Suspense-account Books

cant say enough about these books, funny, insightfull, gripping, read it with a pie and chips

Denise Mina is without peer in her detailed portrayal of the underbelly population of England's cities. Hers are the bluest-of-blue-collared people with whom we avoid eye contact if we notice them at all. And if we do notice, we look quickly away, likely without any curiosity. She uses our stereotypes of the underclass to introduce us to her stories and then smacks us down with brilliant characterizations. Unlike a previous reviewer, I think it is absolutely essential that her settings are British and that she doesn't always provide a regional thesaurus for our ease of comprehension. In fact, there isn't any pandering to the audience in any of Mina's books; she seems to write for herself without a shred of coyness or trickery and if she catches us unawares, it may be because we weren't paying attention.

In "Field of Blood", Mina uses a sensational true murder as her departure point: In 1993, two 10-year-old boys murdered a toddler in Liverpool and the resulting trial was predictably sensational, even by British standards. In her similar story, Mina delves into the background of not only the boys and their families but also the community from which they arose. Our guide is Paddy Nelson, the new copygirl at the Scottish Daily News who has visions of a life as a tough, incisive reporter but a reality that is much drearier, even in its complexity. The story weaves through the official investigation, Paddy's hit-and-miss investigation, and Paddy's fractured personal life. Perhaps this would be a good time to mention that I was initially repulsed but then truly captivated by the slobby, sophomoric girl who grew and matured over the course of the book.

Make no mistake, Denise Mina writes very tough books with mature subject matter and unflinching plotlines and these books aren't for everyone, but they are for me. In fact, she's one of a new breed of lady writers coming out of the British Isles who write big, beautifully plotted, very dark psychological thrillers. That club includes Mo Hayder, Minette Walters, and my favorite (favourite?), Val McDermid, who provided Denise Mina with the detailed workings of a regional newsroom.

I own a country store and am a serious book junkie. I put all my stuff on the shelves, free for the taking, and encourage others to do the same. I just happened upon this book in this fashion, a dog-eared paperback left by a stranger.

For reference I am a Michael Connoly, Robert Crais, James Lee Burke sort of a person. Denise Mina is right up there with the best of them.

I always feel like apologizing for the time I give up to mysteries...but I have to say that I love the writing, the characters, the insights these authors bring to the table....it is not just plot and action.

Denise Mina writes about Glasgow. Her heroine is an Irish Catholic girl from a working class family....not an upwardly mobile LA male. Her heroine is quiet, self deprecating, subtle...and so is the writing. This was something completely different.....but I loved the characters, the insights, the writing.....Enough to drop everything and go out to Borders and buy the hardback of her new book.

Highly recommended.

Absolutely stunning, riveting throughout. I just could not put it down. Ms. Mina is a first class writer of crime drama. The only drawback is it's having been written for a British audience. The characters are incredibly real, the crime horrific, but not garishly told. The story flows from the first page, and has a well thought out excellent ending.

This is a satisfying, well-written, dark and violent example of "tartan noir," beginning with a child's murder (based on the 1993 James Bulger case).

Paddy Meehan is overweight and insecure but deeply ambitious and verbally holds her own with the men at the newspaper where she works as a gofer. Paddy is perfectly willing to lie, break the law-- or shove a rival's head in a toilet-- as a means to a just end, or to jumpstart her career.

Paddy is shunned by her family, ridiculed by the police, rejected sexually by her staid Catholic boyfriend, and inadvertently causes one gruesome death while investigating another. She grows up a bit in the course of the novel; her desire for justice and her natural talent for journalism make her sympathetic in spite of her continual bad judgment.

This is a terrific read but a graphic and dark one.

I totally enjoyed this three-in-one book. I passed it along to a friend and she liked it too. Now I am looking for more books by Monica Ferris.

A handy way to read the first three Monica Ferris books! Supurb idea!

These are the first Monica Ferris books I have read. The stories center around a needlework shop called Crewel World.There are many references to different types of needlework. Being a needleworker, I enjoy all the very accurate comments to different types of needlework. Being a mystery lover this makes for a great combination. Easy enjoyable reading!

1

SEARCH CONTINUES FOR MISSING MT. OLIVE GIRL...FEW LEADS IN SEARCH FOR 11-YEAR-OLD...ABDUCTION CASE IN FOURTH WEEK. NO RANSOM DEMANDS.

Merilee Graf has a lot of baggage left over from childhood, including the nagging mystery of what happened to her fifth-grade classmate. When Lilac Jemson went missing, the adults of Mt. Olive took pains to shield the other children from learning about it --- Merilee's parents among them; in fact, more fervently than most. They avoided talking about it at all costs. To mention it or ask why Lilac wasn't around anymore sent them into a near rage. Why all the secrecy?

Sixteen years passed, and Lilac didn't surface. But Merilee never forgot about her. Now, Merilee returns to her hometown. Her father is gravely ill and she grapples with residual conflicting emotions. Did her father ever really love her? Sometimes he seemed so cold. She believes she was never the daughter he wanted, as her mother was never the wife he wanted. Yet he could --- could --- act warm and caring. Merilee was definitely a daddy's girl, while her mother embarrassed her, sometimes to the point that she wished her mother gone, dead, out of her life. Edith Graf had had some heavy emotional issues to deal with. She was always there for Merilee --- at least until her early demise --- but preoccupied with her own problems for the most part. Was Merilee too harsh in her judgment of her?

While her father lies listless in the local hospital, Merilee brings him personal treasures from the family home, including a heart-shaped magnifying glass that she bought for him one day. It was a special gift, chosen with painstaking care. But he seems less attached to it than she. For her, it is a symbol with a dual meaning, and, when she discovers it's missing after he dies, her mission to find out who took it becomes near obsession. Even the hospital staff starts to grow somewhat hostile toward her endless inquiries about it.

In her search for the missing heart, Merilee reconnects with a brief flame from her past, Roosevelt Jemson --- Lilac's brother. Over a decade and a half later, he still piques her curiosity. What once might have been fizzled before it got started, now they both have some lingering feelings to deal with over it.

Meanwhile, Jedah Graf, Merilee's "uncle," arrives for the funeral services. Never her favorite, Merilee finds herself repulsed and intrigued at the same time. But considering the majority of her relatives, her attraction to Jedah --- a slick, manipulative, but often comforting presence --- might be understandable. Plus, she is weakened by the devastation in the wake of her loss. While Merilee is working through her grief, secrets surface --- secrets no one who has just lost a father should have to face.

Masterfully written, THE STOLEN HEART is not your typical mystery. It's in large part a character study, with a look at the dark side of people. That's no surprise, though, when you discover that "Lauren Kelly" is a pseudonym for Joyce Carol Oates.

--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers

I like honesty in my books, and when one purports to tell the truth, I have high standards. So when I found out that this book was hardly true, it soured me on it. If it was a fictional account, it would be good reading, but it's not so it isn't.

First, Capote took no notes when he interviewed the men, yet he chronicles highly detailed conversations. I guess he must be special, unlike the 99.99 of journos who take notes. Moreover, Capote fell in love with Smith. And his book is filled with an effort to make Smith likable and sympathetic, and make Hickok into the evil one. This despite the fact that Smith brutally, and 'in cold blood' murdered the family. Capote also tried to make one believe that Hickok killed two of the people, even though Smith confessed after his last appeal was rejected.

Anyway, the story just doesn't ring true and given the background of Capote's involvement with Smith, and the pains he goes to to make smith likable, I just cannot trust Capote's integrity here. If you want truth in your true crime, this prolly isn't going to fit the bill. But if you just want a decent read and don't care about veracity, this might be your book.

Capote has painted a vivid picture of a brutal murdering of innocent and wholesome family. It is creepy to read at parts. The book jumps around to different characters showing their perspective. Including the murderers. Some reviewers have said Capote is very sympathetic to the killers but I did not read that into the text. Yes, he does show up who they were and that necessarily humanizes them but does not show admiration for them and their dirty deeds. If anything, Capote shows an admiration for the people of Holcomb - for their decency and lack of desired vengeance.

Capote is a masterful storyteller with great descriptions of the people, places, and times in which these heinous acts were committed. I think he does slightly overstep his bounds near the end where he seems to be making a case against the death penalty but for at least one of the perpetrators this can be very well argued. Also at some parts Capote goes into length on the background of the killers and that got a little dull. Overall a great work.

This was my third copy - thanks to lending and forgetting to reclaim. Every so often I re-read it, making it my own "cult classic". What a story - still grim but exciting after all these years. This time around, I also had to re-purchase "To Kill a Mockingbird" - lost from the same causes as "In Cold Blood". I enjoyed a week of reading both books and delving into more research regarding the long relationship between Capote and Lee.

Murder in small town, homosexual overtones, graphic descriptions - must have really shook up the world in 1966. Even today is a captivating read. Capote has a way with words and that makes this story probably more entertaining than it should be. He paints the time very well and as the reader you go back to a much different time.

...if it only were one! I would feel so much better liking it. It is a brilliant piece of borderline writing, mixing 'fiction' and journalism.

Unfortunately it also seems to have done something highly immoral, if the story as told by the movie 'Capote' is correct: it seems that Capote deceived the killers, who are his subject of observation, into seeing him as 'on their side', ie supporting their defense. He befriended them, including unclear levels of personal attraction,and made one of them open himself up to him. The killer seems to have actually confessed to Capote. Then Capote published the book in a rush before the legal procedings were over, thus cementing the death sentence for his 'friends'. (Somehow Heisenberg with his uncertainty principle, das Unschaerfeprinzip, comes to mind - I just happen to have read something about it yesterday - : observations and measurements will influence the object of the observation. Not quite meant in the same context of course.)

While I am in principle against the death penalty, I can't quite manage to regret that these two mass murderers were hanged. But still.
The book describes life and death in Western Kansas in 1959. Two jailbirds kill 4 members from a wealthy farmer's family 'in cold blood'. The book claims early on, that the killers had singled out this specific farm, following hints from an informer, and that they went there with the intention to rob and kill.
Capote crawls into the minds and lives of the protagonists and witnesses in an uncannily believable way. This is so well constructed that it should be a novel. Real life can never be that plausible.

I had picked the book up from a corner of a shelf that I wanted to re-arrange. I started to read it and much against my expectations, I found it good. My expectations were different for various reasons. Antipathy based on P.S.Hoffman's character in the movie is one reason. My recollection that I was bored by a German translation 35 years ago is another. (Could have been a bad translation or could have been a bad reader.) My failure to like Capote's short stories yet another. My recent reading of Gore Vidal's two volume memoirs yet another: these two guys hated each others' guts.

I started reading this with the intention to give it away afterwards for a charity second hand book sale. Can't do that now.

I really love these characters and Janet Evonovich does a great job of mixing comedy and suspense. I wanna be Stephanie Plum!

in the book Stephine has to bring in Ranger and although she refuses to do so, two idots are following her around to get him for their boss, the bounty Hunter, Joyce, ends up following her too to get Ranger.
i flet like Evanovich was trying to make is like the first Plum Novel, ONE FOR THE MONEY, becasue Ranger and Stephine have a little romance going on throughout... i felt like she was trying to top her first book and it was not working! the only charater that i really enjoyed thoughout was Carol. and thats about it.

It seems as if only every other book in this series capture my attention. But at least we do know who was knocking on Stephanie's door.

In this sixth outing, Stephanie is hot on the trail of a guy that killed his wife and has a general dislike for all woman; and since Stephanie does seem to be of the girl variety, this makes for quite an interesting adventure. If only Ranger was available, but unfortunately Ranger has a couple problems of his own. Most importantly, Ranger has skipped on his own bail and now has two amateurs looking for him in addition to the infamous Joyce.

This comedy of errors only intensifies when Grandma Mazur decides to move in with Stephanie and Ranger makes a surprise visit.

i love the plum novels. i've finished several in just the last few weeks. i read some bad reviews on here, but those people must have been expecting oscar wilde or something! oy.

at any rate, i love the entire series. i only had one complaint with this book. the pakistani bad guy was a raging stereotype. of the worst kind. it's possible to have a muslim bad guy who isn't of the terrorist ilk. maybe just a bad guy from pakistan? i don't know any pakistanis (or muslims in general)that talk like he did, and there are oodles of them where i live.

otherwise great book!

This is absolutely the best of the 14 (so far) in the series. Hysterically funny, and well worth the read!

The blindingly eclectic style of Jasper Fforde wraps itself around another tale of Thursday Next.

Ms. Next lives in this world (her version of it, anyway) and with in the world of books and stories. Not in the sense of being an avid reader, or immersing the imagination in a story, but truly becoming part of the living souls of stories. Good and bad, treasures or tripe, each book (complete with its full cast) waits patiently to be read. It is the interaction of reader and tale that brings it all to life. Within that world, the Jurisfiction agents keep what order may be found. But what happens when the cast members get tired of sitting around waiting for the next reader? Things can get more than a little odd. And what about the legions of Evil Genius types in either world who have only a total inability in the cooperation and group dynamics areas between themselves and domination of the known worlds (among others)?

I am old enough to remember the impact John Meyers Meyers made with Silverlock back in the 60's, and the way each new generation finds its way through the referential mazes that dot the page. Fforde is the writer Meyers could have been, with a much better sense of humour.

If you are not a Fforde fan, I beseech you -- get The Ayre Affair, start at the beginning, and you will find yourself buying copies for the friends you particularly like. One caveat: never lend any of your own copies.

This is the 4th book by this author I've enjoyed immensely. Understand he has a new effort out in July - can hardly wait. Mr. Forde has great talent and while themes are light-hearted, there's a lot of serious thought involved as well.

It was only after I had engaged that author that I realized this was the fourth in a loosly connected series. I am not sure, however, that reading the priors were necessary. I just could not get into the text. It took so much work to sort out what was happening, I gave up. Some called the book funny, I called it redicuous. It's not my genre and maybe my mood was too serious, but it seemed a confusing waste of time to me.

Like all of Jasper Fforde's books, Something Rotten combines literary allusion, alternate history and science fiction in a seamless narrative. In this installment of Fforde's Thursday Next series, Ms. Next, a real person who has spent the last several years living inside of books and leading the BookWorld's police force, Jurisfiction, returns to the real world to get back her husband, Landen. In a bizarre twist of circumstances that Thursday herself can't understand, the time-traveling police force known as the ChronoGuard has eradicated Landen by changing history at the moment that would have been his conception. The only evidence of his existence is Thursday's memory of the life she had with him in an alternate past, and the paradoxical existence of Friday, Thursday and Landen's infant son.

Other matters also preoccupy Thursday upon her return to the real world. Hamlet has also left the BookWorld temporarily and starts to think about rewriting his play. Thursday's old nemesis the Goliath Corporation is, for some reason, trying to convert itself into a religion. Worst of all, Yorrick Kaine, the Chancellor of England, has won the mindless devotion of the whole country and seeks to become absolute dictator. Thursday must fulfill the prophesy of a resurrected thirteenth-century monk to prevent Kaine from seizing power and starting a war that destroys the world.

Like all of Fforde's books, Something Rotten piques my interest in classics I haven't read yet and refreshes my memory of English class discussions about ones I have. This installment of the series brought to mind discussions of Hamlet with one of my favorite high school teachers, and it provided an entertaining reminder of the play's principle themes. When characters try to change their own stories, it's fun to recall the original version and how it differs. I also find myself looking up place names on maps to see how the locations in Fforde's universe, with its alternate history, match up with real-life ones.

I also loved the book's humor. Memorable examples include Fforde's description of a high-stakes croquet game, which uses a tea party on the lawn and an Italian sunken garden as obstructions and hazards. Another favorite of mine was the way the narrator of the audiobook pronounced the obscene Old English of the resurrected monk Saint Zvlkx.

I recommend this book for people who enjoy humor, alternate history, or a lighthearted exploration of classic literature.

This is the fourth book in the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. I liked all of them. They provide a similar kind of escapism, magic and drama as Harry Potter books, but there is also a lot of original humor.

Many will find it takes at least a bit of time to get into this novel. After reading each of the many narrators you realize that in your own life you likely will never be able to know what is perception and what is reality. Beautiful writing.

So, I read this book. It took months. It was 600 bloviating pages. It was painful at some points, and thought-provoking at others. The book certainly has its upside. Perlman is a truly talented writer in many aspects. He writes beautiful expository prose. The language he uses is lush and thick and wonderful. The problem is I don't often associate those qualities with hookers. You see, one of the characters in Seven Types of Ambiguity is a hooker who is apparently working her way through a Harvard docotoral program, because she, like all of the characters possesses a voice that his highly intelligent, capable of making and understanding the most obscure literary references, and extremely insightful about herself and the world at large. Think Dawson's Creek for the intellectual set. I hate to say it, but I like my fictional hookers sassy and trashy. Sure, give me the hooker-with-the-heart-of-gold vis-a-vis Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman every so often, but in general I expect my hookers to be... well, hookers. Of course, Angelique is only one example of a character whose character does not match her persona. All of the characters, as many critics have cited, use the same exact voice. The voice, one would assume, of Perlman. I'm not as smart as Perlman, that much is true, but at least I'm true to my own voice when I say: I don't get it.

I went into Seven Types of Ambiguity with high hopes. A reviewer's blurb on the back called it The Alexandria Quartet for grown ups. Since The Alexandria Quartet is a huge favorite of my partner, I was very excited to read something comparable in one novel instead of four.

The meat of the story is fairly simple: for ten years Simon is infatuated with and silently stalking his ex-girlfriend Ana until one day he decides to kidnap her son. The problem is Ana is unhappily married to Joe who is regularly seeing a prostitute named Angelique who is living with Simon and is unrequitedly in love with him. This incident sets in motion events, suspicions, and emotions told from the perspective of seven different characters and how it dramatically effects all of them.

Sounds promising, right? And initially it is.

The first two sections are engrossing. You get to know the cast of characters. You're slowly made privy to what is going on. You're wondering what's going to happen next. Perlman is a good writer and you're pulled along the trajectory of his novel until suddenly you begin to notice that with each and every section the character's "voices" all sound the same. The uneducated prostitute sounds like the psychiatrist who sounds like the angry stockbroker who sounds like the ex-girlfriend ad infinitum ad nauseum. And, in all seriousness, who talks like these people? It's clear that Perlman is telling the story insteading of letting his characters do that for him.

After awhile, Perlman's writing gets so hamfisted, overbloated, and pseudo-intellectually esoteric that I was becoming annoyed. Very, very annoyed, not only with Perlman's writing but also with his characters. I hated every one of them except for Angelique who was the only character that was a victim of her circumstances. The other characters were self-loathing whiners who had every opportunity to better their situation but chose not to.

I have no doubt Mr. Perlman is an extremely intelligent individual, he hammers you over the head with verbose paragraph after verbose paragraph until you get it, until you realize that he's soooooooo smart. It was bit like reading Franzen's The Corrections. Just tell the story already!

There's 20 pages of a character explaining the inner workings and hierarchy of the stockmarket. There's a few dozen pages of conversational debates regarding Epsom's seven types of ambiguity and various other works of literature. Do I really need to know the entire inner workings of the Australian legal system to understand a basic court scene? Do I really need to read countless pages of characters blathering on about topics that do nothing to further the plot? At least two characters were wholly uneccessary (Mitch, Klima's daughter), and the ending of the novel is farfetched at best. I would have preferred a much more ambiguous conclusion than Perlman's half-hearted attempt to wrap things up neatly. Clearly Perlman's editor was asleep at the wheel. Seven Types of Anbiguity could have been a sleek and taut drama had 300+ pages been trimmed off its bulk and it probably would not have taken me two months to read.

I always say if a writer can evoke from me a strong dislike for their protangonists, then they must be a good writer. However, I've never experienced a writer who was able to evoke from me a strong dislike for the writer himself. Now that's ambiguity

Another five-star review. Inventive, engaging, and brilliant. No plot points mentioned here, just wanted to add my five-star review with the rest. This book really is worth reading. Kept me guessing until the very end how it would all turn out. Wonderful tension between the main characters. Almost as good as Tolstoy. Reminded me just a little of Anna Karenina for some reason, has that same love-hate-guilt-revenge kind of motif throughout the story.

I can't imagine that anybody who likes creative, original literature could find anything wrong with this book. So much better than the usual mediocrity.

This book is a love story. It is a mystery. It is a psychological thriller. It is a tragedy.

The story is about a man who decides to kidnap his ex-lover's son from the school yard. The kidnapper's thoughts, his feelings for the boy and his ex-lover and his relationships with his current girlfriend and psychotherapist are all examined.

In seven parts, this novel examines how seven people each view the events surrounding the kidnapping of a young boy. How these seven people are connected and their multifaceted interactions make this book more intriguing.

I enjoyed the uniqueness of the presentation, the many mysteries that unfolded as the relationship of the different characters became more obvious. I recommend this book highly.

I enjoyed the cultural insights into the Arab-American community and family. The book was rather slow for the first half but then it picks up; the tale she weaves is worth reading. I didn't care for the first two or three pages of each chapter as the main character's uncle tells an ongoing fable from old. The current day story was very interesting but probably not a book for those who want a fast-paced thriller.

Abu-Jabar's writing is beautiful with its poeticism, richness, and vivid imagery. A story line dealing with Arab-Americans that treats the subject with humanity and complexity is essential in today's world of suspicion and distrust of the Arab world. That being said, I'm having a hard time finishing this book. I think that the story line moves a little slow for me. Maybe I'm just not into the love story genre. Overall, I would recommend to give this book a chance for the good things that it does have going for it.

Reading Diana Abu-Jaber's novel, Crescent, we can fly with her on a magical carpet to Iraq and Jordan. Fly to a fairytale world of minarets and domed mosques, we can taste rich baklava with her and savor the sweet fragrance of mint tea in a Bedouin's tent, counter pointed by exploding Iranian missiles in 1990's Bagdad. Diana is the daughter of an Irish Catholic mother and a dominant Arab-Jordanian father, she spoke of what it meant to grow up Arab in America. A tale lyrically told illuminating for us the minds of people of the Midle East.

Crescent

This is the story of Sirine, half Iraqi-half American, who works in a Lebanese Cafe in Los Angeles. Still single at 40, Sirine lives with her uncle, enjoys her fullfilling work as a Chef, and is the centre of attraction for men coming to the cafes, attracted by her middle eastern dishes which remind them of home and her mysterious ways. In a setting of homesickness, love for a lost country and longing for the middle east, Abu Jaber weaves a slow tale of love, woes and food. Sirine meets mysterious Han, Aziz and Nathan, all haunted in some way or another by Iraq and Sirine. This is quite a slow story which I thought could have benefited from deeper character development, especially for Sirine, but the whole Middle Eastern setting I thought was beautifully recreated. This is a great book for anyone interested especially in Iraqi culture.

All four thumbs, including those on my prehensile feet, down. Seven hundred or thousand pages about an illiterate goober with the hots for a nice guy. Played-out insights on immigrant life. Deployment of the most aggravating Arabic literary conventions. If you didn't want to bomb them before, you will after this. Even the recipes, so relentlessly an articulation device in the plot for the aforementioned goober, aren't good enough.
For them, go check out the Empress Claudia Roden, and the magnificent, irreplacable, mind boggling, Edda Servi Machlin.

Lyndsay Faye has written a very nice first book. 'Dust and Shadow' pits the great Sherlock Holmes against Jack the Ripper. The great English literary hero versus the mysterious and unsolved Ripper murders. Can the great detective solve these crimes and stop the evil?

The books takes the reader through the Ripper murders and weaves the great characters from the Sherlock Holmes books (Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, etc). I found the sotry to be very interesting and moved.

I was left a little unsatisfied at the ending. The killer is confronted by our heroes, but we get little explaination as to what drove him. It seems a little too neatly wrapped up. It is a very good summer read. I will be looking forward to future books by Faye.

As a long time Sherlock Holmes fan, I've read almost every book I can find on my favorite fictional character. This book hits the mark. Lindsay Faye's writing style is very much like the Master Conan Doyle. Her characters ring true and even though the story line is one we all know, "Jack the Ripper" it's fresh and creative and leaves you wanting more. I hope she continues to write more about Sherlock Holmes.

Lyndsay Faye's photo on the back cover shows her to be a very pretty young woman. And she wrote this magnificent Sherlock Holmes story about Jack the Ripper? That pretty woman? She has the feel, the texture, the voices of Holmes and Watson down pat. Her Mrs Hudson (Holmes and Watson's den mother) is spot on. And Holmes solves the identity of Jack!!! Holmes lovers---read this book, Ms Faye has accurately channeled the very spirit of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Interesting reading as Holmes and Dr. Watson match wits with Jack The Ripper. Written in Arthur Conan Doyle style.

Summary:
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Dust and Shadow is the first novel by Lyndsay Faye; it is a very good effort and better than most books being published today. The writing is crisp, effective but a bit simplistic at times. The use of facts from Jake the Ripper is very nicely integrated into the story. The novel does take a modern view of police vs. social views from the time of the murders. It is a quick read and you will not want to put it down. Overall, this is a very good book and worth your time.

World development:
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It has a good grasp of the time period and fairly affective descriptions of the Whitechapel area, the inhabitants of Whitechapel and a good feel for the Sherlock Holmes mythology/milieu. The descriptions were a bit light for my taste. I would like the author to add more descriptions as it would helped suck the reader into the story to an even greater degree.

I am not a Sherlock Holmes scholar, so my view of how well the Holmes milieu was executed is based on my reading of the stories by Sir Authur Conan Doyle not studying them in detail. The integration of the Holmes milieu into the London of Jack the Ripper was well done.

Characters:
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The character development was minimal as the main characters are based on set canon. Holmes was very frustrated and angry in many parts of the book which seemed a bit out of place given how his character is known for intellectual control and mastery. Some frustration makes sense given the nature of killings and having to build tension in the story. Dr. Watson seemed a bit inconsistent on his switching between overly sensative to willing to wade into analyzing mutilated bodies in a clinical manner. Miss Molly was well done but was a bit too high brow at points for someone living in Whitechapel and working as a very lowly prostitute.

Action:
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The action is well executed -- descriptions and timing. A very good job done in this area.

Prose:
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The writing style is the only part of the book that I have a bit of an issue with. Lyndsay overall writing is quite good but left me wanting for more in several spots in the book. The area descriptions are not gritty enough -- Whitechapel was a aweful dirty place and she does not quite capture it appropriately. The descriptions were too short; where she does more description the book does shine as it helps to suck the reader in very effectively and affectively.

Holmes' seemed a bit overly short with other characters and bit borderline unstable to me. My guess is that the author was trying to get a sense of urgency worked into the story that she was fairly effective at doing. However, it would help make the Holmes' character more interesting -- the tone became a bit shrill and annoying near the end of the book (monotonic with frustation and anger which becomes off-putting with repetition).

Summary: 4 stars
World: 3.5 to 4 stars
Characters: 4 stars
Action: 4 to 4.25 stars
Prose: 4 stars
Plot: 4 to 4.25 stars

The author clearly knows his way around international banking. The book is a good relaxing read and keeps you interested enough that you will find yourself picking it up often. I wish that the author did not have to "tell" you everything his characters are thinking and the motive behind those thoughts. Some things should be left up to the reader to deduce and then validate later in the story. Had it not been for this consistent and constant foreshadowing, I would have given this book higher marks. Still, if you like stories that have factual, credible details, you will not be disappointed.

I couldn't put this book down. Best book I have read in a long time.

Making an innocent bet at happy hour starts this financial thriller. Set in the Swiss banking environment, Alex Payton follows the thread of an account she was working with.
The book follows her attempts to find the Holocaust owner of the account.
The author's banking background makes this a good read as the story weaves thru the banking industry in several countries.
I found this an admiral first attempt by the author. At some times I found some scenes were formulaic but still was a good read.

At first hand, the premise for Charles Epping's novel "Trust" would not sound terribly interesting. In 1938, a year before the outbreak of World War II, the manager for a wealthy German Jewish family sets up an account at a Swiss bank under an assumed name (a so-called Treuhand account) so that if the Nazis invade Switzerland, they would not be able to confiscate the assets of Jewish account holders. Both the family patriarch and the manager perish during the war and by the dawn of the 21st Century, the account has grown to over $[...] Million in value and the heirs to the fortune have never been told of the account's existence.

This sounds like the setup for a dull work that would be of interest only to accountants. In the hands of all too many writers, it would be an exerise in dullness. However, author Charles Eppings carries it off with style and grace and the end result is a most unusual, yet compulsively interesting novel.

It is most recommended.

Aladar Kohen,a Jewish citizen of Hungary,decides to hide hid family
assets in a Swiss bank before the Nazi war machine comes to Hungary..He
goes to the Helvetia Bank of Zurich where he meets Rudolph Tobler.Tobler
explains to Kohen the most effective way to hide his assets from the
Nazis is to use a trustee(Treuhand)account.Someone else's name is on the
account thereby hiding the Jewish name.This would prevent seizure of the account by the Nazis.This was done on the assumption that the Nazis will
invade Sweden.Kohen makes Tober the person in charge of his trustee account.This is in 1937.
You move to modern day times.Alex Payton is employed by Helvetia Bank of Zurich.She accidently discovers this account while working on her computer. She starts investigating and finds Tobler's son.Her investigation takes her to Budapest,Amsterdam,the United States, and Brazil.She discovers that the account now has a value of $397 million dollars.Alex starts a search for more heirs.This turns into quite a journey.She also discovers that this account is being used to launder money.Her life is in danger.This book has an exciting end.This is a very entertaining book that I enjoyed readin.