Forensic – MostlyFiction Book Reviews We Love to Read! Sat, 28 Oct 2017 19:51:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.18 THE SILENT GIRL by Tess Gerritsen /2011/the-silent-girl-by-tess-gerritsen/ Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:41:17 +0000 /?p=19096 Book Quote:

“Violence leaves a mark, a psychic stain that can never be scrubbed away with mere soap and bleach. In a neighborhood as insular as Chinatown, everyone would remember what had happened…. Even if this building were torn down and another erected in its place, this bloodied ground would remain forever haunted in the minds of those who knew its ugly past.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (JUL 5, 2011)

Forensic pathologist Dr. Maura Isles angers the members of the Boston Police Department when she testifies against Officer Wayne Graff. Dr. Isles maintains that Graff’s savage beating of alleged cop killer Fabian Dixon led to the suspect’s death. Although Maura knows that she will be ostracized because of her testimony, she tells the truth as she sees it: “I only concern myself with the facts…wherever they may lead,” she says. Her attitude irritates her good friend, Homicide Detective Jane Rizzoli, who can understand why Graff “lost it.”

Tess Gerritsen’s The Silent Girl is about the evil that men do, the grieving relatives who are left behind to mourn their dead, and the thirst for vengeance. The main plot centers around a tragedy that occurred nineteen years earlier, leaving five people dead, including the alleged perpetrator, a Chinese cook named Wu Weimin. The incident was known as the Red Phoenix massacre, named after the restaurant in Chinatown where the carnage took place. The police close the case, after deciding that Wu shot the others and then turned the gun on himself. However, the widow of one of the victims defends Wu; she insists that he was a kind and unaggressive man who would never hurt anyone.

Dr. Isles, Homicide Detective Jane Rizzoli, and Jane’s partner, Barry Frost, find themselves in the thick of a complex case that begins when the unidentified corpse of a beautiful woman is found on a roof. Her neck is slashed and her hand is severed by a very sharp implement. Who was she, and why was she murdered this way? As the investigation proceeds, it eventually becomes clear that there is some connection between this killing and those that were blamed almost two decades ago on Wu Weimin.

The Silent Girl is sharply written, engrossing, fast-paced, and suspenseful. The author skillfully incorporates intriguing information about Chinese history, martial arts, and forensics into her story. The well-defined characters include Iris Fang, fifty-five, who runs a martial arts academy and serves as an occasional first person narrator; her talented and loyal associate, Bella Li; Johnny Tam an ambitious young Chinese detective; and Patrick Dion, the grieving father of a seventeen-year-old girl, Charlotte, who disappeared a month after her mother was gunned down in the Red Phoenix restaurant.

As the investigation proceeds, Rizzoli and her colleagues become increasingly baffled. No matter how much information they uncover, the most important facts remain stubbornly elusive. It is almost as if the detectives are chasing ghosts. Gerritsen skillfully wraps everything up with an electrifying conclusion that raises a provocative question: Is taking the law into one’s own hands ever justified?

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 161 readers
PUBLISHER: Ballantine Books (July 5, 2011)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Tess Gerritsen
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Medical Thrillers:

Jane Rizzoli & Maura Isles Series:

Romance Novels:

* Originally published as the Tavistock Series

** Originally published as an Harlequin Intrique

]]> CITY OF VEILS by Zoe Ferraris /2010/city-of-veils-by-zoe-ferraris/ Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:46:28 +0000 /?p=11238 Book Quote:

“One of the things about seeing Katya was that afterward, he felt plagued by indecision. Should he go to the mosque or pray at home? Was it all right to watch an hour of satellite TV? With Katya, he was confronted with an obvious, nagging inconsistency: it was immodest and wrong to be in the company of an unmarried woman.”

Book Review:

Review by Jill I. Shtulman (AUG 9, 2010)

There have been many literary mysteries written and many books about the plight of women in repressive Saudi Arabia, but I have never read an author who is able to so seamlessly weave these threads together to create a potboiler thriller that sizzles with knowledge.

Set in Jeddah – seemingly one of the more liberal cities of Saudi Arabia – the core of the story focuses on a burqa-clad and tortured body of a young woman on a beach. Three stories are interwoven: a whodunit story of how she got there and who perpetrated such violence on her…the story of forensic scientist Katya and her would-be suitor Nayir, a Bedouin guide, who is crippled emotionally by the yokes of his religion…and a vanished American expat Eric Walker, whose wife Miriam finds herself bereft in an alien culture where women truly have no face.

What makes City of Veils stand out is its nuanced and highly intimate portrayal of a woman’s life in a repressive and paranoid country…where women’s faces are shielded, voices are silenced, and lifestyles are infantilized.

Ms. Ferraris – who herself moved to Saudi Arabia with her now ex-husband and his extended family of Saudi-Palestinian Bedouins – has a voice that rings with authority. Some of it is unwittingly humorous: the husband Eric, for example, has a name that translates to a part of the male anatomy, and therefore is renamed Abullah while at work. But most of it is frustrating and heartbreaking. We read, for example, about women’s mini-rebellions, as they hide Bluetooth devices inside their burquas, which send the message, “Do you want to see my face?” Or the quagmire of lingerie stories: women cannot interact with the male proprietors of the stores; therefore, the government allowed women to work in these lingerie shops. Only one problem: the religious police are convinced women should be tending to their homes and babies, not working or shopping.

Ferraris shows that this repression is not just a woman’s problem; it’s a man’s as well. Osama Ibrahim – the fair and liberal police investigator – believes his marriage is a strong one until he discovers his wife has been surreptitiously taking birth control pills. And Nayir, who was featured in Finding Nouf, is numbed down by the love he feels for Katya, all the while knowing she may not be such a “good Muslim woman,” and how can he possibly marry an infidel? Being in a car with a woman who is not his wife is excruciating for him: “This was the worst kind of weakness because there was nothing he could do about it…short of kicking her out of the car.”

On one level, City of Veils has all the dimensions of a first-rate crime story; its eventual denouement in the scorching and unforgiving desert would make a stunning and crowd-pleasing movie. Yet on a deeper level, the book shines its laser-eye on woman who must be resourceful to even feel human while simmering inside, and the men who are raised to fear them and place a lid on their own human desires and compassion. City of Veils does what sometimes seems to be impossible – lifts the cultural veils off and looks gender segregation right in the eye.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from54 readers
PUBLISHER: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (August 9, 2010)
REVIEWER: Jill I. Shtulman
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Zoe Ferraris
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Another author who sets mysteries in the Middle East:

Matt Benyon Rees

Bibliography:

]]> THE BURNING WIRE by Jeffery Deaver /2010/the-burning-wire-by-jeffery-deaver/ Sat, 07 Aug 2010 20:08:34 +0000 /?p=11187 Book Quote:

“As the passenger, still frowning at the smell, turned around and stepped onto the bus, the driver heard what sounded like pops coming from inside the substation. Sharp, almost like gunshots. Then a flash of light like a dozen suns filled the entire sidewalk between the bus and the cable dangling from the window.

The passenger simply disappeared into a cloud of white fire.

The driver’s vision collapsed to gray afterimages. The sound was like a ripping crackle and shotgun blast at the same time, stunning his ears. Though belted into his seat, his upper body was slammed backward against the side window.

Through numb ears, he heard the echoes of his passengers’ screams.

Through half-blinded eyes, he saw flames.

As he began to pass out, the driver wondered if he himself might very well be the source of the fire.”

Book Review:

Review by Chuck Barksdale (AUG 7, 2010)

Jeffery Deaver’s The Burning Wire is the ninth book to feature Lincoln Rhyme, a quadriplegic forensic criminologist and a retired lieutenant of the New York police department. This time, Lincoln and his team are challenged to find someone who is using electricity to kill and threaten people of New York City. The latest book in this series contains suspense, interesting and realistic characters and a great story to keep the reader satisfied from beginning to end.

Soon after an electrical arc flash explosion sends molten metal toward a bus that kills one person and injures several others near an Algonquin Consolidated Power and Light substation in Manhattan, Lincoln Rhyme and his team are called in to help. Lincoln conditions his help on his leading the team of police investigators to gather information and analyze the scene. While the team is investigating, the substation killer calls the police and makes unrealistic demands to cut electricity usage and threatens to do more killing if his demands are not met. Despite the efforts of Lincoln and his team to study the clues at the scene and in Lincoln’s townhouse forensic laboratory, the killer (or is it killers) strikes again.

While following this investigation, Lincoln is contacted by Kathryn Dance of the California Bureau of Investigation about a Mexican police trace that has found evidence of the Watchmaker, someone who Lincoln was unable to capture previously. Lincoln keeps up with the whereabouts of the Watchmaker through Commander Luna of the Mexican police. This dual investigation puts extra pressure on Lincoln as he pushes himself to catch both criminals, putting stress on his weakened health and extra worry on the two people who care the most about Lincoln, Amelia Sachs, his top field investigator and live-in lover, and Lincoln’s caregiver Thom Reston.

Deaver provides much suspense and a few twists along the way as Lincoln and his team try to stay ahead of the killer or killers. Sometimes Deaver lets the reader in before Lincoln can figure something out and sometimes he keeps the reader in the dark. In both cases though, the book is full of tension, interesting investigations and a strong need to keep reading to find out what happens next.

Deaver has created characters that contain strengths and weaknesses that make them interesting and believable. With the key characters, such as Lincoln Rhyme, Amelia Sachs, Fred Dellray, “rookie” Ron Pulaski, as well as the killer, Deaver provides even more into each character by presenting the story from their perspective. I especially enjoyed the parts when Fred Dellray goes undercover or works with his informants.

This book is at times a bit heavy on science, especially at the beginning, with a fair amount of description of the transmission, use and dangers of electricity. I’m an engineer so I’ve had lots of the basics before so it did not bother me but if you’re bored or intimidated by voltage and electrical current, you may want to stay away. For me, I enjoyed some of the details, but all you really need to know is that not a lot of electrical current is needed to kill someone. You will also learn to respect and fear electricity a lot more after reading this book.

This is the first book I have read by Jeffery Deaver, but it will not be the last. I normally prefer to start a series at the beginning and I’ve had the first book, The Bone Collector in my mountainous TBR pile for years, but I’ve still not read it. Nonetheless, I did not see that as a major issue in this book. I did check his website and Wikipedia to get a little more background on the characters and I watched  The Bone Collector movie, and that helped to understand more of the background and relationships of the several key characters. I’m not sure that was even necessary as Deaver does a good job in providing background on most of the characters, particularly as he changes the point of view among the major characters. Unfortunately, though I’m not able to compare this book to others, but I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed by the suspense and characters in this book.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 142 readers
PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster; 1 edition (June 1, 2010)
REVIEWER: Chuck Barksdale
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Jeffery Deaver
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Lincoln Rhyme/Amelia Sachs series:

Kathryn Dance* series:

Rune series:

Stand-alone Mysteries and Thrillers:

Stories:

007:

Writing as William Jefferies (Location Scout John Pelham Mystery series):

Movies from Books:

]]> ICE COLD by Tess Gerritsen /2010/ice-cold-by-tess-gerritsen/ Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:12:27 +0000 /?p=10395 Book Quote:

“Something had caused the previous occupants of this settlement to flee, leaving doors unlocked, windows open, and meals uneaten. Something so terrible it had caused them to abandon cherished pets to cold and starvation. Was it still here, the thing that drove them from this place? Or was there nothing at all there except her own dark fantasies, born of fear and isolation?”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky (JUL 1, 2010)

In Tess Gerritsen’s Ice Cold, forty-two year old medical examiner Maura Isles is heartbroken. She is in a relationship with Daniel Brophy, a Catholic priest. However, their year-long affair has not brought either of them much happiness. Daniel is reluctant to give up his calling, and Maura is frustrated with his inability to make up his mind. After spending the night together, they part. Maura flies from Boston to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to attend a medical conference. There, she meets a former classmate, pathologist Doug Comley, who is divorced and has a thirteen year-old-daughter, Grace. He asks Maura to accompany him and his friends on a trip to a cross-country ski lodge. She agrees, but soon regrets her decision. Doug loses his way in the snowy landscape, and they end up stranded. When Daniel and Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli do not hear from Maura and are unable to contact her, they fear that something terrible has happened.

Ice Cold is an action-packed thrill ride with intriguing characters we care about. Maura is courageous but realistic; she knows that if she is not rescued soon, she will probably die in this frozen wilderness. Jane and her husband, Gabriel Dean, an ex-Marine and an FBI agent, are determined to find their friend, but they will face obstacles more formidable than the horrendous weather. Meanwhile, Daniel is wracked with guilt over the way he has treated the woman he loves, especially when he realizes that he may never see her again. This is a story about survival in the wilderness under extreme conditions, the limits of romantic love, and the dangers of bending one’s will to a charismatic cult leader. Jeremiah Goode has created a sect with hundreds of followers who slavishly adhere to his decrees, some of which are rather repellant. Maura’s struggle to survive will become interconnected with the fate of Goode and his supporters.

Gerritsen maintains suspense by shifting back and forth from Maura’s travails to Jane and Gabriel Dean’s efforts to save her. Unexpectedly, Maura discovers that she is being shadowed, but who is following her and what does he want? The conclusion, which is a humdinger, includes one or two surprising twists and turns. Gerritsen has written an absorbing and chilling story that will keep readers turning pages well into the night.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 169 readers
PUBLISHER: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (June 29, 2010)
REVIEWER: Tess Gerritsen
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Tess Gerritsen
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Medical Thrillers:

Jane Rizzoli & Maura Isles Series:

Romance Novels:

* Originally published as the Tavistock Series

** Originally published as an Harlequin Intrique

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