to 6:30 on weekday mornings before I went to my day job and on weekends. When the book was sold at auction to Pocket Books/Simon and Schuster, it was more than a dream come true. I was overwhelmed—so overwhelmed that I was sick for two days. My editor’s comment was, “I hate to see what’ll happen to you if you hit the New York Times bestseller list.”

Before republishing the Iris Thorne books, I decided to first reread them. After all, I hadn’t looked at them for fifteen to twenty years. People often ask me if I read my own books. Nope. I don’t. Honestly, once the book is published, I don’t know an author who does. Of course, rereading the Thorne books inevitably led to some “gentle” editing. The passage of time let me see the books with fresh eyes and I learned some interesting things. (more…)

You are probably familiar with Los Angeles Times bestselling author Dianne Emley’s outstanding Detective Nan Vining thrillers, but did you know that before there was Nan there was Iris? Originally published in the mid to late 90s, Emley first entered the writing scene (under the name Dianne G. Pugh) with a mystery series featuring investment counselor Iris Thorne. That series is now being reissued, both in paperback and ebook formats.

“You always think that once you get power, you’ll change the rules.” – Iris Thorne

Slugging it out with the big boys in the trenches of Los Angeles’ glittering financial district Iris Thorne has to fight for every scrap of power she can get, and all too often finds herself playing by a set of rules she feels both stacked against her and powerless to change.

Still, she has an apartment with a nice view of the ocean, a closet full of designer clothes (even if they aren’t quite paid off yet), and a snazzy Triumph sports car (even if it does leak a little oil). All told, she’s doing well for herself and has had no reason to question the path her life is taking. All that changes overnight when one of her coworkers is murdered.

Alley Munoz was not only the mailroom/all-around “go to” guy in the office, he was also Iris’ best friend at the company. Having previously taught the deaf for several years before embarking on her financial career, Iris got along well with Alley, who was himself both deaf and physically handicapped as well.

When the police seem inclined to write-off Alley’s death as being the result of a drug deal gone wrong given his ethnicity and the location of the murder Iris is incensed, and determined to prove them wrong. Easier said than done, especially considering the lead detective on the case, John Somers, also happens to be the man Iris was seriously involved with during her college years. Now Iris not only has to deal with essentially solving Alley’s murder on her own, but also with the feelings stirred up by the divorced detective’s reappearance in her life. (more…)

“There is an art to performance, Spar. There’s no art in hurting someone for real.” – Ray “Clown Royale” Kingston

Murder, professional wrestling, an underground punk rock scene, a nasty biker gang, a psychopathic mime, and a dominatrix with an affinity for 50’s style. If you read that and thought, “Hell, yeah!” just go ahead and buy Death Match. (And it’s clear why you’re my kind of people.)

If you read that and thought, “That’s… interesting.” please allow me to explain how those pieces fit together to form the entertaining puzzle that is author Jason S. Ridler’s debut novel.

Having barely survived his wild, drug and alcohol fueled youth as frontman for a punk band, Spar Battersea was finally able to get his life on track with the help of his friend, Ray. Now working at a book store and as a stringer for the local paper, the excitement in Spar’s life is confined to cheering for Ray’s alter-ego “Clown Royale” at his professional wrestling matches.

When Ray dies in the ring on the eve of the biggest match of his young career, Spar doesn’t buy the official conclusion: heart attack/natural causes. For one thing Ray was only 25 and healthy as a horse, and that also wouldn’t explain the disturbing and extensive scarring found on Ray’s back, some of it quite recent. Determined to do right by his friend, Spar wades into the underground world of shady wrestling promoters and discovers there was a lot about his friend he didn’t know. Now Spar has to decide just how far he’s willing to go to discover the truth, and if he really wants to know. (more…)

Imagine a genetically altered plant disease exists that could wipe out the production of cocaine worldwide virtually overnight by specifically targeting and destroying coca plants. Now imagine you are in the position of making the call whether to unleash that virus.

The decision whether to do so or not isn’t as easy as it may initially seem, as DEA Agent Jake MacQuilkin learns when he’s thrust into that position in William Wilkerson’s The Eradication Dilemma.

After serving for years as the DEA’s point man in Latin America, MacQuilkin leaves the department after a bust gone wrong causes the death of a fellow agent… who also happened to be his fiancée.

MacQuilkin’s called back into action when the genetically altered virus starts wiping out coca crops in Bolivia despite the program having officially been shut down by the US Government. Now, instead of destroying the cocaine industry, the agency actually wants MacQuilkin to use his expertise and experience in Latin America to find and stop whoever is behind the rogue unleashing of the virus. (more…)

He had been at it so long and taken so many girls that the details of all but the most recent kidnappings had begun to merge together into a kind of delicious, nostalgic stew.
- Martin Krall

If you had a chance to save someone’s life, to be a hero, would you do it even if you knew your actions would have disastrous consequences for your own family? Or could you knowingly allow a horrific fate to befall a young woman without doing anything to intervene?

Bill Ferguson didn’t have time to consider the answer to that question before his hand was forced and he made a decision that drastically altered the lives of two young women, one of them his own daughter.

While sitting in a rest stop along I-90 on one of his runs between the hardware shops he owns, Ferguson notices an abduction in process. Unfortunately, he’s the only one who appears to realize what’s happening. Acting on adrenaline and instinct, Ferguson pulls the gun he’s licensed to carry on the would-be kidnapper, forcing him to abandon the abduction.

The young woman is saved, Ferguson’s a hero, and all’s right with the world. Right? Wrong. (more…)

Reality check: The success of my business plan involves doing business with organized crime. – Darby Stansfield

Chop Suey is what would happen if you threw Glengarry Glen Ross and Office Space in a blender. Then added a serial killer. And Triads.

Telecommunications salesman Darby Stansfield is desperate. Having hit a bad stretch with his sales, he’s been put on notice he’s got six months to get his numbers headed in the right direction again or he’ll be fired.

Problem is, Darby doesn’t have any good leads. The one decent client he had was stolen out from under him by another salesman, leaving Darby with nothing but one-sale, dead end, mom-and-pop clients.

When a conversation with Mr. Fu, the owner of his favorite Chinese restaurant, brings up the subject of Triads inspiration strikes… he will tap into a previously untapped source of clientele and become a telecommunications specialist for organized crime. Darby will help the “organized” get organized.

Knowing he needs a bit of room to operate without being too scrutinized by the home office in San Francisco, Darby decides to branch out. To Hong Kong. Following up on information obtained from Mr. Fu, Darby actually manages to connect with the Fan Gang Triad, sell them on his plan, set up a fake toy company as a front for the operation, place a massive first order, and before you know it he’s on his way back to the top of the leaderboard. Coffee time, right? Wrong. (more…)

Tomorrow I will be reviewing Coming Home, the most recent book in PD Martin’s Sophie Anderson series. Today, however, I am pleased to welcome PD Martin for a guest post about the story behind the story.

I used to think there were two types of writers: those who plot, and those who don’t. But, to be fair, while lots of writers sit in these extremes, many fall somewhere in the middle. And some change….

I remember hearing Val McDermid talk at a Sisters in Crime event in Melbourne about how she’d always been a plotter, and then suddenly she found a book going in a completely different direction to what she’d planned. She’d gone from one extreme to the other and talked about how frightening she found the process of writing without knowing exactly what was going to happen next. (I think she said something like “It scared the shit out of me.” – but don’t quote me on that!)

I’m also a writer who’s changed my level of plotting as my career has progressed. Although I never outlined or had a detailed, scene-by-scene overview of what was going to happen in my novel, I definitely plot less now than I did for my first crime fiction book. In fact, by my fourth novel I found myself in a pretty bizarre situation. The first draft was due at the publishers in a month and I was 80,000 words in. One day my mum came over to look after my daughter while I wrote and she could see I was stressed. The conversation went something like this: (more…)

The last thing Casey Woods wanted right then was another gut-wrenching case. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what she got.

What could be more tragic than having your twin sister kidnapped out of your shared bedroom when you were six years old? Having your own five-year old daughter kidnapped thirty-two years later. That’s the situation facing Judge Hope Willis, who goes to pick up her daughter from school one day only to be informed by those at the school that “she” already picked her up.

Given her high profile position as a judge, and her husband Edward’s as a controversial defense attorney with a prestigious firm, the local police and FBI descend on the case in record time. Not content with that, however, Hope calls in Forensic Instincts, a privately run organization that specializes in high profile and hard to handle cases.

Headed up by Casey Woods, a behavioral analysis specialist, the team also includes former Navy SEAL and FBI agent Marc Deveraux, and tech wizard Ryan McKay. Add to that mix intuitive – please don’t call her psychic – Claire Hedgleigh and retired FBI agents Patrick Lynch, who headed the investigation into Hope’s sister’s kidnapping thirty-two years ago, and Hero, an FBI certified human scent evidence bloodhound, and there is quite a full compliment of law enforcement on the case… but will it be enough to locate the missing girl before it’s too late? (more…)

Like the gun-slingers in the movies, there were things you couldn’t say no to, there were things you had to do. – Grace Helmer

At its bare-bones, The Last Red Death has a deceptively straightforward premise: a woman who witnessed the murder of her diplomat father when she was a child returns to the county where it happened and hires a local private investigator to help her track down the man responsible for the murder. As with any great thriller worth its salt, however, things aren’t that straightforward.

The woman, American Grace Helmer, didn’t witness a random act of violence or mugging gone wrong. No, her father was murdered by Iraklis, a rogue offshoot of the Communist Party in Greece which was responsible for a string of terrorist activity in the 70s. And the investigator she hires, Alex Mavros, is himself searching for someone, his brother, who was last seen at an underground resistance meeting thirty years prior.

Further, the recent murders of two high-profile businessmen, both marked with Iraklis’ signature calling card, seems to herald the return of the group after over a decade of dormancy. Tracking down the answers Alex and Grace want may get messy, but like those movie gunslingers, there are some things you just have to do. (more…)

Like all true believers, he saw his point of view as the morally correct one. He was perfectly justified in returning hurt for hurt, death for death. – Ed Dolan

Ed Dolan is a man on a mission, and that’s bad news for Chris Massi. Friends for a time when they were teenagers, the two boys’ lives were forever altered when Chris’ father killed Ed’s. The fact Chris’ father, Joe Black Massi, was a mafia hitman and Ed’s was acting as hired muscle trying to protect the target of Joe Black’s mission would seem to complicate the matter a bit. Not for fifteen-year-old Ed, who swore revenge against the Massi family, no matter how long it took.

Fast-forward 25 years and both Chris and Ed have become successful attorneys, Chris working at a prestigious defense firm, Ed as a United States Attorney. Despite having married the daughter of a powerful mob kingpin, Chris has managed to steer clear of “the life” otherwise. Even that association was short lived, when Chris and his wife divorced after only 5 years.

Things start seriously falling apart for Chris when he’s falsely indicted for securities fraud. The prosecuting attorney? Ed Dolan, of course. When that trial ends in acquittal Dolan pursues an ethics complaint with the New York State Bar, succeeding in having Chris disbarred for his alleged “mob ties.” His life already on the ropes, the knock-out punch comes in the form of the murder of his father, not so surprisingly as a result of a mob hit. When his former father-in-law tells Chris he knows who killed his father, Chris has a soul-searching choice to make: try to rebuild his normal life, or embrace the one he’s spent his whole life trying to avoid? (more…)