2009 Suspense Thriller Reading Challenge Wrap Up

One more challenge concluded! Since the beginning of the month the only books I've read are the ones that can be included in this or that challenge but it is starting to pay off as this one is concluded and another one is 1 book away of being finished.

The books I've read for this challenge were:

Amateur Detective - The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie
Cosy Mystery - Carrot Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke
Forensic Mystery - Predator by Patricia Cornwell
Historical Thriller - Dissolution by C.J. Sansom
Crime Thrillers - One False Move by Alex Kava
Police Procedural Thrillers - I Can See You by Karen Rose
Murder Mystery - Snobbery With Violence by Marion Chesney
Private Detective Mystery - Sick of Shadows by Marion Chesney
Psycological Thrillers - Quietus by Vivian Schilling
Romantic Thriller - Indelible by Karin Slaughter
Serial Killer Thriller - Cry Wolf by Tami Hoag
Supernatural Thrillers - Hiding in The Shadows by Kay Hooper

It was definitely one of my favourite and least difficult challenges to complete of this year.

Dissolution - C. J. Sansom

It is 1537 and Thomas Cromwell has ordered that all monastries should be dissolved. Cromwell's Comissioner is found dead, his head severed from his body. Dr Shardlake is sent to uncover the truth behind what has happened. His investigation forces him to question everything that he himself believes.

This book had been in my TBR pile for a few months now. I don't really remember why I put it there, a good review I read somewhere no doubt. It fitted perfectly as a Historical thriller for the 2009 Suspense & Thriller challenge and that's why I picked it up.

I have to start the review by saying that I enjoyed it very much and I can't wait to continue with this series. Master Matthew Shardlake, hunchback and commissioner to Lord Thomas Cromwell, is a very interesting and complex character, and Sansom creates a very interesting mystery with plenty historical detail namely the turbulence that surrounded Henry VIII's closing of the monasteries, the political intrigues that were very much a part of his court and the corruption that was common to both places.

Master Shardlake is ordered by Cromwell to go to the Scarnsea monastery and investigate the murder of the commissioner previously sent there to organise the closing of the place. Shardlake goes with his assistant Mark Poer and finds that the previous comissioner had found some problem with the accounts when he was murdered. While the Abbot and the Prior would like to convince themselves and Shardlake that someone from the outside is the murderer, Shardlake is convinced that one of monks must be responsible. Corruption seems to run rampant and more than one of them is hiding a few secrets. Could it be the murder? While trying to understand their motivations, Shardlake also starts to reflect on his life, his choices and his blind faith in Thomas Cromwell...

Unexpectedly a young novice dies and the plot thickens when it discovered that he was poisoned. Shardlake also discovers that the previous helper at the infirmary, a girl named Orphan, disappeared eighteen months before and the mystery of her disappearance may well be related to everything else...

This is one of those books where the mystery is as interesting as the background story; one can't help like Shardlake, not because he is terribly sympathetic but because he is human. He starts very confident in his beliefs and actions and slowly starts to doubt his faith and the rectitude of the man he follows, all that reflex ion of what was going on in England at the time and the worries of the common people whose situation is not improved by the Reform made this a very engaging story and I can't wait to continue reading the series.

Grade: 4.5/5

Quietus - Vivian Schilling

Moments before the crash of her chartered flight, Kylie O'Rourke sees a raven perched on the plane's wing, as still as death, staring at her. Regaining consciousness in a Boston hospital, Kylie finds herself haunted by unnerving memories of the crash, of the survivors, and the rescuers--and when her fellow survivors start dying one-by-one, she knows she's living on borrowed time.

I am a bit at odds with most of the reviews I read of this book. While I enjoyed the story I thought it lacked the creepiness to keep me up at night and the fast pace to make it a successful thriller.

Kylie, her husband Jack and friends Amelia and Dix are all involved in a plane crash. They survive with some injuries but none of them has any special recollection of the event except for Kylie - who remembers waking up in the snow with the others, arriving at a cabin and meeting some supernatural people - they all remember waking up strapped to their seats.

In the next few days Kylie starts having visions of one the people she met in that recollection of hers, he seems real enough to talk to and touch but everyone keeps telling her how she is just confused and how near death experiences can change you. She starts to doubt her own sanity and her relationship with her husband, not that good to begin with, starts suffering.

The story ends up being a mix of psychological analysis - do near death experiences exist? - religious aspects - is our death determined by a higher entity and what happens when you don't die when you are supposed to - alternate reality - Kylie is the only one that sees ghosts and magical beings. I thought the concept was interesting but the execution not so much. There were too many things happening, too many references and the link to an event in Kylie's past just seemed like one more distraction from the main plot.

I was never intrigued enough for it to be a page turner and I definitely was not kept awake at night because of it... besides I think the ending was a bit at odds with the rest of the book.

Grade: 3.5/5

One False Move - Alex Kava

 Nebraskan suspense author Kava takes a break from her successful series featuring FBI Special Agent Maggie O'Dell with this psychological thriller about the fallout from an abortive bank robbery. The principal players are Jared Barnett, just released by his shady attorney's machinations from a life sentence for murder; his docile sister, Melanie Starks; and her 17-year-old son, Charlie, to whom Jared is a father figure. Just as their lives seem to be approaching normalcy, Jared scopes out a bank heist and bullies his sister and nephew into helping him. Mel is designated driver in the high-risk chase that begins right after Jared and Charlie, empty-handed, flee the bank. In a remote state park cabin, Andrew Kane, a writer, happens to be alone when they appear and Mel, shocked, learns from his TV that four people were killed in the holdup. Then she remembers the childhood that she and Jared were cheated out of—a mother who washed down pills with vodka while their father mercilessly beat the children until Jared took matters into his own hands. Victims accumulate as fast as the escape route changes, while abbreviated chapters and truncated dialogue signal the approaching explosive climax. This is a one-night read with some unexplained loose ends that won't bother readers hooked on hair-raising car chases and gruesome murder scenes.

I had only read Alex Kava's Maggie O'Dell books before I decided to try this one. I found this one to be a very different type of story but also very enjoyable.

The story opens with a convicted criminal, Jared Barnett, being freed from prison on a technicality. The cops, the DA, his lawyer, everyone knows he is guilty but since the case against him is dismissed he walks out. The story follows Jared moves from then on, killing the man, whose testimony had put him behind bars, harassing the DA who prosecuted him and finally planning and executing a bank robbery with the help of his sister and nephew.

We know all this because the story follows the criminal’s actions most of the time. The police are in the dark, first about who has been robbing some neighbourhood stores and then who committed the bank robbery. So at the same time that we see Jared take hostages, kill everyone who gets in his ways and change cars to elude the police force we also see the detectives putting two and two together to try to identify the murderers and the victims and understand what really happened.

From the beginning it is fairly obvious that there is some obscure deal between Jared and his lowlife attorney, what that deal was will lead to the unraveling of the mystery but that we only find out in the end, where Kava doesn't resist adding an unexpected twist.

I did like the sense of suspense, the fast paced action and how she slowly provides the clues to solve the final puzzle. While I do prefer the Maggie O'Dell stories I found this one an interesting read and was fascinated by the fact that two real events where the basis for this plot.

Grade: 4/5

I Can See You - Karen Rose

Evie Wilson was the victim of the villain in DON'T TELL, an assault which resulted in paralysis on one side of her face. After her injury, Evie retreated into the virtual realm, seeking refuge from the public eye by interacting with online friends. Now, with the help of a surgeon, Evie's face is restored and she is ready to return to the real world. However, she remains connected to the Internet for her graduate thesis on using the virtual world as therapy to improve self-esteem. She has become an online shopkeeper who sells faces and bodies to users interested in building a new avatar on a website called "Shadowland." In her new role, Evie maintains "surveillance" over her test subjects to ensure they don't become too caught up in the intoxicating virtual realm.


Meanwhile, homicide detective Noah Webster has been investigating a string of suspicious suicides that he believes are connected murders. Noah's investigation leads him to Evie when one of her online test subjects is found dead of apparent suicide, but Evie believes otherwise.


Evie is shocked to find herself drawn to someone for the first time in many years and she's reluctant to trust Noah. However, he's the only one who believes her story about the suspicious death of her test subject, and he soon discovers that many of the apparent suicides in his case had avatars in "Shadowland."


As murder victims connected to the website begin to appear more frequently, Noah asks Evie to be his virtual guide in the investigation. However, they don't realize that the killer is closer than they think--and that he holds a special grudge against Evie.

I had 2 reasons to want to read this book, first because I was curious to what Rose was going to come up with after the Vartanians and second because I was curious to read Eve’s story after having met her in a previous book. I’m happy to say that I enjoyed it very much.

In this story Rose introduces a new group of people, the police force known as the Hat Squad of which the hero – Noah – is a part of. Eve, who has been a victim, has now tried to move on with her life and is a college student working on a study about how people use role play games on the internet to become more confident. Eve works at a local bar that is a meeting place for the Hat Squad, behind the counter and notices everything and knows a lot about each of her patrons.

Eve and Noah are attracted to each other from day one but they both feel that they don’t deserve each other and so they stay away. But when Noah discovers that a series of suicides are actually murders and when Eve realizes that some of the victims were a part of her study they start spending more time together.

I did like that Rose used the internet as such an important part of the plot; it was where the victims spent most of their time and how the killer found them. It felt very real…

For a while there seems to be several storylines happening, besides the main killer there’s something going on with Noah’s partner and there are two man out to get them. As the action progresses we start to see how everything relates. It was interesting how Rose made me look at several possible suspects, for a while I was undecided about who the real killer could be but the villain one of my bets from the beginning. As usual she was really good at keeping us in suspense.

She also gives enough space to Noah and Eve to get to know each other and their respective fears before embarking on a love relationship. I even thought they were a bit too reluctant after they really started talking about themselves, their past and their fears. I couldn’t wait for them to start talking about the future.

This was also a sort of a reunion book because in the end we see the characters of Rose’s first books appearing. Dana, Mia, Caroline and their respective husbands, it was just a peak at how they are now but I was left wondering if the next book would be about Olivia, Mia’s sister and David, the guy who has loved Dana for so long but now seems ready to move. I can’t wait to find out.

Grade: 4/5

The Secret Of Chimneys - Agatha Christie

Little did Anthony Cade suspect that a simple errand to deliver a manuscript on behalf of a friend would drop him right in the middle of an international conspiracy. Why were Count Stylptich's memoirs so important? And what was 'King Victor' really after? Murder, blackmail, stolen letters and a fabulous missing jewel, all threads lead to Chimneys, one of England's historic country house estates, and a startling denouement.

The Secret of Chimneys is my final entry for the Cozy Mystery Challenge and I’m glad I ended with it because the whole story is just so cosy and a perfect example of the genre. It has a grand ancestral house with secret passages, mysterious deaths, famous thieves, compromising documents, disguised identities and fun characters. I really enjoyed it!

Somewhere in Africa, in the 1920s (the book was published in 1925) two friends meet and have a strange conversation about stolen love letters and the memoirs of a famous balkan politician. One of them, Anthony Cade, returns to England intending to give the letters back and see the biography published, however he is visited by a strange man wanting the book and he unexpectedly finds that the letter writer is not what he thought… not to mention that she will involve him in a mysterious death.

The Chimneys of the title is the home of the Marquis of Caterham and a favourite place for political reunions much to the current Marquis’ desperation. All the characters will end up there looking for a famous jewel stolen a few years and that is connected with the letters, the biography and the story of a fictional country named Herzoslovakia. When a murder occurs Superintendent Battle is called to Chimneys to investigate all the clues and see if he can not only solve the murder but also unravel the mystery of the stolen jewel. All this in an atmosphere of secret and political intrigue since the happenings may influence Herzoslovakia’s government. The political events mentioned felt very much inspired in what was going on at the Balkans at the time, from the secret society mentioned down to the royal assassination due to a poor choice of a bride and the fragile political balance the governments had.

What a lovely story! I spent an afternoon reading it with a cup of tea by my side. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Since then I discovered that some of the characters appear in another Christie’s book – Seven Dials Mystery – and now I can’t wait to pick that one up.

Grade: 4.5/5

Carrot Cake Murder - Joanne Fluke

Summertime has finally arrived in Lake Eden, Minnesota, and Hannah Swensen, owner of The Cookie Jar bakery, is looking forward to warm, lazy days, eating ice cream, and sharing picnics with friends. But when a family reunion takes a deadly turn, it's up to Hannah to find a killer... Between baking up a storm for The Cookie Jar and unraveling the mystery of her cat Moishe's recent strange behavior, Hannah Swensen has a lot on her plate. But she'll always make time for her business partner, Lisa, who's in the midst of preparing for a big family reunion. Everyone is delighted when Lisa's long-lost uncle makes a surprise
appearance. No one has heard from Gus in twenty-five years--and his arrival has everyone buzzing with excitement. Uncle Gus is immediately the hit of the reunion, telling tales of his great success and flashing money for all to see.
He's almost as popular as Hannah's scrumptious carrot cake, which is also Gus's favorite dessert. But the next morning, as the whole family gathers for the group photo, one person is missing. Hannah offers to track down Uncle Gus, but her search leads to a shocking find. Over by the bar at the pavilion, she spots two slices of her infamous carrot cake, frosting-side down on the floor--and Gus's corpse with an ice pick jutting out of his chest! A little snooping reveals that not everyone was celebrating Gus's return. And when Hannah unearths more secrets from Gus's past, she discovers even more people with an axe to grind. Now Hannah's got to sift through a long list of suspects to find a killer--even if it could mean a recipe for her own demise...

In Carrot Cake Murder, Hannah Swensen 10th mystery we have the return of Gus, Hannah’s partner Lisa’s uncle, after a 30 year absence and there are many questions about why he went away in the first place, is he really Gus and is he really as successful as he keeps announcing to everyone. He seems a really suspicious character but when he is found dead Hannah discovers that a lot of people may have had a motive to do away with him and the first suspect that the police considers his Lisa’s dad.
On my review of the last book of this series I had read I mentioned how I was becoming more and more disappointed with the love triangle Hannah is involved in. One of the things that I liked in this story was that Hannah’s love life seems to have faded a bit in the background. Both Mike and Norman appear but more as helpers for the crime investigation or friends than as love interests. However I think that the crime investigation is also treated almost as a secondary thing and it is life in Lake Eden with all the characters we’ve known before and of course Hannah’s recipes that make the book. While that is interesting it seemed to me that the book needed something more to add to the plot and keep us interested.

Grade: 3.5/5

Cry Wolf - Tami Hoag

The scream heard by no one is the deadliest.
In the rural parishes of Louisiana's French Triangle, young women are
disappearing one by one, only to turn up on the banks of the bayou, strangled and cast aside where they are sure to be found. But there is one trophy the killer prizes above all others, one woman who must be silenced forever....Attorney Laurel Chandler did not come back to Bayou Breaux to seek justice. That once-burning obsession had destroyed her credibility, her career, her marriage—and nearly her sanity. But when a ruthless predator strikes too close to home, she's lured into a perverse game from which there may be no escape. Once before, Laurel's cries against a monstrous evil went unanswered.
Who will listen now?

I don’t know if it’s the setting but the truth is that I always find myself completely absorbed with stories set in the Louisiana bayous. And I really wanted to read Hoag again after having enjoyed Dark Paradise so much. So one night this week I picked this one to read before bed time and the truth is that I just couldn’t stop and was kept awake half the night trying to finish it.

Laurel Chandler used to be a public prosecutor and after having lost a child abuse case she has a nervous breakdown and goes back home, to Bayou Breaux, to recuperate. She comes from a dysfunctional family and instead of staying with her mother she chooses to stay with her sister and aunt instead. Her sister particularly seems to have big problems rooted also in sexual abuse as a teenager. Also in town is Jack Boudreaux, a crime writer with a less than pristine past and a bad boy attitude that Laurel meets when she goes to confront him over his dog. She also antagonizes the local preacher who is trying to close one of the local bars. They meet and soon Laurel is seeing the good man in him and Jack is feeling protective towards her.

I must confess that I didn’t particularly like any of them. Laurel needed to grow a spine in what concerns her mother and definitely change her attitude towards her sister. Now Jack kept alternating being really bad with being really protective and I didn’t like the combination. Had the book been just about these two it might not have kept me awake but soon we discover that there’s a serial killer on the loose and someone is watching Laurel. The killer’s victims are all young women with a bad reputation and Laurel’s sister Savannah not only has one but she is bent on self destruction. I was quite curious about what Hoag was going to do with that character but I guess she chose the easy way. Either that or some people just don’t have a chance in life.

I think Hoag was particularly good at describing the swamps at night; she creates such a good atmosphere that whenever the scene change to the swamps I was immediately expecting something horrible to happen. She is also good at creating a suffocating atmosphere regarding the abuse Savannah endured and how she and Laurel always kept it a secret. You know something horrible is going to happen and you can’t stop regarding because you really want to know what it is. Hoag completely sucks you in and I must confess that my complaints with the story were all found after I read it and when I was sitting in front of the computer and trying to write this review, while I was reading it I was completely hooked.

The identity of the killer is slowly revealed so instead of a bit element of surprise you are left in doubt about whether he is going to succeed with Laurel or not. I found it an absorbing and intense read but with a really dark theme.

Grade: 4/5

Sick of Shadows - Marion Chesney

Lady Rose Summer couldn’t be more delighted to assist Society’s most beautiful new debutante Miss Dolly Tremaine in negotiating her very first Season. Now engaged to Captain Harry Cathcart in order to avoid being shipped off to India, Rose is desperate to do something more useful than attend endless balls and parties. And the country-bred Dolly was totally at sea—and needed all the help Rose could give. But when Rose rushes to prevent Dolly from making a disastrous mistake, she discovers her stabbed to death and floating in a boat on the Serpentine River. And it isn’t long before Rose barely survives an attempt on her own life. Now, Rose and Harry’s race to uncover the secrets of Dolly’s life is stirring up a hornet’s nest of deceptions and devilish schemes from London’s most exclusive townhouses to the seemingly-peaceful Yorkshire coast. And a cunning murderer is only a breath away from burying the truth—and the persistent Lady Rose—with one devastating stroke...

I had a lot of fun reading this third entry in Marion Chesney's Edwardian Mystery series. Like in the previous books the mystery is actually only part of the charm as the story also deals with the relationship between the main characters - Lady Rose Summer and Captain Harry Cathcart - whose misunderstandings and continuous banter always brings a smile to my face, the situation of women, the contrast between the living conditions of the upper and lower orders as with several other aspects of the Edwardian society.

Although this is a mystery I think the main thing here is Rose and Harry's relationship and how Rose is growing from a naive young lady to someone with more substance. Rose and Harry planned a fake engagement to prevent her from being shipped to India by her parents. However Harry is very involved in his detective work and more often than not can't escort Rose to the social functions her family is invited to. This leads to much gossip and to Rose and her parent’s distress.

Regarding the mystery in this story Rose befriends a young woman who is found murdered a few days later. Rose is the one who discovers the body and soon after there's an attempt on her life as the killer(s) seems to believe she knows more than she actually does. Her family decides she must go away to a secret location in the country with only her companion and Inspector Kerridge suggests they go to a family he knows where Rose starts by being a bit of a spoiled brat but ends up doing some growing up.

The best part of the story for me is the relationship between the characters and Chesney funny humor. Especially Rose and Harry's on-again, off again engagement and their many misunderstandings but also their dealings with Daisy and Beckett and everyone else around them. Rose is bored an unhappy without Harry in attendance but he doesn't seem to understand that all would be solved by giving her more of his attention (which deep down he would really like to). While I much enjoyed their banter and misconceptions about each other I hope Chesney doesn't keep them like this in future books, they make up in the end so hopefully they'll stay that way in the next book.

This is a light and fun series that gives you an insight on the Edwardian period and while being labeled as cosy mysteries there's no doubt that the characters and their involvement with each other takes center stage and the mystery is kept as a secondary thing. I can't wait to get to the next one!

Grade: 4/5

Predator - Patricia Cornwell

Scarpetta, now freelancing with the National Forensic Academy in Florida, digs into a case more bizarre than any she has ever faced, one that has produced not only unusual physical evidence, but also tantalizing clues about the inner workings of an extremely cunning and criminal mind. She and her team —Pete Marino, Benton Wesley, and her niece, Lucy—track the odd connections between several horrific crimes and the people who are the likely suspects. As one psychopath, safely behind bars and the subject of a classified scientific study at a Harvard-affiliated psychiatric hospital, teases Scarpetta with tips that could be fact—or fantasy—the number of killers on the loose seems to multiply.
Are these events related or merely random? And what can the study of one man's brain tell them about the methods of a psychopath still lurking in the shadows?

Although I’m still a follower of Cornwell’s Scarpetta series I must say I found her latest books a bit of a disappointment. However, every time one comes out I can’t resist buying it and see whether Kay Scarpetta will finally be allowed to have some peace or if there’s someone else who is going to hate.

When I started Predator, it seemed to me that everything was just the same as in previous books. Someone hates Kay so bad that they will even try to sabotage her life, Marino is still angry, bitter, and annoying to everyone else and Lucy still has many problems about who she is, where she is going and in this story she also has some health problems. I’m sad to say this but it seems all the main characters need a quick visit to the nearest psychiatric hospital or, in Kay’s case, her coworkers definitely do. It wouldn’t be bad in one book but it seems that it’s been happening in the last books and that one is just more of the same.

I don’t know why Benton and Kay spend so much time apart, I mean she did resurrect him why keep him away. Lucy is very rich, we already know that, and she is very intelligent too, would she notice that someone did something to her PDA. In addition, Marino was always obnoxious to women but he seemed to have improved somewhat in the past, why make him go back? I used to love these characters and now it seems I don’t even recognize them.

Plot wise the story was a bit confusing. There were Benton’s experiments with convicted killers, an investigation about a young woman found murdered and tattooed with the same designs that Lucy’s last conquest has in her body and then there is a family of two women and two children that have disappeared without a trace while somewhere else a woman is being slowly tortured in an empty house.

It’s difficult to juggle all the details in so many storylines and I was quite lost for a while. She does manage to bring things together in the end and those last chapters are the best part of story. Because of that and because I still have hopes that things get better my grade is slightly higher than what I thought of giving it at first.

Grade: 4/5

Snobbery With Violence - Marion Chesney

When a marriage proposal appears imminent for the beautiful - if rebellious - Lady Rose Summer, her father wants to know if her suitor's intentions are honorable. He calls on Captain Harry Cathcart, the impoverished younger son of a baron, to do some intelligence work on the would-be fiance, Sir Geoffrey Blandon.After his success in uncovering Geoffrey's dishonorable motives, Harry fashions a career out of "fixing" things for wealthy aristocrats. So when the Marquess of Hedley finds one of his guests dead at a lavish house party, he knows just the man to call.But when Harry is caught between his client's desire
for discretion and his suspicion that murder may indeed have been committed, he enlists the help of Superintendent Kerridge of the Scotland Yard and Lady Rose, also a guest at Lord Hedley's.

I really do enjoy cosy mysteries and I prefer historical to contemporary so it was with great expectation that I started this Snobbery with Violence, an Edwardian murder mystery.

I must say that I enjoyed it very much and I almost laughed aloud at times. Lady Rose Summer was almost unbelievable at times, as she was much focused in the women's rights movement and the equality of rights between the lower and upper classes but at the same time, she seemed unaware of the proper behaviour to live in polite society and without proper knowledge of what being of the lower classes might entail.

The story starts with Lady Rose being pursued by a gentleman who is taking its time with the marriage proposal, Lady Rose's father hires Captain Cathcart to discover which are the man's intentions and unfortunately those were less than honourable. I understand Rose's anger at him and wanting to shame him publicly but it seemed odd that she did not know the double standard would actually make her an outcast while his sins would be quickly forgotten.

Rose and Captain Harry meet again when he is hired once more by her father to stop a visit from the king to their estate. It has come to the Earl's attention that the king wants to try his luck with Rose now that she is a fallen woman. Harry comes up with the idea of blowing up a bridge on the estate and blaming it on the bolshevists, which effectively scares the royal guest to be.

Due to her reputation, Rose is then invited to a house party on a strange fake castle where Lord Hedley has decided to gather those girls whose season was a failure and helping them find husbands. Not that Rose wants a husband of course. And here is where the mystery really starts. One the guest is found dead of what seems to be arsenic poisoning and the police are called to investigate but progresses little as the influences of the upper classes manage to call off the inquest. Rose immediately decides she must investigate and since Harry had been invited by Lord Hedley to try to solve the investigation discreetly there is nothing more obvious than bringing those two together.

This is a light and fun read and I think Chesney strong point is the characters she creates. Becket, who is Harry's man, and Daisy, a former chorus girl who becomes Rose's lady's maid are interesting characters and so is Inspector Kerridge. The police detective who keeps trying to solve the murders and mysteries he comes across only to see his actions stopped by the upper classes. The book is full of information about the distinctions between classes and about women’s role in society. I did like Harry and Rose although Rose did sometimes sound a bit TSTL and too socially awkward to truly be real. They are attracted to each other but spend most of the book in denial or misunderstanding each other's intentions.

The mystery ends up being solved by both of them after investigating everyone’s history and possible motives and Rose cannot resist a final confrontation with danger. A nice and entertaining read!

Grade: 4/5

Hiding In The Shadows - Kay Hooper

Accident victim Faith Parker has done what her doctors feared she never would: awakened from the coma that held her prisoner for weeks. But she has no memory of the crash that nearly killed her-or the life that led up to it. Nor does she remember journalist Dinah Leighton, the steadfast friend who visited her in the hospital...until she disappeared without a trace. Now as Faith begins to regain her strength, she's shocked by intimate dreams of a man she doesn't recognize and tortured by visions of violence that feel painfully real.
Something inexplicable ties her lost memories to Dinah's chilling fate. But even as Faith tries to understand the connection and reach out to save Dinah, death is stalking both women. And one of them will not escape its lethal grasp.FBI agent Noah Bishop has a rare gift for seeing what others do not, a gift that
helps him solve the most puzzling cases. Now, read more of his electrifying
adventures in two stand-alone tales of psychic suspense.

Hiding in the Shadows is the second book in the Bishop series. I was surprised to realize that it is completely different from the first book in the series. Bishop is the only common link but had a very secondary role her and the truth is that the type of story is completely different from the first one.

There is the mystery of what really happened to Faith in that car accident and the mystery of what happened to Dinah. Unlike the first book in this series, their paranormal powers are not related to what is happening or with discovering the guilty party. It is only really connected to who they are and how they are related.

This means the mystery part is solved by looking for clues and investigating the old-fashioned way. While that part was ok, what I was interested in was the paranormal and psychic elements. I have no idea where Hooper got inspiration for this plot but it made a really compelling and enthralling read to follow Faith through her discovery of who she was and why she had Dinah’s memories. The problem is that by focusing on Faith instead of the mystery this one looses much of its strength and in the end were just not that excited about its resolution.

Hooper kept me guessing till the end and about Faith and Dinah’s relationship and she did surprise me with the psychic twist, I’m not sure I’m convinced by it in the long run but it didn’t detract from my enjoyment. I think if she had kept us as curious about the mystery as about the two women it would have worked better though.

Grade: 4/5

Indelible - Karin Slaughter

In Karin Slaughter's exciting new thriller, an officer is shot point-blank in the Grant County police station and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver is wounded, setting off a terrifying hostage situation with medical examiner Sara Linton at the center. Working outside the station, Lena Adams, newly reinstated to the force, and Frank Wallace, Jeffrey's second in command, must try to piece together who the shooter is and how to rescue their friends before Jeffrey dies. For the sins of the past have caught up with Sara and Jeffrey -- with a vengeance ...

Book nº 4 in the Grant County series this one is very different from the previous books. The focus is in Jeffrey and Sara's past as the key to an incident in their present and some crimes in their past.

The story opens with an attack on the police station by gunmen that leaves some of the officers dead, Jeffrey in serious condition and Sara and a group of school children as hostages. The action switches between the present and a holiday Jeffrey and Sara spent together when they were still dating in his hometown of Sylacauga. From previous books we know that Sara kept some secrets from Jeffrey for a very long time, in this book we discover he has quite a few unsolved things in his past too.

Its 1991 and in Sylacauga Sara meets Jeffrey's mother and some of his high school friends. One of those friends is involved in a shooting one night and it's easy to see, from the beginning, that things didn't happen just as he says. Jeffrey decides to investigate and things get even more complicated when the bones of a high school girl who had disappeared a few years earlier appears.

I really enjoyed this book. I think we need a change in the series as the Jeffrey/Sara relationship was getting a bit old, the number of serial killers you can find in a small town was making me stretch my believability and I think we needed to know more about Jeffrey's past.

Jumping between past and present worked perfectly, when I was in the present I was eager to get back to the past and see what more was happening and when I was in the past I wanted to come back to present and see how they were faring.

My only complaint is that the Jared storyline is never resolved and it felt a bit like a loose end. I closed the book not knowing if Jeffrey knew...

Grade: 4/5

2009 Suspense & Thriller Reading Challenge

I have been reading a lot of mysteries and thrillers and I would like to read more in 2009. It was unavoidable then to join this Challenge when A. brought it to my attention.

You can find the rules here and I have already made my choice of subgenres and books to try:

Amateur Detective - The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie -Read
Cosy Mystery - Carrot Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke - Read
Forensic Mystery - Predator by Patricia Cornwell - Read
Historical Thriller - Dissolution by C.J. Sansom - Read
Crime Thrillers - One False Move - Alex Kava - Read
Police Procedural Thrillers - I Can See You by Karen Rose - Read
Murder Mystery - Snobbery With Violence by Marion Chesney - Read
Private Detective Mystery - Sick of Shadows by Marion Chesney - Read
Psycological Thrillers - Quietus by Vivian Schilling - Read
Romantic Thriller - Indelible by Karin Slaughter - Read
Serial Killer Thriller - Cry Wolf by Tami Hoag - Read
Supernatural Thrillers - Hiding in The Shadows by Kay Hooper - Read

Wish me luck!