Technically I'm not here - we're taking a few weeks off from computers to try to recharge battered batteries. It's been so bloody hot here we've nearly melted and nope it hasn't rained. Not a bloody drop.
Which has meant some reading time in amongst the hourly trips outside to make sure the poultry at least are surviving this appalling weather.
American Blood, Ben Sanders
After a botched undercover operation, ex-NYPD officer Marshall Grade is living in witness protection in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Marshall's instructions are to keep a low profile: the mob wants him dead, and a contract killer known as the Dallas Man has been hired to track him down. Racked with guilt over wrongs committed during his undercover work, and seeking atonement, Marshall investigates the disappearance of a local woman named Alyce Ray.
Girl Waits with Gun, Amy Stewart
Constance Kopp doesn’t quite fit the mold. She towers over most men, has no interest in marriage or domestic affairs, and has been isolated from the world since a family secret sent her and her sisters into hiding fifteen years ago. One day a belligerent and powerful silk factory owner runs down their buggy, and a dispute over damages turns into a war of bricks, bullets, and threats as he unleashes his gang on their family farm. When the sheriff enlists her help in convicting the men, Constance is forced to confront her past and defend her family — and she does it in a way that few women of 1914 would have dared.
Helldiver, Chris Allen
A ghost from the past, an omnipotent billionaire, loyalty tested to the limit and all roads lead to RENEGADE. Morgan commits to the toughest mission of his career and his chances of survival are slim at best. Trust has become little more than a commodity to be bought and sold and old friends re-emerge as the very heart of INTREPID faces destruction.
Dark Murder, Helen H Durrant
Detective Stephen Greco has just started a new job at Oldston CID and now he faces a series of murders with seemingly no connection but the brutal disfigurement of the victims. Greco’s team is falling apart under the pressure and he doesn't know who he can trust. Then they discover a link to a local drug dealer, but maybe it’s not all that it seems.
Nations Divided, Steve P Vincent
Jack Emery is happier than he has been in a long time. Nobody has shot at him or tried to blow him up for years, and he's learned to love the job he thought he'd hate: Special Advisor to the President of the United States.
The Lion's Mouth, Anne Holt
Less than six months after taking office, the Norwegian Prime Minister is found dead. She has been shot in the head. But was it a politically motivated assassination or personal revenge?
That Empty Feeling, Peter Corris
An unexpected obituary takes Cliff Hardy on a trip down memory lane to a case he's been trying to forget for twenty years: oil, fraud, boxing, racing - and murder.
Needless to say, some reviews when we return after another week (at this rate we'll get silly and actually iview another TV program as we should be able to save enough bandwidth to watch a whole 2 things over the break). But in the meantime I've been savouring M Train by Patti Smith in dips and bits (to be finished soon though as I have to return the borrowed copy) and I've started Twister by NZ Author Jane Woodham which will count to this year's reading list.
A former undercover cop now in witness protection finds himself pulled into the search for a missing woman. An explosive, unputdownable work of suspense from a fresh voice in crime fiction.
After a botched undercover operation, ex-NYPD officer Marshall Grade is living in witness protection in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Marshall's instructions are to keep a low profile: the mob wants him dead, and a contract killer known as the Dallas Man has been hired to track him down. Racked with guilt over wrongs committed during his undercover work, and seeking atonement, Marshall investigates the disappearance of a local woman named Alyce Ray.
Members of a drug ring seem to hold clues to Ray's whereabouts, but hunting traffickers is no quiet task. Word of Marshall's efforts spreads, and soon the worst elements of his former life, including the Dallas Man, are coming for him.
Has Alex Morgan finally met his match?
A ghost from the past, an omnipotent billionaire, loyalty tested to the limit and all roads lead to RENEGADE. Morgan commits to the toughest mission of his career and his chances of survival are slim at best. Trust has become little more than a commodity to be bought and sold and old friends re-emerge as the very heart of INTREPID faces destruction.
General Davenport sends Alex Morgan deep into the shadows of the post Cold War European underworld to stare fear in the face, unseat an oligarch, and bring a spy in from the cold. But Morgan's connection to the target is closer than he could ever have imagined.
Helldiver brings Interpol’s ultra secret, black ops division Intrepid to it’s knees, and it’s up to Alex Morgan and Elizabeth Reigns to wrest their agency back from the brink.
Peace has been decades in the making, but chaos is just the press of a button away.
Jack Emery is happier than he has been in a long time. Nobody has shot at him or tried to blow him up for years, and he's learned to love the job he thought he'd hate: Special Advisor to the President of the United States.
But nothing can prepare Jack for the work to come. As America continues to heal from self-inflicted wounds, an ambitious President McGhinnist draws closer to achieving the impossible: peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
As the countdown to peace reaches zero, a desperate group of hardline Israelis invoke the Samson Option, a secret protocol that will eradicate the peace agreement and pave the way for the destruction of America and the Middle East.
Jack has learned the hard way that when a crisis knocks, you don't always get the chance to ignore it.
An unexpected obituary takes Cliff Hardy on a trip down memory lane to a case he's been trying to forget for twenty years: oil, fraud, boxing, racing - and murder.
One case still haunts Hardy
Legendary PI Cliff Hardy has reached an age when the obituaries have become part of his reading, and one triggers his memory of a case in the late 1980s. Back then Sydney was awash with colourful characters, and Cliff is reminded of a case involving 'Ten-Pound Pom' Barry Bartlett and racing identity and investor Sir Keith Mountjoy.
Bartlett, a former rugby league player and boxing manager, then a prosperous property developer, had hired Hardy to check on the bona fides of young Ronny Saunders, newly arrived from England, and claiming to be Bartlett's son from an early failed marriage. The job brought Hardy into contact with Richard Keppler, head of the no-rules Botany Security Systems, Bronwen Marr, an undercover AFP operative, and sworn adversary Des O'Malley.
At a time when corporate capitalism was running riot, an embattled Hardy searched for leads - was Ronny Saunders a pawn in a game involving big oil and fraud on an international scale? Two murders raise the stakes and with the sinister figure of Lady Betty Lee Mountjoy pulling the strings, it was odds against a happy outcome.