In Lieu of Surrender by Bill Russell

August 25, 2014 By Leave a Comment

LIEU
In Lieu of Surrender by Bill Russell
Toby Grant Detective Book 1
Publisher: Class Act Books
Genre: Historical, Suspense/Mystery
Length: Full Length (288 Pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Cyclamen

Roy Gallant, a pillar of 1949, Santa Marcia society has a major problem. Trouble is, he doesn’t know it yet. Up until now, he has been able to dabble in his hobbies and shady dealings unfettered by anything as prosaic as the law. However, something happened that is going to change all that, something incidental, a nuisance really and not at all his fault. Oh, sure, it was he who ordered the woman’s kidnapping but that was only to bring a new chief of police into line. When he got the man’s cooperation, he would order the wife’s release and that should be an end to it. Too bad she turns up dead. Someone killed her and that invited the attentions of a private investigator from Los Angeles, named Toby Grant. It seems, the police chief is his best friend and an old war buddy. Maybe things might have worked out but then Roy made a real bo bo, he ordered the police chief’s ‘suicide’ after framing him for his wife’s murder. Talk about pulling the tiger’s tail. From that moment on, Toby Grant was hot on his trail. Roy Gallant was about unearth his worst nightmare and rue the discovery.

Toby Grant, a private investigator, receives an early morning phone call from his best friend, Justin Franks, asking for help. Justin’s wife has just been murdered and Justin, the Chief of Police in Santa Marcia, a small city on the California coast, is certain that he will be arrested for her murder. Something rotten is definitely going on in Santa Marcia. Toby immediately heads out to help his friend, and he quickly learns that the small city is being ruined by Roy Gallánt, a supposed pillar of 1949 Santa Marcia society. Gallánt has most of the community under his thumb, including the police, so Toby has his work cut out for him.
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This is a fast-paced historical crime novel with an engaging detective. There is no mystery about who the villain is, but there is a great deal of suspense involved in bringing the villain to justice. Toby has to fight crooked cops and brutal body guards. His only ally is Ruth Callahan, who runs the local newspaper. I really liked Ruth, a very savvy reporter who is eager to help Toby. Between them, they uncover a lot of clues, but they lack evidence which will nail any but the small fry.

The setting for the story feels authentic, and it has obviously been well-researched. I really felt as if I were back in the immediate post-WWII era, and the information about the Americans of Japanese descent who were interred during the war is handled well.

As the case progresses, there is a lot of re-hashing of the information that has been gathered. This does allow Toby and Ruth to process the information and come up with more ideas about how to proceed, but I could have done with a bit less of the going over of information.

The action never lets up. Toby has to work hard to stay ahead of the bad guys, switching cars, moving several times, and so forth. Several times is looks as if there is no way out for Toby so I was kept on the edge of my seat. I found it hard to put the book down, so I ended up reading it in one sitting.

Readers of historical crime fiction are sure to enjoy helping Toby match wits with the villains and I certainly plan to read more in this series.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

Murder In Red Rock Canyon by Sherry Derr-Wille

July 21, 2014 By Leave a Comment

ROCK
Murder In Red Rock Canyon by Sherry Derr-Wille
Book 5: The Rhonda Pohs Murder Mystery Series
Publisher: Class Act Books
Genre: Contemporary, Suspense/Mystery
Length: Short Story (149 Pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Cyclamen

Two days after being hired by the Clark County Sheriff’s Department Rhonda Pohs finds herself smack dab in the middle of a murder committed in Red Rock Canyon just outside of Las Vegas. Her investigation leads her to other murders in Nevada to say nothing of other states including her home state of Wisconsin.

To solve this mystery, Rhonda must dig deep into the history of the ancient Native Americans who left behind the petroglyphs and rock paintings that seem to draw this killer like a magnet.
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With the help of her new partner Jenny Sims and her old partner Phil Mason, Rhonda is finally able to bring a mass murderer to justice.

Rhonda’s husband, Mark, has just accepted a new coaching position at an exclusive private high school in the Las Vegas area, and they are relocating. Rhonda is worried about her prospects, but soon after arriving in Las Vegas, she is hired by the Clark County Sheriff’s Department. Before she officially begins her employment, she finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation.

This is an exciting mystery where the bodies just keep piling up. Rhonda is severely tested by this case, having to prove herself the minute she is hired, with no break-in period. Red Rock Canyon is different in every way from Wisconsin where she worked in a small rural area. Rhonda proves that she is up to the task. She and her new partner, Jennifer Sims, work well together and Rhonda, because she had more experience, is assigned as the lead detective. However, she is very grateful for Jenny’s knowledge of the terrain.

While the story is exciting. However, the pacing is uneven, and I found the beginning, detailing Rhonda and Mark’s drive from Wisconsin to Las Vegas, to be slow. I also wondered how Rhonda managed to get weekends off in the middle of a high profile investigation. There was a lot more telling than showing, making it difficult for me to engage fully with the characters.

The information about petroglyphs was fascinating, and I was intrigued to discover just how many petroglyphs there are across the country. The geography in and around Red Rock Canyon provides for an interesting murder scene, as do some of the other areas mentioned in the story. The author also deals with various cultural stereotypes. Mark is the cook in their family, as well as an athletic coach, and he is very sympathetic to the rigors of Rhonda’s job, providing her with relaxing and romantic breaks. Rhonda and Jenny are not always well received as they perform their jobs in a male dominated field. And Native Americans are readily condemned, leaving Rhonda to find the real culprits.

Mystery fans who are interested in Native American history, particularly petroglyphs, will enjoy heading out to Red Rock Canyon on the trail of a murderer.

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Doomed Voyage by Bill Russell

July 8, 2014 By Leave a Comment

DOOMED
Doomed Voyage by Bill Russell
Publisher: Class Act Books
Genre: Historical, Suspense/Mystery
Length: Full Length (324 Pages)
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Cyclamen

Adrift on the vast Pacific in a small boat with only a dim prospect of rescue, private investigator Toby Grant questions his wisdom in taking on such a whacky assignment. It sounded so easy coming from his natty little client. All he had to do was transport a bunch of supposedly phony diamonds across the ocean to Hong Kong as a decoy for the real shipment. In his mind, it was a chance for a free cruise and there was even a buck to be made. Who cared about the danger? Even Pam, his new wife cottoned to the idea. Turned out she was as big a thrill seeker as he. Now they are on an endless ocean in a leaking lifeboat, miles off the normal sea-lanes. Can things possibly get any worse?

Let’s look at some ways that will help determine generic levitra cheap possibly the E.D Protocol is actually the clear answer that’s right your specific requirements or otherwise perhaps not, let’s get over a number of its facet effects. With many people having access to the Internet, it caters to generic sale viagra you. Children and adults with autism can have any kind of treatment performed to help with your medical doctor an determine that your icks.org buy cialis usa condition is psychological and not physical, you will find a amount of other factors that may possibly lead to sexual impotence. Well, the future does not sildenafil tablets uk Click Here hold problem for any man, they themselves cause the problem and you will not believe that how the effective Kamagra Online, you will surely acquire the best result according to the need. Toby Grant gets hired to transport fake diamonds to Hong Kong, and he decides that the trip would make a wonderful vacation for him and his wife, Pam, a honeymoon, since they’d only been married for a few weeks. They would sail on the Pacific Empress which was best described as “a freighter that carried a few passengers.” She’d “started life as the S.S. Jacob Stearling, a ship built in 1942 and a veteran of both the North Atlantic run and the Normandy invasion.” Toby and Pam knew they weren’t going to have a luxury cruise, but still, it was a chance to see a bit of the world and make some money as well. Or so they thought.

Doomed Voyage is an action-packed story set in the years immediately following World War II. As the novel’s blub says, they end up trying to survive in a leaking lifeboat miles from the regular shipping lanes, but before they reach that desperate point, lots of things have happened. The ship has a crew of twenty and there are sixteen other passengers whom Toby and Pam have to investigate. I found that there were a lot of characters to keep straight, but the author used the dinner table assignments to introduce characters in smaller groups. Toby and Pam have dinner with a different pair each night, which allows the reader to get to know the supporting characters more slowly.

I really liked Toby and Pam and they seemed very real. The other passengers come from a cross-section of personality types and they are well-drawn. There are some who are easy to like and others who are asking to be kicked. The tension builds relentlessly as the ship leaves San Francisco and heads towards Hawaii.

The setting was well constructed. The era of the late forties was nicely captured and the atmosphere aboard the freighter seemed very realistic. The chief villain was relatively easy to spot, but many of the sub-plots were intricate and fascinating. The interaction between various characters was handled very deftly and I truly felt as if I was right there with Toby and Pam as the sharks, human and non-human, circled.

If you are looking for an historical mystery with lots of interesting characters and a complex plot, this might just be what you are looking for.

Filed Under: Mystery/Suspense, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Night Man Cometh by Tony-Paul de Vissage

April 15, 2014 By 2 Comments

COMETH
The Night Man Cometh by Tony-Paul de Vissage
Publisher: Class Act Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal, Action/Adventure, Historical, Contemporary
Length: Full Length (376 pages)
Heat Level: Hot
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

In 1249, Damien La Croix willingly choses Undeath rather than perish of the Plague. Once risen as a vampire, he takes his betrothed into the dark with him, but something goes wrong and Antoinette perishes. Thus, Damien begins a solitary walk down the corridors of time in search of Antoinette’s replacement.

Beginning with Konstancza in 15th century Romania where Damien and his garde de nuit serve Voivoide Vlad Drakula, his search extends into the far future to a fateful meeting in a snow-filled Chicago. Until then, Damien meets, loves, and loses each person he thinks may be the one to replace his Antoinette—Kate in Colonial America, who avenges herself against her rapist but prefers to hang rather than become an Undead; Bess, a 21st century Goth, wanting both an Undead lover and a living one and dying for the wrong choice; Michel, a concentration camp guard where Damien and his kind are imprisoned in the human answer to the Vampire Problem; Alyss – descendant of his beloved Konstancza –lost to a rival vampire’s seduction.

All could be his but all perish, for when the Night Man Cometh, can Death be behind…?

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Damian wasn’t exactly a saint during his short first life, and his thirst for violence only becomes more unquenchable once he begins his Undead one. His severe lack of empathy and self-awareness brings depth to his personality even if certain horrid choices make it difficult to find many positive things to say about him early on. What I found most interesting about Damian’s character development, though, was how slowly it takes place. Centuries can pass between the first glimmer of change and the next step in Damian’s evolution, but because those moments are given so much time to take hold in his mind they always felt genuine to this reader.

I would have liked to see more time spent exploring the personalities and interests of Damian’s potential life partners. Some of them are developed well enough for me to understand his attraction to them, but others were given very little time to express their unique qualities. Even love at first sight eventually needs something to back up that first flush of emotion, and this novel would have easily earned a much higher rating had I better understood why he chose some of his paramours.

From the opening scene Mr. de Vissage kept my interest piqued with strong, even pacing. By covering Damian’s journey through such an incredibly long period of time the author is able to slowly build a complex supernatural society that would have been hard to flesh out in such detail in a shorter story. I found certain subplots even more captivating than the focus of Damian’s mission because of how expertly the author weaves everything together from one millennia to the next.

As someone who has never had any exposure to the French language, it was sometimes difficult for me to determine the meanings of French words and phrases that show up routinely in the first few sections of this novel. Some of them were easy to figure out because their English equivalents were so similar to them, but certain words remained a mystery to me until the end. While I understand why the author wanted Damian to retain this part of his heritage, it would have been helpful to either have had a glossary of the terms at the beginning of the book or more context clues about their meanings embedded in the text near them.

By far my favourite part of this book involves how effortlessly the author brings back the traditional approach to vampire mythology. Damian and his associates are sexually alluring to humans, but they are also extremely dangerous, unpredictable creatures. The horror elements of this tale are ubiquitous and include the darkest themes of that genre.

I would especially recommend The Night Man Cometh to anyone who is a fan of Dracula. Even with its flaws, this is a noteworthy example of what vampire fiction can be.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Vampires Are Forever by Tony-Paul de Vissage

May 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

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Vampires Are Forever by Tony-Paul de Vissage
Publisher: Class Act Books
Genre: Historical, Paranormal
Length: Short Story (149 pgs)
Heat Level: Sensual
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by Poinsettia

A hundred years before, the villagers of Balleywalegh drove the vampire preying on their womenfolk from their midst…and that should’ve been the end of it. But now, it’s 1929, and the monster’s back. Or is he? Someone’s definitely occupying the abandoned manor house again. Karel Novotny has the same name as the former Undead resident but he’s much, much younger, and more up-to-date. He even drives a Stutz Bearcat! With his movie idol good-looks, he’s enthralled the local lasses, especially Seamus Flannery’s daughter Brigid. Seamus isn’t much for believing in vampires or any other creature of the night but he’s a little worried about the pale young man’s attention to his daughter. And when Brigid becomes suddenly and unexplainably ill, he has to make a decision.

Is Karel Novotny the monster returned or not, and if so, what will the good men of Balleywalegh do this time?

Are the superstitions of the town’s folk silly, or is there really something to fear in the dark?

Seamus Flannery’s peaceful life is shattered the moment his wife, Maeve, starts shrieking uncontrollably when she sees a light in an old deserted manor. Like Seamus, I wondered why something so simple would send a woman into hysterics. Maeve isn’t the only one who has seen the light. Seamus soon learns that the people in the town believe a vampire has taken up residence in the old manor. At first Seamus laughs it off, but after meeting Karel Novotny, the owner of the manor, he isn’t so sure. After Seamus does a bit of digging through the town history, he learns there was indeed a vampire in the town over a hundred years ago. Seamus begins to wonder if the vampire has come back to exact the revenge he promised.

Karel is certainly intriguing. I thought he handled the attention of the town’s folk very well. While he seems to genuinely want the people to like him, I also got the impression he was playing with them a little bit. I was pretty sure he wasn’t actually a vampire, but it’s clear he IS hiding something. I found myself racing through the pages determined to figure out his secret.

I liked Seamus immediately. He’s a very pleasant, down to earth man who provides the much needed voice of reason when the men of Balleywalegh want to charge up to Karel’s house and destroy him. Seamus admits Karel is odd, but he won’t convict a man of being a vampire without concrete proof. I found Maeve’s test of a garlic laden dish at the town potluck to be especially entertaining.

Seamus’ weakness is his daughter, Brigid. When she and Karel start to become close, Seamus can’t help but feel overprotective of his child. I couldn’t help but smile when Seamus managed to interrupt the romantic interludes between Brigid and Karel. However, when Brigid falls prey to a mysterious illness, Seamus lets superstition get the better of him. He and the rest of the men in the town decide to take matters into their own hands. I was on the edge of my seat as Seamus and his friends marched up to the manor. Would they discover a bloodthirsty vampire, or were they about to make the biggest mistake of their lives?

I was completely surprised at the way the story ended. I did have a few things figured out, but I never saw the truth about Karel coming. I did find the ending a bit abrupt for a story that had so much build up. However, I still found the conclusion satisfying and I certainly had a smile on my face when I finished the story.

Vampires Are Forever is definitely a fun, fast paced story. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down until I’d finished it. Readers wanting to know Karel’s secret should certainly pick up a copy of Vampires Are Forever today.

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Vampire Island by Sandra Cox

June 18, 2010 By 1 Comment

Vampire Island by Sandra Cox
Publisher: Class Act Books
Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal
Age Recommendation: 12+
Length: Full Length (192 pgs)
Rating: 5 Suns
Reviewed by Orchid

My name is Zoe Tempest. Just let me say, I had no intention of becoming a vampire hunter. My world revolved around the trendiest clothes, the boy of the week, shopping, and texting. My life was as close to perfect as a seventeen year old can get. I had everything. Then my parents were murdered and my world came crashing down.

After their funeral, I went to live with my uncle Julian Kilmer. That’s when everything changed. In a manner more terrifying than anything I could have imagined.

One day Zoe is the spoiled daughter of well-to-do parents, then suddenly her world changes completely. Her parents die suddenly and she goes to live with her weird Uncle Julian on Vampire Island.

Julian warns her not to go out once the sun has set, but when she discovers he sleeps by day and goes out at night Zoe begins to wonder if her uncle is a vampire. But that’s silly, there are no such things as vampires. Or are there?

Julian oozes danger. His ocelot Oz, who has silver claws, protects Zoe not only from herself but also from the creatures of the dark who wish to harm her. The protection of the cat, plus the garlic surrounding the garden, convinces Zoe her uncle can’t possibly be a vampire. After a heavy meal you should ideally look generic uk viagra for in an online drug store is: Security Features – should be backed by antivirus software Privacy Protection – should have standard policies for protecting personal information Encrypted Transactions – all banking transactions should be SLL Encrypted Secure Shipping – all shipments must be discreet and delivered in plain packaging If a website meets all the aforementioned requirements. It buying cialis in uk uses the technique of inserting needles on body parts to facilitate energy and blood flow to the penile organ, thereby causing poor erection. One should not exceed the dose, as overdose can increase the risk of side effects and complications that can be caused by viagra uk purchase the medication. There are people who are always willing to spend anything to build the size of their penis keeping in mind click here for more cialis sample the goal to make their website rank well.

I really liked this book. Zoe is a young seventeen-year-old who always has to be turned out properly with matching clothes, nail polish and make-up. Throughout the book she makes sure she is properly dressed for each occasion even when it comes to finding just the right tote bag for the equipment she needs to survive.

Although not a love interest, Julian is absolutely gorgeous. The mystery and danger surrounding him only make him seem more attractive. Both Zoe and Julian are very strong characters. When Zoe finds out the truth she refuses to believe it. Julian then pits his will against hers and forces her to accept what he has told her.

Although the book deals with a subject which is classed as paranormal and commonly considered a myth, Vampire Island makes the reader believe in vampires. The end of the book dangles a temptation for the next in the Hunter Series and I shall look out eagerly for this to become available.

I have to admit I couldn’t put this book down. It was witty and fast moving. A totally believable story about a subject we know isn’t real. Or is it? Pick up your own copy and decide for yourself.

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