Three Reviews

Kathy and I are both on antibiotics fighting a round of bronchitis. This is her second time this year. It's rough to be getting older.

Still no luck on the job front. Interviews and resumes are all over the place but nothing has come through yet. Keep thinking good thoughts and maybe something will happen.


BOSTON SCREAM PIE, Rosemary & Larry Mild, Hilliard & Harris, $16.95, 188 pages, ISBN: 9781591332640, reviewed by Barry Hunter.

It’s not often I hate a character from the first line I read, but Delylah Upshaw is one of those. You know there’s something in her character that makes her despicable and by page eight, you know she is a cold hearted, conniving bitch. There are other unsavory characters in here as well, but as she watches her third husband die, you really don’t like her.

Caitlin Neuman is the lone survivor of a wreck that killed her parents and her twin sister, but now she is having dreams of another wreck that grows in intensity until she seeks help to see if it is a nightmare or if she is slowing losing her mind. She goes to the best source to find out what really happened.

Molly LeSoto is a part time house keeper for Caitlin and is married to a retired Baltimore detective, Paco, who helps out the local police department a few days a week. Caitlin goes to Paco with her problem and some sketches she made from her dreams.

Paco finds out that there was an accident seven months before that matches Caitlin’s dreams. As he investigates he finds Newton Boston and his new wife, Delylah, whose daughter, Laura is in a coma from the accident and her twin sister, Lisa, has just been murdered.

The Mild’s have written a charmer of a novel with interesting and despicable characters. There is another murder and events from the past are uncovered that help explain Caitlin’s dreams. Although this is my first meeting with Paco and Molly, I don’t think it will be my last. There are two other books in the series, HOT GRUDGE SUNDAY and LOCKS AND CREAM CHEESE. Put this one on you reading list. It’s a lot of fun for a mystery.

Deeper, James A Moore, Berkley, May 2009, $7.99, ISBN: 9780425228210, reviewed by Harriet Klausner.

As the New England seafaring season is almost over, the professor Dr. Martin Ward come to Bowden’s Point to hire Captain Joe Bierden to take him and his three associates to Devil’s Reef near the town of Golden Cove so they can explore an underwater cave. Although he, his wife Belle and his best friend and first mate Charlie Moncrief want to refuse the offer, the money is too good to say no.

On his biggest yacht Isabella’s Dream, Joe, Charlie and a couple of local teens take the customers for their month long exploration. The crew is shocked by the hostility of the townsfolk. As the professor, his athletic assistant Diana and a TV famous parapsychologist along with Jacob and Mary Parsons explore Devil’s Reef seeking evidence of a city Innsmouth rumored to be destroyed by the Feds, ghost ships and Deep Ones oceanic humanoids attack the crew and clients.

This is an excellent horror thriller due to a fully developed cast (human and paranormal) who seem genuine so that when the impossible occurs, James A. Moore makes it feels possible. Filled with action and suspense, DEEPER hooks readers into a one sitting tale as fans will wonder who will be left swimming in the ever increasingly darker and sinister aptly titled Golden Cove.

Relentless, Dean Koontz, Bantam, Jun 9 2009, $27.00, ISBN: 9780553807141, reviewed by Harriet Klausner.

The latest book by bestselling author Cullen "Cubby" Greenwich receives rave reviews from fans and critics except reviewer Shearman Waxx. Cubby is outraged by the so called “nation's premier literary critic" ripping his work because he doubts the man even read it as the review is loaded with factual errors about the story line. On a whim, he goes with his six year old son Milla to confront Waxx at a restaurant in Newport Beach, California. In the bathroom Cubby’s son almost urinates on Waxx so the critic has one word to say to the writer: “Doom”.

Cubby soon sees Waxx has been in his house, disabling security system and cutting off electricity and the phone lines. Soon afterward the house explodes though the family gets out in time. Cubby receives a warning from another author whom claims Waxx killed his parents, wife and children over an unfair disputed review. In order to keep his family safe, Cubby must kill Waxx and those conspirators abetting the man’s terrorist campaign especially the leader of this silent group of deadly operatives; however he only knows of Waxx.

Conspiracy buffs will enjoy Dean Koontz’s exciting thriller even if the secret society does not ring true and Waxx’s motives never fully surface. Milo in some ways steals the show with his “Inspector Gadget” gizmos that even his parents are awed by him and unsure what he will do next. He may be a prodigy, but he has vulnerabilities and fears. Fans of Mr. Koontz and those willing to accept an over the Sierra Mountains plot with an even higher over the stratosphere villain will enjoy RELENTLESS as Waxx and company leave a violent calling card.