Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: International Crime

REVENGE: A Bruce and Smith Thriller Book 2 by Randall Krzak – Global Thrillers, Suspense, International Crime

Randall Krzak raises the bar of the thriller genre with Revenge, the action-packed second book in the Bruce and Smith series.

Javier retires from the Army and his despised desk job at the Pentagon. He lived for the action of working in the field, so as a civilian, he tries to build an international investigative agency called The Brusch Agency. Thanks to his connections from the military, he can do exactly the work he wants, with the people he chooses.

Krzak sets up this book meticulously, building conflicts in the first several chapters. Javier needs to apply for his concealed-carry permit and private investigator’s license while finding office space for his agency, but his plans are staggered as his condo is broken into and trashed. Despite his investigation and that of law enforcement, the culprit remains a mystery.

Despite a rough night on his slashed mattress, he focuses on business, getting his permit and license. When he starts receiving a series of threatening emails, he realizes the B and E job on his condo wasn’t random, and he enlists his friends and fellow Brusch Agency investigators to uncover this threat.

Krzak masterfully uses AJ, Javier’s romantic interest, to ramp up the heat as their relationship grows, but also the tension when her life is put on the line.

AJ helps Javier as a partner, and Krzak’s smart and sexy female lead can more than hold her own. She helps Javier find the new office building, and within a day, it’s his. He begins to build his team, with AJ first on the list, but she hasn’t yet committed to giving up her gig at the CIA.

The target on Javier’s back only gets bigger as his agency grows.

The Brusch Agency gets its first overseas client and job from the DEA, while juggling the threat to Javier.

Javier’s team, including Snakes from book one in the series, The Columbia Betrayal, works to uncover the details of Islamic State terrorist trainers who worked out of Mexico. They discover that the person seeking revenge on Javier was a survivor of the Mexico attack.

As they begin work on their mission in Bermuda for the DEA, Krzak shifts his plot into high gear.

The team starts to unravel the case, putting together names in the local drug mafia and discovering where the drugs are delivered.

Krzak deftly weaves between Javier and his team’s work on two investigations. All the while, Javier is growing closer to AJ, but as much as he wants to take their relationship to the next level, he can’t until he finishes these missions and resolves the danger to his life.

This thriller draws on the precision of a retired military author to build a world of international intrigue, one well-versed in international diplomacy and foreign military aid.

Krzak uses these details to create a fascinating novel. His characters will draw readers in with their development, and commitment to keeping one another alive. Lovers of Lee Child and Tom Clancy will appreciate Krzak’s world-building, the detailed scenarios, and the daring rescues put forth by his heroic characters.

Revenge by Randall Krzak won First Place in the 2022 CIBA Global Thriller Awards for High Stakes Suspension.

January 12, 2024
THE SPILL by Keith Abbott – Terrorism Thriller, Techno-Thriller, International Crime

In Keith Abbott’s thriller, The Spill, an intelligent, well-funded, politically connected organization of Arab Terrorists precipitates an environmental catastrophe meant to have world-shattering consequences – in their favor, of course.

But the best-laid plans of mice and men oft go astray. Their plans are uncovered, giving their opposition a chance to mobilize all of its forces. Those terrible consequences may be too late to completely thwart, but there is just enough time to channel the disaster in a way that could save the world rather than end it.

All it will take is one lawyer who refuses to let the villains win and one crackerjack scientist willing to go where no one has gone before – and come back to tell the tale.

The gripping story of The Spill begins with a well-planned and thoroughly executed environmental disaster – along with a couple of less well-planned actual executions. From there it’s a breakneck race, as American oil company executive Jesse Ford struggles to contain the oil spill itself, the political and economic fallout, and dig deeply into the causes that set this whole mess up in the first place.

Set against Jesse and his colleagues is a hidden cabal of scientifically-minded terrorists who plan to take the West down by a combination of stealth, bioterrorism, and fanaticism. The first stages of their plan go almost flawlessly, but it begins going off the rails once Jesse and company start digging into their network of secrets.

The characters on the two sides of this conflict, Jesse Ford and Aran Lassiter, are forceful and driven, and yet opposite in every way.

Much of the story is told through Ford’s first-person perspective. From inside his head, we see a pragmatic man, but one who cares about his people and has lines he never thought he would cross.

Aran Lassiter is his perfect foil, a man broken and reforged in pain. He has been molded into a weapon, willing to cross any line and break any rule – or person – to share his pain with everyone in his path – friend and enemy alike.

The Spill is a techno-thriller that’s compulsively page-turning from the very first word.

The plot to destroy the West is chilling in its execution – all the more so because it feels entirely too plausible. Readers will get close to Jesse and his team, to the point where each victory is a moment to cheer, and each loss heartbreaking.

To thwart the villains, these heroes turn to a solution so far out of the box that it’s sourced in science fiction – but the story is so riveting that even non-SF readers will be pulled along to the conclusion.

The ending manages to plant the seeds of later destruction in its victorious moment, leaving readers hungering for more of this absolute thrill ride of a read!

November 20, 2023
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
CHASING OTHELLO: Book 2 of the Cleopatra Chronicles by Tina Sloan – International Mystery, Action & Adventure, Global Thriller

Chasing Othello by Tina Sloan has lies and spies, betrayal and espionage, love and hate, all wrapped up in a story that grabs the reader on the very first page and doesn’t let go until the last.

Forty-something Cleopatra is shattered after discovering that one of her best friends was a terrorist who had planned to blow up Pearl Harbor. When she discovered his intentions, she was forced to kill or be killed. Her Krav Maga training allows her to win that battle.

Shattered by the betrayal, Cleo retreats to her father’s estate in Dubai, only to find out she is pregnant at age forty-four.

Life on her father’s vast estate is a respite, but when her ex-lover is shot in the process of bringing down yet another terrorist, Cleopatra returns home to Honolulu with her now two-year-old daughter, only to discover that she is the target this time.

There are deceptions and red herrings aplenty in this compelling thriller.

The CIA focuses on the terrorist while the mastermind of the plot hides in plain sight. He has his sights firmly fixed on Cleopatra long before anyone knows that she is in danger. The tension ramps up high as the clues are painstakingly pulled together by a movie director who thinks that Cleopatra’s secrets might be a great hook for his next movie.

The story is told through multiple first-person points of view. The narrative focuses in turn on each of the main characters, from Cleopatra to her former lover’s wife, to his newly-fledged CIA son, to the film director, to the mastermind. Each voice is distinct, and the flip from perspective to perspective keeps the story moving at a breakneck pace, while providing a plethora of clues to fascinate along the way.

Chasing Othello is a thrill ride from beginning to blistering, bittersweet end.

Readers will laugh, cry and cheer as Cleopatra Gallier manages to save her own day – with a bit of help from the CIA – and find her own way to happiness after much danger and death.

She should enjoy her peace while she can, because there are plenty of hints at the end that storm clouds still gather on her horizon. Readers who have fallen in love with her and her world will be left eagerly anticipating what those storms might bring in her future.

This story begins where the first book in the Cleopatra Chronicles ends and is more than friendly to newbies who want to jump right into this second volume – although once someone has visited Cleopatra Gallier’s world they will be itching to return – if only to see what details they missed.

February 10, 2023
A SPLINTERED STEP: A Sarah McKinney Mystery by Marian Exall – Mystery, International Crime, Suspense

How does one avoid family at all cost? A change to name and identity? Participate in AA? Use of a drug or alcohol as a coping habit? Live in a trailer home?

Check out Marian Exall’s third book, A Splintered Step, in the Sarah McKinney series to find out what happens with her in Wales!

In the second book, Sarah lands an offer to help her mentor locate his distant daughter, and this adventure takes her to rural Dordogne, France. She also must confront her own inner challenges and dangers. Now, McKinney faces her family fears and the origins of her demons in a heart-stopping and heart-breaking story!

We learn more about a special someone in Sarah’s life who asks her to visit during the time between Christmas and New Year’s Day. She reconnects one evening with a musician named Deke. He ends up being her long-lost brother Shane who is in hiding from their abusive parents and plays covers of Rolling Stones songs. Exall describes all her characters effortlessly, making them lifelike, vivid and dynamic.

Even though the conflict of McKinney’s family is troubling and for some hard to read, her supportive journalist beau Dykstra leads her on a fact-finding mission that is impossible to ignore.

The pair reconnect over a cozy meal, where he surprises her with a lovely and sentimental family heirloom as a gift. They decide haphazardly to travel after attending the funeral of Dykstra’s beloved mentor, whose death came suddenly. While on their travels, they spend the first part of their trek getting to know Sarah’s musician brother, Deke. The two continue and after hours of driving into the white and cold dark winter, the snowbanks pile up and force them to reconsider their choice. As luck would have it, they end up at a bed and breakfast and spend the night, which is the scene for a plot twist!

Sarah’s story and family origins make for good imagery and believable characters with great dialogue. Some transitions didn’t flow effortlessly and seemed out of place such as the bird sanctuary at the B&B, but overall, the story is well crafted and is hard to put down. The chemistry between Dykstra and McKinney uses their professions to their advantage to solve the case: Dykstra is a journalist; McKinney is an international advocate. Dykstra is no fuss and only out to get the next big story, but McKinney loves a good adventure which helps the two balance each other out.

Although the descriptions of Wales as a location are sparse, the dialogue between a local host and his uncle (Uncle Georgie & Michael) give us a clearer understanding of the rural setting.

The love and tenderness that Sarah shows her brother is also a bright light in their dark and abusive family’s past. Plus, the plot-lines pulling on Dykstra and McKinney compel readers to devour this whodunnit page turner.

Readers will enjoy the story with or without the first two books in the Sarah McKinney series. A Splintered Step is a tale not for the faint of heart as there are some violent scenes, but it is worth continuing to see if the two can solve the case. The best audience for this book is someone who likes a good mystery, likes to travel in Europe and enjoys the Rolling Stones.

A Splintered Step by Marian Exall won 1st Place in the 2019 CIBA Clue Awards for Suspense & Thriller Mysteries.

May 4, 2022
Disowned – The Red-Heeled Rebels Series Novel One by Tikiri – Women’s Adventure, Thriller/Suspense, International Crime

Spanning three continents and taking on crucial issues of child marriage and human trafficking, Disowned features a brave teen heroine struggling against international criminality with nothing but her wits and grit.

Asha, born in Tanzania, is still a child when her parents are tragically killed while on a family safari in Kenya. Within a short period of time she is transported to Goa, India, to live with relatives she has never met. Her grandmother is an angry, culture-bound crone, her aunt and cousin living, as Asha now must, under the old woman’s seemingly heartless sway.

Not yet knowing the language or the social manners of her new homeland, Asha wears her best red shoes to school. She is beaten by the schoolmistress and taunted by classmates until she finds her saving grace—cooking. Beginning with lessons learned as a child and kitchen lore picked up from her new family, she starts her own business selling cupcakes, gaining grudging respect from classmates.

When her grandmother decides to sell her off to an old man who already has a wife and has no qualms about claiming his new child-bride by rape, Asha realizes she must escape — from grandmother, from Goa, and indeed from this horrible marriage.

The road is open to a new life in Canada, but there she will find she has been sold again, this time as the virtual slave of a demented old woman whose bizarre activities soon put Asha on the run again, this time with a new friend and fellow cook named Katy. The dangers are palpable, but the girls are determined to make a new life for themselves – anywhere and by any means.

Tikiri is an entrepreneurial, adventurous self-described “recovering nomad,” and is the author of a series of Non-Fiction books in support of ambitious young women. The Rebel Journal Workbooks touch on subjects of finding your passion and making plans to reach your goal. One senses she has either personally observed or studiously researched the settings she so vividly describes – from the African veldt to the hovels of backstreet Goa.

Tikiri’s central character, Asha, is naïve but definitely not lacking in good sense or in empathy for the suffering she sees around her. Knowing little about men, she nonetheless intuits that her prospective husband would be a brute and her life in Goa an endless grind. She knows she’s made for better things and desires to help her ailing aunt and culturally trapped cousin if she can. Tikiri’s writing is skillful and creative; her storyline never flags. As she leads from twist to turn in the well-constructed plot, her reader’s attention will stay riveted on Asha’s continually escalating challenges. Female readers (from older teens to adults) will find kinship with the girls in the story and look forward to the next installment of Asha’s adventures.

A tale that sounds too real for comfort at times, Disowned, is the first book in the Red-Heeled Rebels series and presents a disturbing view of powerless, exploited women and girls in third-world countries through the hopeful eyes of a determined young woman trying to beat the odds.

January 16, 2019
DEAD in DUBAI by Marilynn Larew; an international spy thriller

Larew has found a comfort zone in describing exotic settings, and her perspicacity for honing in on minute details gives her work a sense of authenticity. Through the eyes of her intrepid, intelligent heroine, we are treated to an insider’s view of locales like Dubai and Istanbul.

In this second Lee Carruthers offering (The Spider Catchers provided the opening salvo), author Marilynn Larew again displays her prodigious knowledge of the international dealings in diamonds, deception and death that are hidden from the headlines.

Employing her wry wit (“I disapprove of assassination, particularly my own”), Carruthers, a woman of a certain age (“my long brown hair had a few strands of silver”) is looking for a dead man. After quitting the CIA and vowing she wouldn’t go to Dubai to look for CIA operative George Branson, she is inveigled into doing just that by the appeals of Branson’s wife Cynthia, and possibly equally, by the little brass key that Cynthia gives her. Figuring out what that key unlocks will consume Carruthers; finding out why Cynthia plunges off a balcony to her death, and others will die while the hunt is on, will provoke far more troubling questions.

Carruthers, a sort of female Bond, can identify a person’s borough of origin by his accent, and tell whether a man is an American or English by the way he takes his whiskey—with or without ice. She knows where to get the best pastry, what wine to order, and in which Islamic enclave she can walk around without a head covering. She bribes passport control agents and befriends charming crooks. And she’s tough, always carrying a Glock, with a knife in a sheath on her leg. She goes through several weapons in the course of this story, and uses a particular firearm to good effect occasioning one of the book’s better zingers: “Tears came to my eyes but they didn’t spoil my aim.”

Carruthers is a person of principle, so when she gets caught up in a spy vs. spy morass, she keeps her own counsel and tries to do the right thing, though with the CIA and the Russian mafiya trying to outfox each other, she knows she may be seen as expendable. In the end, she has her ethics intact, a small bag of rough diamonds as compensation for her troubles, and some disturbing conclusions about who George Branson was, or is?—and who’s playing footsy with whom under the big table.

In an age when national, ethnic and political identities and loyalties have blurred the lens of spy-craft, Larew’s heroine is right up to speed. And if the story line seems at times to move too fast and somewhat jerkily, it’s also true that there are few if any lulls in the action. Still, some readers may find the wrap-up final chapter rather mechanical, and may wonder why Carruthers, who keeps protesting that she quit the CIA in order not to be sent on dangerous assignments, hops on board for another missing-person case on the last page. But lucky for Larew’s readers that Carruthers accepts the assignments despite her better judgement.

A sequel seems to be brewing that may perhaps reveal a softer side of Lee Carruthers. In this story there is a hint, but just: someone named Kemel, and a bloodstained pearl.

Larew has built up steam with her fascinating femme-sometimes-fatale protagonist and her writer’s grip on the subtleties of international intrigue and double crossings that ratchets up the race against time in this spy vs. spy thriller.

June 2, 2015
An Editorial Review of “Tea Leafing” by Weezie Macdonald

In her debut novel, Tea Leafing, Weezie Macdonald demonstrates extraordinary skill in deftly weaving the multifaceted personalities and lives of a quartet of friends—exotic dancers (or strippers, as you will) at a high-end gentlemen’s club in Atlanta. It is an intriguing thriller of local graft, mafia-style murder, international drug rings, money laundering, and revenge.

Juxtaposed with the shadier side of Tea Leafing is the story of these women’s’ loyalty to each other, clever sleuthing, and determination not to let their co-worker and friend’s unjust and gruesome death go un-avenged.

Macdonald masterfully develops the rich and distinctly different characters of Sam, Grace, Mary Jane, and Birdie both on and off stage at the Pink Pussycat, yet enables them to mesh within the close bonds of their friendship, especially when they resolve to face the dangers of joining forces to solve Lena’s murder. Tears of loss and compassion flow as they mourn their friend’s death, though they purposefully maintain a discreet distance from Lena’s high-society Savannah family and friends—all except her younger sister Amanda, who provides a key clue.

Chunks of humor lighten the story—in the shenanigans and uninhibited dialog of the feisty-tongued, Irish-born, Manchester-raised Birdie, and vignettes of the club manager’s outlandishly dressed and coiffed mother, Pietra Maria Speranza DiFrancesco, who sails through the crowded club like a battleship, bellowing for her son Gio. Macdonald’s colorful descriptions enable us to smell the smoky air of the club, the whiskey, the perfume, even the sweat. We feel ourselves to be a part of the scene, and of the lives of those within it. Her multifaceted characterizations make us aware that people are not only, or perhaps not at all, what or who they appear to be.

The story accelerates at a heart-stopping pace, as the clues build and the quartet construct their plan of action. Additional colorfully drawn characters join the cast, and the scene explodes to cover the globe—the Caribbean, Russia, Switzerland, Japan, Singapore. The suspense builds as money launderers, the Russian mob, and the underworld of Atlanta come into play. The urge to turn the pages faster and faster fights the need to absorb the intricate detail of the story. Heed that warning, readers, or you’ll find yourselves back in Atlanta not quite sure what happened.

Tea Leafing by Weezie Macdonald is an entertaining and captivating mystery that will take you on a great ride on the wild side.

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Editorial note: If you, like this reviewer, feel as though you’ve made some very good friends only to have to tell them goodbye, Weezie Macdonald is not going to let that happen. This quartet will entertain us again in the next book of Macdonald’s series. And, yes, you will discover what “tea leafing” is all about.]

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October 30, 2013