Lakis Fourouklas's Blog, page 14

Graphic Novel Review: Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan's The Strain Volume 1 by David Lapham, Mike Huddleston and Dan Jackson

The Strain Volume 1 is a graphic novel that combines the genres of traditional vampire literature and ancient folklore in order to deliver a modern day tale of horror and nonstop action.

When a Boeing 777 lands at JFK International Airport and goes dark on the runway, the Center for Disease Control, fearing a terrorist attack, calls in Dr. Ephraim Goodweather and his team of expert biological-threat first responders. Only an elderly pawnbroker from Spanish Harlem though suspects a darker purpose behind the event - an ancient threat intent on covering mankind in darkness!

This is an adaptation of the first novel in the Strain Trilogy by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan, or maybe not exactly so, as the authors point out in their introduction.

This is not an illustrated version of our novels. This is a graphic retelling: a visual translation and a definitive one. As such, we asked only for the application of fresh energy and bold thinking. Other than that, we granted David Lapham and Mike Huddleston free reign and embraced them as true partners in this enterprise.

It all begins with a flashback. We visit a rural scene in the country of Romania in 1927. An old woman tells a boy that goes by the name of Abraham the story of Jusef Sardu, an eccentric nobleman, in order to make him eat his foot. According to her, and local legend, Sardu was a man unlike any other. He was so tall that he looked down on everyone, yet looked down on no one. And the children loved him. He was sick though, but what his illness really was nobody knew.

Sardu used to live a peaceful life, until one day his noble father, decided to take him with him for a wolf hunt that would lead to a disaster and which would change, in unimaginable ways, his life forever.

Young Abraham believed the story, even though at the time he didn’t exactly know what had happened to the man. In the years to come he would come to find out, and thus find in a mysterious way his life’s true purpose.

And back to the future, which is today, we go. Though we live in an era in which a terrorist attack is always the most frightening thing that could possibly happen, a yet more unusual and terrifying event takes place; an event that will bring the then boy and now elder man Abraham back to action. When an airplane lands in New York and rumors start spreading around about the fate of its passengers, he knows who’s behind the whole thing. But how can he help the authorities cope with the threat? And how can he convince them that he, a frail old man, knows more about it than they do?

He has no choice but to risk his freedom in order to save innocent lives. So he comes in contact with the authorities. He tells them his thoughts, he yells at them that they have to do as he says before it’s too late, but to no avail.

In the meantime the flashbacks continue and during them we get to know Abraham better, as well as his nemesis, Jusef Sardu, the man he’s determined to stop no matter what. But how can one kill the undead? He knows how, but the stubborn young men won’t listen to him. They’ve even thrown him in jail.

Now it’s up to Dr. Ephraim Goodweather to save the day. But will he make it? It seems unlikely, since he doesn’t really know what he’s up against to. However his job is not the only thing in his mind right now; he also thinks about his son Zack and his ex-wife Kelly, whom he still loves, and he secretly mourns about the life that he dreamed about but that wasn’t meant to be. He’s a brave man, willing to admit his mistakes and do anything to right his wrongs, but at the same time he’s just a human being, who’s simply trying to make it through another day, and who at moments also seems weak and lost for hope.

This is a story with a good plot, great character built-up and beautifully dark illustrations which bring to life the bleak subject matter. I haven’t read the Strain trilogy, but if this graphic novel is any indication about how good the books are, I think that maybe I should at least give them a try.

Book Review: Mind Maps: Quicker Notes, Better Memory, and Improved Learning 2.0 by Michael Taylor

Mind Maps could easily carry another subtitle: How to Train Your Brain! According to the author there’s a simple way to do that: Mind Mapping.



If someone ever told me that there was a way for me to start reading faster than I already do, I’d say that he was crazy. And if I’d never read this book I’d insist he was. However in the book at hand I’ve discovered a simple example, which I’ll call for the purposes of this review 'Reading by the Dot,' that left me speechless. Thanks to it I did not only read a paragraph in great speed, but I’ve also memorized almost every word of it.



It is widely known that every person uses only a limited amount of his mind’s capabilities. This book offers the reader a chance to enhance his reading and learning experiences, and improve his memory as well.



As we read in the introduction: “A Mind Map is a diagram you create to organize your thoughts. In conventional note-taking, you write information down line by line or perhaps column by column. Mind Mapping differs from such note-taking in that you present the information more in the form of a diagram.”



And how does that help me? one would ask. Well, for starters, I’d answer, it helps with your memory since it is easier to remember images than words. Visualization is the key word here. Kids, just as much as the adults, do not have many difficulties in remembering images but when it comes to words it’s a different story.



One of the examples that the author uses to prove his point is the diagrams he uses to create an overview of the popular novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Through these diagrams we follow the book from point one all the way to the end, taking a good look at the characters and their interactions, and thus get a brief yet detailed view of the story. “One idea is interconnected with many other ideas,” we read, and, as we well know, one person is interconnected with many other persons, which helps prove the point.



Mind Mapping has many advantages; it balances the brain, simplifies life, helps with creativity, and speeds up the learning processes. It also has some disadvantages though since it asks of you to change your habits, to spend time to get to know how it works, and maybe creates some minor problems when it comes to speaking since language is an auditory process. The former though overrule the latter, since learning how to operate with Mind Maps can help you change your life for the better in many ways.



“…essentially, there’s no limit to how vast your Mind Map can become. A subtopic in the first Mind Map you create may become the central idea in the next one you draw. Each subtopic in a map is in effect a center of another map. This is the beauty of the technique—relationships may go on as extensively as they exist in your mind.” Now, how interesting is that!



To be honest before reading this book I knew next to nothing about how Mind Mapping works. I’ve read things about it here and there, but I’d never thought to give it a try. Well, all that has changed. I now find this subject as intriguing as they come. As someone who reads dozens of books every year, and always wishes to read even more, I believe that adopting the technique of Mind Mapping will help me achieve my goals. I think that if I should come to master it the results could be, if nothing else, highly satisfying.



Mind Mapping can help one in many walks of life: from organizing vacations to creating business plans, from generating presentations to solving everyday problems, and the list goes on and on.



A lot of people say that everything is in our head; the book at hand proves them right. And then it highlights the way one has to follow to reach his own high point, to widen his horizons.



If you’d ask me to put this book in a category I wouldn’t know which one to choose. Is it a self-help manual? In a way it is, but it’s much more than that. To use a metaphor I’d say that this is a guide of how to use the GPS of your brain to find the destinations you desperately seek, and need.

The 10 Best Books of 2012

The New York Times has announced its list of the best books of the year according to its editors. Thus without further ado here are the chosen titles in each category.



Fiction:



Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel.



Building Stories by Chris Ware.



A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers.



NW by Zadie Smith.



The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers.



Nonfiction:



Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo.



Far from the Tree by Andrew Solomon.



The Passage of Power by Robert A. Caro.



The Patriarch by David Nasaw.



Why Does the World Exist? by Jim Holt.

Book Review: The Shaolin Cowboy Adventure Magazine No 1 by Andrew Vachss, Geof Barrow and Michael A. Black

The Shaolin Cowboy Adventure Magazine No 1 by Andrew Vachss, Geof Barrow and Michael A. Black includes two novelettes that remind the reader of Pulp Fiction (the movie and the genre) and science fiction stories.

I'll say it right from the start; this is one of the most enjoyable books I have read this year so far. It's action-packed, it's funny and it doesn't take itself seriously. The two stories in this volume are quite different from each other, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the reader can't enjoy them just the same.

The first story tells what the Way of "No Way" is all about. It is here that we for the first time set eyes on the Shaolin Cowboy, a mercenary of sorts that wanders around an almost deserted land, where the only law is that of the outlaw. The Cowboy is not your usual mercenary though; he does have his own code of ethics, he always wears a Chicago Cubs baseball cap, and he travels on a mule that's too strong and in its own right has quite an attitude. The two of them definitely complement each other in more than one ways. They are not only partners in crime but they also have a silent understanding that never allows one to get into the other's way.

As we get to know the Cowboy better we come to realize that he's not only lethal but also kind. When the need arises he helps the weak and even goes out of his way to find them refuge. The villains though are a different story. They are evil, simple as that, but their characters and the way the author describes their looks is one of the reasons that I really enjoyed this story.

The boss, the big boss of the land actually, is a fat man that goes by the initials T.A. These mean Totally Awesome according to his followers, but what they really stand for is Toxic Amoeba. It is exactly this man that the Cowboy is traveling to meet through the desert, the Terror-tories, a journey that offers the reader a lot of action and some laughs. For instance at a point our hero sees a sign that says: You are now leaving the endless desert, and not before too long he finds another one that suggests: What, you didn't bring a dictionary? Look up "Endless," stupid.

Well, Cowboy is about to live the adventure of his life, an adventure that reminds the reader of the movies of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriquez, and during which anything can happen.

The second story in this volume Time Factor is written by Michael A. Black, and it more than less belongs to the Sci Fi genre. This is the story of Dr. Riley and another couple of men who are assigned a mission into the jungles of New Mexico. They have to find the members of an expeditionary force that went missing. However, in order to accomplish that, they first have to travel back in time, and the Cretaceus period, where the scenery is to say the least imposing.

What happens to them while there gives birth to too many questions into the mind of Dr. Riley, but the truth is that the answers he will not like; answers I will not provide, because when it comes to spoilers this is as good, or as bad, as it gets.

In this story too there's plenty of action and some great characters that are not so easy to forget. It is violent, but it's also funny in a way, especially when one of the heroes insists on doing his own thing, putting everyone else into trouble.

I really look forward to the second edition of The Shaolin Cowboy Adventure Magazine.

Book Review: The Forgotten by David Baldacci

If you asked me a year ago I’d tell you that David Baldacci somehow looked like he had lost his touch; this year though I say: he’s back with a bang.

The Forgotten is one of his best books and it is no exaggeration to say that John Puller pulled it off. When he first appeared in Zero Day I did think that he was here to stay. What I didn’t believe was that his next adventure would be better than the first one.

It all begins with a letter. Betsy Puller Simon writes to her brother John Puller Senior to let him know that there’s something rotten in Paradise, Florida. Strange things seem to happen during the night, she says in an understatement, and she asks for the help of Puller Junior to investigate.

Puller who works for the Criminal Investigation Division of the U.S. Army knows that Aunt Betsy is a down to earth person who wouldn’t try to create something big out of nothing at all, so he decides to use the remaining days of his holiday time to head down to Florida to see what’s going on.

However he arrives there too late. By that time Betsy is already dead. According to the local police she’d accidentally drowned, but somehow Puller doesn’t buy it. If it wasn’t for the letter maybe he’d accept the coroner’s verdict but he’s certain that there’s something fishy going on.

And there is, as soon the bodies of an elderly couple will wash up at the beach, with bullet wounds in their heads, and lots of mysterious things will start to happen. In the end Paradise is everything but what its name suggests, as in that small community there is a really high crime rate, there’s corruption in the police force and elsewhere, and secrets and lies rule the day.

Puller is bound to create more enemies than friends while there, since his arrival seems to stir things up. He doesn’t know who to trust and he sure as hell doesn’t expect any help from the police. Only a young and beautiful officer seems competent and honest enough in the Police Force, and it is with her that he collaborates at first.

As the plot thickens though he comes to realize that he’ll need all the help he can get. He may be fast, and strong, and smart but he cannot out the bad guys all by himself. Much welcomed help will arrive from a female General of the U.S. Army who has a history with him, a giant of a man who’s after a rich guy who wronged him badly, a kid who’s trying to lead a better, non gang-affiliated life, and a mysterious woman with a mission.

In here we have lots of mystery, amazing action scenes, some sentiment every now and then, the inevitable twists and turns and a hero who’s bound to make life difficult for his literary arch-rival, Lee Child’s Jack Reacher.

Well done Mr. Baldacci; well done indeed!



By the same author:



Hell's Corner

The Sixth Man

One Summer

No Rest for the Dead

No Time Left

Book Review: The Buzzard Table by Margaret Maron

The Buzzard Table by Margaret Maron is the 18th novel in the Deborah Knott mystery series (available November 20, 2012).

 



Judge Deborah Knott and Sheriff’s Deputy Dwight Bryant are back
home in Colleton County, North Carolina, with all their family and
courthouse regulars. But there are a few new faces as well. Lt. Sigrid
Herald and her mother, Anne, a well-known photographer, are down from
New York to visit Anne’s ailing mother, Mrs. Lattimore. 





When the group gathers for dinner at Mrs. Lattimore’s Victorian
home, they meet the enigmatic Martin Crawford, an ornithologist who
claims to be researching a new book on Southern vultures. More
importantly, he’s Mrs. Lattimore’s long-lost nephew, and Sigrid and
Anne’s English cousin. With her health in decline, Mrs. Lattimore wants
to make amends with her family—something Deborah can understand as she
too is working to strengthen her relationship with her stepson, Cal. But
for all his mysterious charm, Anne can’t shake the feeling that there
is something familiar about Martin...something he doesn’t want Anne or
anyone else to discover. When a murderer strikes, Deborah, Dwight, and
Sigrid will once again work together to solve the crime and uncover
long-buried Lattimore family secrets.





Martin Crawford is the most interesting, or should I say intriguing,
character in this novel. He’s more than he says he is. He definitely has
a lot of secrets; most of the time his behavior is, to say the least,
suspicious; and no matter how hard he tries to go unnoticed he
consistently draws people’s attention.



Continue at Criminal Element

Book Review: Fox Tracks by Rita Mae Brown

Fox Tracks by Rita Mae Brown is the 8th novel in a series featuring foxhunter and fox lover, and amateur detective, Sister Jane.

While outside on Manhattan's Midtown streets a fierce snowstorm rages, nothing can dampen the excitement inside the elegant ballroom of Manhattan's Pierre Hotel. Hunt clubs from all over North America have gathered for their annual gala, and nobody is in higher spirits than "Sister" Jane, Master of the Jefferson Hunt in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. Braving the foul weather, Sister and her young friend "Tootie" Harris pop out to purchase cigars for the celebration at a nearby tobacco shop, finding themselves regaled by the colorful stories of its eccentric proprietor, Adolfo Galdos.

Yet the trip's festive mood goes to ground later with the grisly discovery of Adolfo's corpse. The tobacconist was shot in the head but found, oddly enough, with a cigarette pack of American Smokes laid carefully over his heart.

So it all begins with a murder, as it should really, but it’s not the crime that sets the pace and makes this such an interesting book to read, but the characters. First we have Sister Jane, a woman as unconventional as they come. Then there’s Gray Lorillard, her boyfriend and an opium smoker. Before too long in comes Crawford Howard, Sister’s enemy and a man so rich that can buy his way into and out of everything. And then there’s “Tootie”, a young woman who decides to give up Princeton, forget about her planned career and her family’s fortune and become a veterinarian.

However these are not the only things that make this novel such a good read; it’s also the hunting scenes. The author’s descriptions of the action as it takes place are in most parts really great.

On and on they flew, the sound of hoofbeats thrilling. Shaker rode well with his hounds. Betty, feeling that water in her boots, on the right and Sybil, a swift-moving speck on the left, charged over undulating pasture… Hounds disappeared over a swale. An old tobacco barn hove into view as Sister galloped down that incline, then up the other side. The hounds surrounded the old curing shed, some eagerly wiggling through spaces, logs deliberately built that way a century and a half ago.

Speaking of tobacco, it does have an important part to play in this novel as well. It’s not only that the murder of the tobacconist will spark a series of events that will put many lives into danger, it also has to do with the rights of smokers. Sister is really angry with the politicians that pass one law to protect the health of the public, but when it suits them just forget, or avoid, to pass another one, for the very same reason.

“…I was thinking about the people who love laws that inhibit other people’s choices. Is smoking a good thing to do? No. But those sanctimonious rulemakers live rather luxurious lives. They aren’t working on an assembly line or in scorching sun outside. If your job is repetitive and boring or dangerous, sometimes that little hit of nicotine takes the edge off. The people that make the laws go get prescriptions for Prozac and how does anyone know the long-term effects of all that crap?”

Right! Another interesting fact here is that the animals talk between them, something that inputs lots of humor into the narrative. I especially like the hate and hate relationship between the Sister’s dogs and cat. The cat is just like a spoiled and sly princess. She always gives the dogs a hard time and is the unofficial ruler of the domestic kingdom.

“Ow, ow, ow,” the harrier howled.
Hearing the commotion, Sister hurried out to the mudroom. Golly didn’t budge.
Sister opened the mudroom door, a gust of wind blew snow on the floor and the two dogs, heads down, hurried inside. Drops of blood fell on the slate floor. Neither dog looked the cat in the eye as she was prancing sideways, hoping to incite even more terror.
“Hateful. Hateful. Hateful.” Sister knew exactly what the cat had done.
“I’m the Queen of All I Survey! Dogs do my bidding. Humans feed me right on time.” With that loud declaration, she shot through the door into the kitchen, crossed the floor at a good clip, and ran up the narrow back stairway to the main bedroom. Then she dashed out into the long upstairs hallway to run victory laps.

In an unconventional household like Sister’s one could expect nothing less. These minor domestic troubles just seem to add spice to her life, and the fact that at her age she has a boyfriend she doesn’t want to marry, does nothing but prove that she’s true to her words: An unmarried woman is incomplete. When she’s married, she’s finished.

Crime, mystery, foxhunts and lots and lots of laughs; what more could one ask for in a novel? Rita Mae Brown makes sure that the reader has fun while reading her book, and she does so in a splendid way.

Costa Award Shortlists 2012

The shortlists for this year's Costa Awards have been announced yesterday. For the first time two graphic books are included them: Dotter of Her Father's Eyes (a great book, which I have read but did not get to review yet) in the biography category and Days of the Bagnold Summer in the best novel one. The winners will be revealed on January 2. Here are the full lists:



Novel Award shortlist

Hilary Mantel - Bring up the Bodies
Stephen May - Life! Death! Prizes!
James Meek - The Heart Broke In
Joff Winterhart - Days of the Bagnold Summer


First Novel Award shortlist

JW Ironmonger - The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder
Jess Richards - Snake Ropes
Francesca Segal - The Innocents
Benjamin Wood - The Bellwether Revivals 



Biography Award shortlist

Artemis Cooper - Patrick Leigh-Fermor: An Adventure
Selina Guinness - The Crocodile by the Door: The Story of a House, a Farm and a Family
Kate Hubbard - Serving Victoria: Life in the Royal Household
Mary Talbot and Bryan Talbot - Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes


Poetry Award shortlist

Sean Borodale - Bee Journal
Julia Copus - The World’s Two Smallest Humans
Selima Hill - People Who Like Meatballs
Kathleen Jamie - The Overhaul


Children’s Book Award shortlist

Sally Gardner - Maggot Moon
Diana Hendry - The Seeing
Hayley Long - What’s Up with Jody Barton?
Dave Shelton - A Boy and a Bear in a Boat

Book Review: Crashed by Timothy Hallinan

Crashed by Timothy Hallinan is the first novel in a series featuring Junior Bender, a famous burglar, who in this story doesn’t only have to steal but also investigate a crime in the making.

Junior Bender is a Los Angeles burglar with a magic touch. Since he first started breaking into houses when he was fourteen years old, he’s never once been caught. But now, after twenty-two years of an exemplary career, Junior has been blackmailed by Trey Annunziato, one of the most powerful crime bosses in LA, into acting as a private investigator on the set of Trey’s porn movie venture, which someone keeps sabotaging.

It’s not easy even to try to describe who or what Junior Bender exactly is. He’s a burglar, he’s a thief, but he’s also someone with a good heart, who cares for people in need, who’s willing to kill a bad person in order to save the life of a good one. And he is, like this book, quite funny. First things first though. Let’s allow him to introduce himself:

…I’m weak.
I think for everyone in the world, there’s something you could dangle in front of them, something they would run onto a freeway at rush hour to get. When I meet somebody, I like to try to figure out what that is for that person. You for diamonds, darling, or first editions of Dickens? Jimmy Choo shoes or Joseph Cornell box? And you, mister, a thick stack of green? A troop of Balinese girl scouts? A Maserati with your monogram on it?
For me, it’s a wall safe.

Now let’s meet Wattles one of the bad guys, who has a great sense of humor, and quite a body:

Wattles himself was a guy who had looked for years like he would die in minutes. He was extremely short, with a body that suggested an open umbrella, a drinker’s face the color of rare roast beef, and a game leg he dragged around like an anchor.

Well, that man may sound funny but he’s quite clever, and he makes a fool out of Junior when he hires him to break into a house and steal a painting. He does not only not pay him his fare share but he also blackmails him into working for Trey Annuziato, a mob boss who’s trying to clean the family’s act and go legit, but in order to do so she first has to shoot an adult movie starring a famous actor whose glory days had come to pass. Someone is trying to sabotage the project and it’s up to Junior to find who and why.

This job will not be an easy ride for him though. He is smart, he is well-connected and he’s willing to do anything to get out of the dead end he found himself into. But things never seem to go his way, while not only criminals but also the cops seem to follow his every move. He knows what he has to do, he knows the way to do it, but in order to accomplish that he has to overcome many obstacles, and even work under the nose of the police.

The key to being inconspicuous is to look like you know where you’re going and why. So I made a show of glancing at my watch and then turned my head away from the cops, like someone making sure he isn’t about to step in front of a speeding bus, and crossed the street, just another citizen on a perfectly upright errand. Every step, I expected to hear Tallerico’s voice yelling for me to stop, and every step I didn’t…

He got lucky this time, but just this once. At the other times he had to face packs of dogs, thugs, corrupted cops, mobsters and even a couple of kids who were street-smart and sly enough to make his life difficult.

But this story is not only about some burglar, a mystery, and bits and pieces of almost choreographed action; it’s also about the showbiz.

Everybody in show business loves everybody else so much, it’s darling this and darling that, people fall in love and drink together and swear eternal friendship and then the shoot ends and we all lose each other’s phone numbers.

Hollywood is the land of fantasy and people just love to make stories about each other, and spread the rumors around and thus create out of them a reality. Most of the stories are just that, stories, and sometimes it’s not that difficult to crash one of those tales into pieces. Here’s what Junior sees when he visits the huge house of former movie mogul:

The first myth to bite the dust was the cash tucked beneath the wall-to-walls. The floor was dark stone, buffed to a dull shine by several centuries’ worth of feet, and only the central quarter-mile or so was covered by carpet, an enormous all-silk Afghan that was probably older than the house. A couple of couches, two deep-looking chairs, and some dark wood tables had been arranged in front of a fireplace big enough to host the Chicago fire, with room left over for a couple of neighborhood barbecues. In defiance of the warm weather, a fire was roaring in it, nothing much, just a couple of trees’ worth of wood.

Crashed is a book that has it all: mystery, humor, action, a great plot and some unforgettable characters. It also talks about the way some situations can bring the best or the worst out of people and how money and glory destroy lives. Finally it seems to highlight the fact that people who are not loved are bound to fail in their lives. Here we have a great novel, by a great writer.

Book Review: No Regrets, No Remorse by R.F. Sharp

No Regrets, No Remorse is the first novel in a series featuring an unorthodox investigator and vigilante, Sydney Simone.



Sydney Simone, wounded herself, is dedicated to helping via a cloaked website and identity those whose wrongs can’t be righted by orthodox means. First she verifies the client’s story; then she accepts payment: half up front, half on completion of her work. Usually it’s a form of human pest control. For cover, Sydney works as an assistant at the Rose Madder Gallery in West Palm Beach, run by Oscar Leopold. Oscar, a sculptor, has left his law practice behind. But now his former partner Roy is arrested for murdering Big Jack, an attorney with a sleazy television advertising presence and he has no choice but help him out.



This is one of those novels that make the reader feel conflicted when it comes to its heroine. Sydney Simone is unlike any other character I have met in crime fiction lately. She’s tough, way to smart, and has a lot of secrets. And she’s a hit-woman. She doesn’t take every single case that comes her way though; she’s just trying to make things right where the justice system had failed.



Killing the Ann Arbor guy was satisfying. A job well done. Her history showed no patience with child molesters. No regrets, no remorse. It had always been that way.



No regrets, no remorse? And she’s fighting the good cause? Is that even humanly possible? Well, for her it is. She is a loner and —to talk about contradictions— she leads a double life, and she has a very good friend, Oscar; whom she helps with his sculptures and his little art gallery, and when it comes to that with his investigations. He doesn’t know her secret, nobody does, and that’s for the best, because if he did he could find himself in harm’s way.



Meeting Oscar for the first time had been pure chance. Sydney fled from Philadelphia after a job went bad, with the police and the client searching for her. She needed a place to live and preferably some cover. The situation in Philly had been ideal. She was the resident manager at a small motel, so didn’t need to get housing or utilities in her name. Housekeeping was done by a local mother and daughter who would fill in if she had to go on a mission. She was off the grid. But unforeseen things can happen no matter how careful the plan—like a son making a surprise visit to his father, who at the moment was being drowned in his pool by Sydney. She escaped, and wasn’t sure anyone knew her name but they had her description and that was enough to cause her to leave town, not even going back to the motel to pick up her belongings.



She needed a similar setup in Florida, so when she stumbled across the help wanted sign in the window of the Rose Madder Gallery she went in. Oscar was easy to charm, she got the job, and the room downstairs came with it.



Oscar provided the perfect cover at first for Sydney, but not before too long he became her lover, and then an ex-lover, and now they are best friends. He’s the only person in the world that she cares about and she’d do anything to protect him, even put herself in the line of fire.



Her buddy, though an artist, is not as helpless as one would think. He doesn’t scare easily and when it comes to taking matters into his own hands he rises to the challenge. Here’s what happens when he comes face to face with some thugs in a deserted parking lot during the night. He just aims his handgun unflinchingly at them and says:



“This is a derringer. Often used by the police as a hideaway backup. It fires two .45 caliber bullets. If I shot you, say, in the knee…” He gestured with it again but not at the man’s knee, still aiming at his crotch, and stepped a little closer. The guy stepped back, looking to his friends for support. “You might not die from shock or blood loss if you got to a hospital right away. Of course, you might lose the leg since most of the socket and kneecap would be blown out. If you’re lucky, and my aim is off a little you might save it, but forget about playing basketball again or even walking without a limp. And at this distance I just don’t see how I could miss.”



During the investigation both Oscar and Sydney will find themselves in dangerous situations many times, since there’s more to the case than what at first meets the eye. And as if that’s not enough, at the same time, they have to organize an exhibition at the gallery, while Sydney also has to confront a man, who has somehow found out who she really is and is blackmailing her into taking a case.



The two heroes seem to be very different from each other, and yet the one complements the other. It’s as if there’s a secret bond between them, a bond that no people or facts, or even forces of nature, can break. Sydney is the fire in Oscar’s calm waters; Oscar is the earth that appeases Sydney’s winds of fury.



An enjoyable read, with many light touches of humor, despite the bleak at times subject matter, which comes with a heroine that sticks into the reader’s mind long after he finishes reading the book. I cannot help but wonder what she’ll do next.