Perhaps I confused these novels at the library’s with Patricia Cornwell’s books about that other female forensic specialist, but after dutifully slogging through these to the finish line, I have to say I should have stuck with Cornwell. Johansen’s books start off with a decent premise and then go rapidly downhill from there. I thought I was reading about the hunt for a psycho kidnapper out for vengeance over the execution of his child-rapist and murderer son, and instead I got a bunch of cheap […]
A Double-Helix of a Crime Thriller
Lucky me! I thought I had read them all, and then I run across yet another Connelly, this one from 2001, that I had somehow missed. A Darkness More Than Night teams up two of Connelly’s “heroes,” my favorite LAPD detective Hieronymous Bosch and retired FBI profiler and heart transplant recipient Terry McCaleb, in a doubly-complex crime/courtroom drama that satisfies on all fronts. A man is found murdered in his own apartment, with no forensic evidence to pursue except for the weird way in which […]
A love story wedded to a tale of horror
Novels on the Holocaust are always difficult reading on an emotional level, and this one was no exception. Richman’s writing is simple and evocative, intimate and universal, and I got lost in the world of her two tragic lovers while sobbing at the horrors she depicted in the Nazi concentration camps Terezin and Auschwitz. Although told as a love story, Richman gives us a tale of genuine heroes, Jewish artists and musicians who struggled to keep their humanity amidst inhumanity, and who fought to […]
Family Secrets and Tragedy
This debut novel by Nigerian author Adichie is a haunting story whose impact lingers long after the last page is turned. It describes the lives of two teenaged children of a wealthy and influential Nigerian newspaper editor, who is revered for his courageous stand against a corrupt and failing government, for his unswerving rectitude and broad generosity as a pillar of the Catholic community, but who behind closed doors is a violent religious tyrant and abuser of his wife and children. All this against a […]