Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Crime thriller

THE ESMERALDA GOODBYE by Corey Lynn Fayman – Mystery, Crime Thriller, Police Procedural

In The Esmeralda Goodbye, Corey Lynn Fayman crafts a suspenseful crime story about a patrolman who becomes entangled in a criminal saga with stakes as high as his life.

The duty of investigating a suicide threat made by well-known author Raymond Chandler falls to Jake Stirling, one of the newest members of the San Diego Police Department. With a deft maneuver, Jake prevents Chandler from ending his life when he visits his apartment. This success fills Jake with excitement to make a name for himself in his new career as a police officer.

Months later, he’s called to investigate the theft of a diamond necklace from the Del Charro Hotel. Jake first questions a hopeful lead: J. Edgar, the FBI Director, who just so happened to be there during the raid. But though Jake plans to simply file a report so that detectives can be assigned to the case, he’s taken aback when the director encourages him to give up the case and concentrate his time elsewhere, such as assisting the decent, law-abiding citizens in the neighborhood. As he mulls over the director’s idea, a well-known name from the Creeper case— which had ruined his father, a police officer before his death— reappears.

Jake becomes engrossed in speculations about a piece of interest he took from Chandler’s house a few months earlier.

Moreover, he encounters a formidable investigative officer who is secretly working with a web of cartels. Jake’s life takes a drastic turn after a buddy passes away, and he quickly discovers that his independent demeanor has given his bosses cause for concern. Bearing down on him all the while, the Creeper case has turned its destructive attention from father to son.

Fayman has crafted a page-turner filled with drama, intrigue, and thrilling action that readers will find difficult to put down.

Starting with an unlikely sequence of events, the first chapters reveal unexpected motivations from unlikely individuals. A steady and regulated pace during the uncovering of the mystery keeps readers steeped in curiosity and ever-changing theories, with skillful distribution of clues. New information gradually comes to light through the interactions of real, multifaceted individuals, and a high degree of tension stretches from beginning to end.

“The Esmeralda Goodbye” is a masterpiece with excellent character development. Its remarkable tale and charming hero revel in the excess of 1950s Southern California atmospheres.

March 13, 2024
HYBRID HYSTERIA: A Novel of Corporate Intrigue Both Holy and Diabolical by Charlie Robinson – Crime Thriller, Conspiracy, Suspense

Two professors uncover a conspiracy to sterilize liberal Americans with specially-manufactured electric cars, in Charlie Robinson’s thriller, Hybrid Hysteria.

Dr. Theresa Lauzon, endowed assistant professor at SUNY-Canton’s Department of Automotive Engineering, comes to Charlie “CC” Cavanaugh, university Chaplain and physics PhD, with two troubling revelations.

First, while testing an electric car donated by the Gauss Hybrid Electric Automobile Company (GHEA), she’d discovered troubling spikes in its battery’s electromagnetic field. She connects these spikes to a rash of infertility and miscarriages along the Pacific coast, where GHEA cars have boomed in popularity.

Second, Theresa is pregnant, and the father is GHEA’s technician-on-loan to SUNY-Canton, Jay Fish. And though Fish recently disappeared from campus, Theresa has much more complicated problems.

Theresa reveals to CC that she is likely the daughter of GHEA’s founder, Girard LaCroux, with Theresa’s Akwesasne mother having gone into hiding after she and Girard divorced. She has no idea what Girard’s son and current GHEA president, Claude LaCroux, might do if he discovers her true identity. But she does know that CC has underworld connections, and asks his help in hiding long enough to give her child safely up for adoption.

CC calls upon his uncle Tony, the godfather of the Fiocchi mafia. Tony’s sinister means might concern CC as a priest, but he’ll need secrecy and resources for all the trouble to come.

Sending GHEA’s goons chasing after a decoy, Theresa escapes with help from her Native community. But CC’s work isn’t nearly done– he has to discover whether Theresa’s fears about the GHEA cars are true. Girard LaCroux was an arch-conservative, and Claude follows in his footsteps, but could they really enact such a horrific plan? And what threat might they pose to anyone snooping around?

CC connects with an old mentor, Dr. Toshio Kikuchi, and the two uncover GHEA’s clever system; their battery control modules differ between the Midwest and the Pacific coast, allowing GHEA to specifically target the latter. If not for Theresa’s curiosity, their sterilizing effects would have gone completely under the radar.

Amidst careful investigation and deadly family ties, criminal factions and covert organizations wage war through knowledge and spy-craft.

Gayle Smith, Claude LaCroux’s executive assistant, uses her newfound position as Jay Fish’s bodyguard to do some investigating of her own. As a double agent for a world-spanning secret society, she tricks her way into high-security parts of GHEA’s black-site testing grounds. She delves ever deeper into their work, revealing the depths of LaCroux’s evil scheme.

Meanwhile, CC, Theresa, and Toshio publish a paper on the danger of GHEA batteries, drawing LaCroux’s attention right to them and putting their lives in sudden peril. Even if they save others from GHEA’s plot, who can save them?

Hybrid Hysteria pores over intricate details with every plan, discovery, and question.

The story is full of scientific and mechanical information, ranging from the fundamental measurements of magnetism to the construction of GHEA’s batteries, the methodology of faking a natural mud slide, and even the careful steps a sniper must take to derail half of a train. While this often causes the pacing to drag, many of these details show clear expertise and research on the part of author Robinson. Readers interested in a thriller that goes over its subjects with a fine-toothed comb will certainly be satisfied.

Multiple perspectives reveal new sides of each conspiracy as it begins to unravel.

CC might have moral reservations as he enters this world of secrecy and danger, but he’s far from the only character with difficult tasks before them. Every person he brings into his confidence quickly finds a target painted on their back.

Hybrid Hysteria takes readers on a journey through the corporate offices of Claude LaCroux, the manor of an Italian mob boss, and even an alcove of Vatican-adjacent spies.

Some of these perspectives reveal the conspiracies rather plainly early on, reducing the tension of future investigations. However, when the multiple plotlines converge towards the climax, readers will excitedly follow characters like Gayle and CC as they take a stand in this hidden global battle.

Hybrid Hysteria by Charlie Robinson won Grand Prize in the 2022 CIBA Global Thriller Awards for High Stakes Suspense.

February 28, 2024
THE FOREST by Miriam Verbeek – Crime Thriller, International Mystery, Organized Crime

The Forest, a slow-burning mystery and the second book in Miriam Verbeek’s Saskia van Essen series, follows a young investigator trying to unravel a mystery that sits deep in the core of a private logging organization.

Saskia, a co-owner of International Financial Services, is requested by Tania to help uncover a network of criminal activity in her family’s Australian timber business. After taking over the company as its new director, Tania doubts the legitimacy of their remarkable profits, given high expenses, severe competition, and a substantial reduction in timber production that should have made it difficult to make any substantial gains.

Wasting no time, Saskia travels to Australia, having agreed to investigate possible criminal activity while helping the timber mill restructure.

Shortly after settling in, she identifies a weak correlation between the employment of three people: Daryl in carpentry, Con in flooring, and Peta in finance. More concerning, a huge amount of data ”accidentally” gets lost immediately after her arrival, including crucial due diligence records.

Saskia’s investigation reveals a series of suspicious activities such as fake invoices and massive cash payments for unsold furniture and flooring. Furthermore, she finds that the companies making the purchases are mere shells with complex, disguised ownership. Adrenaline levels rise as her secret pursuit begins to take shape. She tries to exercise caution, but not before a ruthless figure comes after her with everything he’s got.

In The Forest, Miriam Verbeek characterizes the cruel world of organized crime.

She exposes crime syndicates’ desperation to put a legitimate face on their riches through careful money laundering.

Her prose keeps readers engaged with the developing mystery, which will change a reader’s view of cash-heavy businesses.

Among the many heroes in this book, Saskin stands out. She shows expert sleuth skills and competence despite her short stature. The problems she encounters are ones that the author has found Australian companies and society also dealing with, and she brilliantly incorporates the input of the NSW police, the Federal Police, and the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forests in fighting these financial indecencies.

This novel shows how money laundering has now moved from the simple transfer of cash into financial institutions to sophisticated systems of layered multi-business transactions.

Money laundering is a worldwide problem, and Miriam Verbeek does a great job emphasizing the need for international law enforcement cooperation. The Forest is an eye-opener for mystery readers and the business world alike.

January 29, 2024
WHEN YOU READ THIS I’LL BE GONE by Anne Moose – Mystery, Crime Thriller, Psychological Fiction

With unexpected twists, When You Read This I’ll Be Gone by Anne Moose ramps up a kidnapping escapade with a campus tragedy of life-altering consequences.

When You Read This I’ll Be Gone takes us on a gripping book-within-a-book journey. Valerie Hawthorne—an author and college professor—has written a note to her family about the vagaries of her own disappearance. One might even consider the book’s title to be the true opening sentence.

As Valerie recollects the events leading up to the rupture of her marriage and her disappearance, she sucks readers into a meta-narrative that lays the groundwork for Valerie’s published book, which becomes the very book that you are reading.

Through this fascinating narrative approach, the author takes an unfortunately common tragedy of campus rape and re-sensitizes readers to all the reasons why rape survivors find it difficult to come forward about their experiences.

Moose takes Valerie and her kidnapper down the remorseful road of “what-ifs” and “if-onlys” that haunt those whose small actions contributed to someone’s silence. Valerie must come to terms with the fact that she can’t go back in time and fix things—her marriage, her interaction with a student—but she can do something to make sure a victim’s story is told and bring to justice in their absence.

When You Read This I’ll Be Gone is equal parts thrilling and sincerely devoted to its premise, “How far will a person go to hold abusers accountable?” There is some question as to how the title itself factors into the story when it comes full circle. The reader is left unsure who it is for if not about Valerie. Is it coming from the victim of sexual violence, or the father seeking revenge on the men responsible for his child’s undoing? Leaving the question open-ended allows the reader to experience the kind of heartache that can be understood in multitudes.

For readers of Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me and Chanel Miller’s Know My Name, Anne Moose’s When You Read This I’ll Be Gone is full of fast-paced suspense that will have you revisiting the beginning to catch what you missed with renewed insight. Which, if we were to ask Valerie Hawthorne, is the point of storytelling all along.

*This book comes with a Content Warning for campus rape, revenge porn, and suicide

January 26, 2024
NEW LIBERTY by George Cramer – Crime Thriller, Police Procedural, Action

New Liberty by George Cramer is a police procedural for readers who crave a gritty story in a modern urban jungle. It is not for the faint-hearted.

In New Liberty, a (fictionalized) Arizona city, a war is heating up between two rival gangs: the Black 4-Aces and the Latino Los Scorpios Locos. The cops of New Liberty’s Anti-Gang Enforcement Unit (AGE) are working hard to limit the damage. From the start, life within each of these organizations is stressful and complex.

Hector Navarro, a young officer, joins the AGE unprepared. Despite his Mexican heritage, he grew up in Connecticut, doesn’t speak Spanish, and was looking forward to embracing his love of motorcycles by being assigned to the city’s motorcycle unit. He has no idea how to talk to gangs, set up snitches, or even dress to not be identified as a cop.

Hector is assigned to Davey Jones, a slovenly drunk, as his street mentor in undercover work.

His first assignment in breaking into the gang world is to get a massage parlor worker to solicit him for sex, but a blunder on his part results in a humorous exchange. The investigation eventually leads to a tragic shooting– a double murder– that changes Hector’s life and, more tragically, the death of his partner. It sets into motion a sequence of events that will drill deep into the hearts of both gangs as well as the police who watch them.

New Liberty tells the stories of gangs and cops with the sharp eye of a documentarian.

The gangs’ operations, their casual murders of friends and foes alike, and the cold-eye battles for leadership are told with an authenticity that places the reader amidst the characters. One story stands out: a young woman is kidnapped by the Los Scorpios Locos, becoming a sex slave for the gang, and eventually a police informant at great personal danger. She gives a rare glimpse of the horror of sex trafficking that young women, and young men as well, face in the shadows of the modern world.

This same unsparing look is trained on the police as well. A shooting tragedy, the death of an officer and a gang leader both involving young Hector Navarro, is shown to have its roots well beyond the actions of one officer. It winds up having grave ramifications for the entire New Liberty police management.

Readers see the detailed planning of each group.

Every action requires careful consideration, whether a police sting or a bloody raid on an opposing gang. The similarities in thinking between these three organizations are remarkable, even though some operate within a set of laws and others within the bounds of only money and violence.

This is a must-read for anyone looking for a great if harrowing story told with the unmistakable authority of someone who has been there and seen it all.

January 24, 2024
MISSING VALUES by Michael Grigsby – Crime Thriller, Amateur Sleuth, Mystery

Missing Values by Michael Grigsby is a story about corruption that allows evil to flourish, set against the spreadsheets and data that give one man with little power but an extreme drive a chance to check that evil.

At least for long enough to save his son. And himself.

Mark Twain famously proclaimed that “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.” Centuries earlier, Sir Francis Bacon said that “knowledge itself is power”. Ace statistical analyst Patrick Gray works at the intersection of those two famous quotes, using his ability to tease knowledge – or at least actionable information – out of myriad statistical data gathered on every human on the planet – or at least every human who has ever bought anything.

When a bloody massacre is discovered at the job site where his teenage son, PJ, was working, with two eviscerated corpses left in pieces on the floor, the police assume that PJ was a third victim. There’s so much in the way of blood, body parts, and other forensic evidence that no one is 100% sure of anything. Because PJ and the two confirmed victims were young black men, and those two victims were involved in gangs, the police rely on assumptions without caring to truly investigate anything at all.

Patrick knows his son wouldn’t get caught up in gangs or drugs. Most of the police dismiss this as parental wishful thinking, except for one local cop and one FBI agent who have both seen this pattern before – and are certain it leads to a criminal enterprise that no one wants to touch.

Especially when that enterprise, a national cartel known as the Red Rings, has so many cops and agents under its thumb or eating at its bountiful table.

Patrick Grey and FBI Agent LaWanda Thompson look into the abyss of the Red Rings – and the abyss looks back to grab them both. They end up right where they need to be to expose the evil that destroyed LaWanda’s family and plans to destroy Patrick’s as well unless they bring it down – or become part of it.

Missing Values is a suspenseful thrill ride of a story told from two wildly divergent perspectives that meet in an explosive ending.

Patrick Grey and LaWanda Thompson are the heroes, whose involvement seems righteous – even as they swerve and stumble along their broken path.

Their investigation is a combination of the traditional police procedural with a riveting ‘lone wolf’ hunt for justice and a surprisingly fascinating peek into the world of math and statistical analysis. Patrick uses his expertise in a way that allows the reader to comprehend it, keeping them focused on a subject that takes on the uncharacteristic excitement of a thriller.

In opposition to Patrick and LaWanda, the reader dives into the dirt, mire, and pure evil of the Red Rings through the perspective of their chief agent, kidnapper, and ‘recruiter’ for special orders. It’s a journey through dangerous and depraved places, populated with even more depraved people, and is not for either the faint of heart or the weak of stomach.

In the end, Missing Values is a story of good versus evil, one where good has to get down in the muck to save as many as possible from an evil that almost drags them too deep to escape.

Readers who enjoy bloody suspense and mysteries that make one question all the characters and their motivations will be riveted by every twist and turn in this pulse-pounding thriller.

January 19, 2024
A LONG TIME DEAD by T.L. Bequette – Mystery, International Crime, Legal Thriller

T.L. Bequette’s thrilling Joe Turner Mystery series continues in A Long Time Dead.

This book echoes the style of Earle Stanley Gardner’s early whodunits, where there are two possibilities. The authorities see only one, and Jake will have to use his special brand of savvy to find the explanation for his client’s innocence.

Joe, a California criminal defense lawyer, moves into his new Oakland office. As he unpacks a box labeled “Red Sox”, containing memorabilia for display, he comes upon an envelope containing two 2013 Red Sox ticket stubs, a credit card receipt, and a picture of him and his mom. The memories come flooding back.

Joe hasn’t seen his friend, Owen Prescott, in ten years—not since the afternoon he gave Joe that envelope. Not since Owen fell off the radar.

In 2013, 24-year-old Owen Prescott becomes a newly celebrated author, having produced a best-seller during graduate school. In the process, he acquires a lawsuit filed by an envious, disgruntled professor, and an admiring stalker against whom he secures a restraining order.

When the professor turns up dead, everything hits the fan.

Upon the advice of his wealthy father’s attorneys, Owen fled the country on the day of the Red Sox game. He went underground, and no one has seen him since. Now Joe wonders about his friend and begins to ponder what really happened. Was Owen capable of murder? If not, who killed the professor?

When he begins to delve into those questions, acquiring the police files on the case, Joe learns that Owen was recently sighted in Europe. Meanwhile, an FBI cold-case investigator follows the same trail, trying to close a net and capture Owen so he can be tried for the murder.

Where Owen is, who he has become, and what he has been doing for ten years add additional dimensions to this mystery. His assumed safety falls apart around him, and surprising individuals both threaten and protect his secret. For one such character, the reader can only wonder what’s next.

Bequette’s yarn introduces a plethora of multi-dimensional characters. Everyone’s motives help shape and move this convoluted plot forward to an unexpected and satisfying answer to “who done it?”

From the very beginning, this story will hook readers. Fast pacing, clever plot twists, and intercontinental flavor make A Long Time Dead difficult not to finish in one sitting.

May 24, 2023
TWISTED by Steve Mullaney – Psychological Thriller, Internet Crime, Horror

In Twisted, Steve Mullaney gives readers a tale of fear, cruelty, and perversion, involving those who lurk in the darkest corners of the internet.

Readers are first introduced to Derek, a man who roofies women in order to record his sexual activities with them for profit on the dark web. He runs a complete operation to peddle his illegal media, including ways to cover his identity and launder the money as well as maximize his profits through technical skills and better equipment to up his production quality.

Meanwhile, Ned, a philandering family man, gets an offer to work remotely for three weeks each month away from his family. At his new job, he gives in to temptation and starts a romantic relationship with a woman named Gina. This relationship will lead him to cross paths with Derek, and become entwined in his horrific world.

Mullaney explores themes of depravity and assault, and the consequences of such activities through the eyes of both victims and offenders. Readers walk through the systems of rationalization that even the vilest characters assemble to justify their actions.

Ned, the character who holds the point of view for most of the story, starts as a narcissist who cares for no one but himself. His self-centered ways are put to the test when their consequences fester to the point where he must deal with them whether he wants to or not.

Mullaney does a great job painting a grim picture of how business in the dark web functions, as well as providing believable details of how a man can hide the fact that he has a family and kids in another state while dating single women. At times, the details can feel gratuitous, but they add a strong sense of realism that heightens the horror aspect of this story.

Overall, Twisted will give readers a feeling of grime, leaving them to wonder if and how characters like Ned will pay for their actions.

Anyone looking for a trip along the darker wires of the web will find just that in the pages of Twisted. Mullaney has penned a delightfully ‘twisted’ thriller with serious bite that will drive readers page by page to the end.

October 28, 2022
SHADOWED BY DEATH by Mary Adler – Mystery, WWII Historical Fiction, Crime Thriller

In Shadowed by Death, the second novel in writer Mary Adler’s World War II mystery series, we’re taken back to America in the forties, and to a time when human kindness and human soullessness battled for the soul of the world.

Homicide detective Oliver Wright, a Marine wounded in the Pacific and his service dog, Harley, are back home in the San Francisco Bay area. Despite recovering from a nearly shattered leg, the military calls on Wright to investigate the near-fatal battering of Irina, a young woman found bruised and beaten on a local military base. The assignment leads to an equally complex assignment, protecting Sophia Nirenska, a Polish Jew whose life’s mission is to raise American awareness of the atrocities committed by Russia against her countrymen. She also proselytizes aiding orphaned Jewish children strewn across the world after the war is over.

Someone is trying to shut her up, at minimum, or kill her. Wright is given the task of protecting her at all costs. It’s not easy. Sophia is a survivor of the Nazi’s unrelenting attacks against Warsaw and a severe critic of Russia’s unacknowledged attacks against her countrymen. She is also uncompromising about being self-sufficient after having survived the horrors of the Warsaw ghetto and the disintegration of her family.

The question is who wants her dead the most: anti-Semites, Nazis, or Russians? Protecting her is no easy job.

Harley, Wright’s military-trained service dog, becomes a major player in his master’s twin investigations, both protecting Wright and helping to track down the people who are trying to hurt her.

More than just a thriller, this novel seemingly has a mission to educate 21^st Century readers about some aspects of World War II that few may be familiar with. While the Holocaust is well known, the Russians capture and massacre of thousands of Poles at Katyn is less so. It took modern scholarship to prove Russia did it, not the Nazis. The dogged resistance of the U.S. to take in more Jews during the war years becomes part of the book’s informational side. Readers are given a detailed description of the bureaucratic quagmire that made emigration of European Jews here virtually impossible despite knowledge of the atrocities being committed against them.

These and other facts are expertly interwoven into the narrative as Wright tries to get to the bottom of who wants Sophia and Irina dead, and why.

In many ways, Wright becomes a surrogate for most Americans who never experienced the full impact of the war in Europe. As one character says, in part, “We must think of [these refugees] as having brought their own justice system with them, and for the duration, we will suspend ours where they are concerned… The communists who infiltrate the Polish underground inform on them to the Gestapo. The Poles who survive will be killed or imprisoned when Russia takes over Poland. [Those who] betrayed the resistance for years… will be the cause of suffering for even more years to come. We can only imagine how many people were tortured and killed because of [them], and how many more will be.”

Shadowed by Death is a powerful inventive thriller and a provocative look into some chilling aspects of World War II that have lost none of their relevance in today’s explosive international political climate. Highly recommended.

Shadowed by Death by Mary Adler won 1st Place in the 2019 CIBA Goethe Book Awards for Post-1750 Historical Fiction.

May 30, 2022
HOT HOUSE: Book 1 of the E & A Investigation Series by Lisa Towles – Psychological Thriller, Mystery, Crime Thriller

Two private investigators find themselves reluctant but effective partners in Lisa Towles’ fast-paced psychological thriller, Hot House, Book 1 of the new E & A Thriller Series.

Two separate cases start to merge in a very murky middle. Mari Ellwyn unravels an attempt to blackmail a federal appellate court judge. Derek Abernathy looks into the mysterious death of a college student. He also investigates the death and disappearance of two of the reporters covering her case.

The reporters pursued the trail of a story involving the judge with whom Mari works. It seems the judge had a connection to the dead college student in Derek’s case. As they dig deeper into the joined cases, threats against Mari start to come from all sides, even from her former handlers at the CIA.

But the secret buried, literally, at the heart of this case comes with a shock. Because the victim was not who she seemed. At least not all of the time.

Hot House delivers a dark, edge-of-the-seat thriller. It begins as a relatively straightforward investigation into seemingly unrelated mysteries. But as the story follows the investigation, especially Mari Ellwyn, two levels of mystery open up.

On the surface, Ellwyn and Abernathy are dogged and determined investigators who mostly follow the rules, if only because they want to make sure that the case will hold up for their mutual frenemy, Ellwyn’s ex-lover and Abernathy’s former boss, Ivan Dent, Chief of Detectives for the LAPD.

Not that they don’t play a bit fast and loose at the edges of those rules. After all, sometimes in the pursuit of truth, the investigators have to step outside the lines.

Everyone involved in this mystery seems to have deep, dark and often deadly secrets. It’s clear from this new investigation that Dent’s detectives missed way too much in that initial search. Abernathy won’t talk about his firing from the LAPD. Ellwyn keeps her real motive for pursuing this investigation under wraps.

But Sascha Sophie Michaud had the most secrets of all – some of which she kept even from herself. And Michaud’s secrets provide the threat to the investigators – along with making the case so difficult to solve.

Readers will easily put themselves in Mari Ellwyn’s shoes.

She loves her dog, she’s not so sure about relationships – she even has a strained one with her family. But her few friends will ride or die with her. As capable as she is – and she is very capable – readers will shake in their shoes as this mystery threatens Mari’s life.

The resolution of the case is marvelously done, managing to be both expected and unexpected at the same time. Not that the reader will see any of it coming.

In the final pages, while the disparate cases that Ellwyn and Abernathy began with have wrapped up very satisfactorily, it’s clear that Mari Ellwyn has just pulled another thread on a case she’s been following for over a year. Hot House ends with the sense that there’s more for Mari to uncover in her own personal quest.

Readers will be left hoping and looking forward to Mari Ellwyn’s future investigations.

February 5, 2022