Michael A. Draper's Blog, page 35

Please, save the last dance for me.

With "The Last Man," we are given an inside look at the covert operations of the CIA.

Someone has kidnapped the agency's top agent in covert ops in Afghanistan. He has the names of the agency's top spies throughout the area. If he's made to talk, it would be an intelligence disaster.

Mitch Rapp, the agency's top covert operative, investigates. In addition, there is an attempt on Mitch's life and someone is promoting a smear campaign against the money handling of Mitch and the missing agent.

The action thriller demonstrates the author's story telling ability, his excellent character development and shows the heroism of many operatives in the field.

The plot is original and the suspense is nicely maintained throughout.

You reap what you sew

In "The Reapers," John Connolly has given his readers some background on two of Charlie Parker's humorous, homosexual sidekicks.

Someone is after Louis because of something he did as a teenager.

We learn of Louis' childhood and misfortunes that his family went through. Racial hatred was the reason that someone acted in such a manner that changed Louis from a shy teenager into a cold blooded murderer.

In a departure that demonstrates John Connolly's versatility  it isn't Charlie Parker who is the protagonist but his friend, Louis. In fact, Parker only makes a tangential appearance in this story.

There is good character development in the story and I particularly enjoyed the character of Willie Brew.

Overall, I enjoyed the story and feel that it would appeal to action thriller fans.

Sailing, sailing over the bounty sea

Dick Pierce is a fisherman in a small village in Rhode Island.

His family had owned land on a picturesque spot overlooking the water. Now this area is under plans for development.

Dick is angered at the loss of natural beauty that will follow and he's upset by his financial woes and inability to bring in enough money to live and complete the boat he's building.

There is a message to the story that describes the difficulties of being a self employed fisherman in New England.

The story also compares the lives of the wealthy developers and the temptations of someone with a boat that they might be tempted to transport illegal substances.

The National Book Award Winner is a good study of a person's life, their dreams and disappointments.

Red Door, what's that secret you're hiding?

Inspector Ian Rutledge has returned to Scotland Yard after WWI. He suffers from the affects of being at the front and seeing so many men under his command killed.

He's ordered to investigate a murder of a woman on a farm a distance from London. She lived alone and had been waiting for her husband's return from the front.

As the investigation gets under way, Rutledge learns of another man with the same name. This man is from a prominent family and Rutledge's boss tells him to tread carefully.

This man was also at the front and Rutledge tries to see if there could be a connection so he can find a motive for the woman's murder.

In a wonderfully plotted but complicated novel, we see the history of the area and learn what people might have been experiencing after the war.

I enjoyed the novel and following Rutledge with his investigation.

"Come back to me, with all your love." Song lyrics

This fast paced thriller catches the reader's attention from the start of the action as it details the misfortunes of two women and their paths eventually come together.

After an argument with her husband, Wendy, gets into a compromising situation and ends up at a New York hotel room with a man she just met. While she goes to the bathroom, a man barges into the main room and shoots Wendy's acquaintance. As the man was planting a gun, Wendy comes out of the bathroom, picks up the gun and tries to get the man to surrender, when he makes a threat with his own gun, she shoots him. Checking the man's i.d. she sees that he was an official and Wendy panics. The man's partner is down the hall and sees Wendy run from the room, and the chase is on.

Lauritzia Valez is a nanny with a secret. While with the children who were in her care, she's spotted by a man who tries to kill her. She and the children escape and we follow the events that led from her earlier life in Mexico to now.

The heart pounding plot moves from one woman to the other as the story unfolds like a fast moving train. Revenge, brave women and appealing characters reveal their story and fight to overcome their situation as the reader is glued to the pages.

I read the story until late at night and recommend it.

Those Mission Bells are ringing out for me

"Mission Flats" features small town police chief, Ben Truman. His father was chief before him and Ben left grad school in Boston to return home to help care for his mother who had Alzheimer's Disease.

As part of his job, Ben checks the summer homes on the lake but this time he finds the deceased body of a D.A. from Boston who was murdered in a manner to point the finger at a ruthless Boston drug dealer.

The investigation gets under way and Boston officials attempt to take control but Ben insists he be included in the team. He goes to Boston to have an active role in trying to find the killer.

During the investigation, Ben is teamed with John Kelly, a savvy, retired Boston detective.

The novel is a past winner of the Dagger award for best debut crime novel. A well deserving achievement. The author makes the reader care what happens to Ben. The plot also has a number of well placed surprises and an unforgettable conclusion.

Highly recommended.

As in all of the books I've read by Elmore Leonard, the s...

As in all of the books I've read by Elmore Leonard, the story gets rolling immediately and the reader's attention is caught and held.
Jack Delaney has been working at his brother-in-law's funeral parlor after his brother-in-law helped with an early release for Jack, from Angola.
Jack is ordered to remove a body from a hospital dealing with people who had leprosy. He's also asked to bring another person to the removal. This person turns out to be a lovely ex-nun who is trying to help hide the woman who they pretended was deceased.
Jack wasn't privy to this information and when he arrives and finds that the woman was alive and hiding from  a Nicaraguan colonel who wants to kill her for trying to infect him with leprosy.
In a wonderfully plotted story, the colonel is in New Orleans to raise money that is supposed to be used to fight in Nicaragua. However, Jack and a number of his colorful friends want to get this money to help the ex-nun build a hospital in Nicaragua for caring for people with leprosy.
The characters are well described and realistic and the dialogue is masterful.
A well written mystery that shouldn't be missed.

Novel from the creator of PBS series DCI Banks

I have greatly enjoyed the PBS series DCI Banks based on the novels of Peter Robinson so I decided to read one of his books.

I chose "Before the Poison" which is a recent stand alone which I found to be a most entertaining reading experience.

In the story, Chris Lowndes was a successful movie score composer in Hollywood. He decides to relocate to the Yorkshire area of his younger days.

Chris purchases an old mansion and later, finds that many years ago, this was the setting of a crime. A doctor's wife was accused and found guilty of the doctor's murder. She was executed for her crime.

With time on his hands, Chris begins looking into the facts surrounding the case and the story follows his search to see if the woman was really guilty.

We follow the events of her trial and then see the edited version of her diary. She had been a WWII nurse who served in Singapore and other places. She was even in a boat that was sunk by the Japanese  leaving few survivors.

This is an excellent book rich in the history of WWII and the extreme horrors that some of the military nurses endured.

Recommended.

An Edgar Award nominee

The protagonist of this story is a mother trying to make ends meet. She also has a secret that cannot be revealed.

When her husband tells her that he has a business opportunity to work in Europe, she is surprised. However, since it would mean much more money to the family, there isn't any reason not to accept.

Once they arrive in Luxembourg  her husband begins working long hours and goes on trips across Europe for his company.

Then, she meets a couple who are also from America. These expats become friendly with Kate and her husband. They are so often together that Kate doesn't think too much about it.

Eventually, Kate does want to know more about her husband's job and why the couple have such an interest in her and her husband.

There are many twists to the plot, which is cleverly written.

The author has been nominated for an Edgar Award for best first novel and I recommend the novel which shows Kate's resourcefulness and the degree that she would go to in order to protect her family.

Bad men; good book, excellent suspense

I enjoyed reading this stand alone novel by John Connolly.

His characters are well described and believable and the setting, an island off the Portland coast of Maine, is easy to imagine as is the incidents that take place there.

A number of evil men are intent to do something on the island where, long ago, a massacre had taken place. The spirits from this incident have the ability to rise up when something of evil nature is going to take place on their island.

The protagonist, Joe Dupree, a giant of a man, is the protector of the island's secrets.
He's almost a God-like figure in  his care for the members of his community. He's definitely the kind of character that the reader would become interested in and want him to succeed.

There are also a number of surprises with Connolly's characters and I felt the influence of Stephen King in this work.

This is a highly entertaining novel that will catch the reader's attention from the start.