The DRIFTER by Nicholas Petrie ****

A story about a veteran with some stories about the homeless etc in along with the storyline. There's someone amassing bomb materials and Peter Ash has to save the day. He begins by visiting a dead friends wife and kids then a dog is found under a porch guarding some money which he offered the wife but no one knows where the money comes from and later in the story it doesn't sound like he committed suicide after all.

Quick moving story line, well drawn characters and your interest is on the story all the time. I liked it but there were a few dog things I wasn't happy about. First the abandoned dog, then not getting the dog a bath for weeks on end, and then washing him in a car wash (wrong), never saying what the hell the dog was eating and when. Most of the time it sounds like the dog is only offered a hamburger for a meal or a burrito or something stupid. Surprised there wasn't a chapter on dog diarrhea.

Happy ending and good story. Get it at the library or buy it.

The VANISHING by Bentley Little ****

Well last Bentley novel I could find. This is so weird. Strange alien type people live in the woods. They entice people for sex ,normal people who give birth to half monsters. Every thing they touch flowers and/or blooms and/or grows. The children eat body parts.

There is a lot of back and forth to the 1800s which TO ME didn't seem necessary. There is gold but it's cursed due to these monsters/creatures. I find it hard to describe. I think I could trim out 100 pages of b.s. that I wasn't really interested in reading so I just read first line of paragraph and continued that way for awhile. I thought it had too many boring or tedious spots and it took too long for it's size to read.

I'm not in love with it, I don't hate it. Somewhere in between, I suggest the library.

The HAUNTED by Bentley Little ***

This is same author again, I have one more book of his from the library. This seems like a real early starter book. It's about a haunted house and how a family is coping with it, along with the neighbors.

The daughter is cutting herself, ends up in the hospital. IRL she'd end up in therapy for an extended stay but not in the book. Most people in the story have ghostly stuff happen but won't tell anyone because the ghost threatened them. In some places the book was sort of drawn out enough to bore me. I  had to read first line in paragraphs and flip thru pages or I felt like tossing it in the garbage. Since it's a library book I really couldn't satisfy myself doing that.

It was fair. Best to just read the last book he wrote and not go trolling for earlier novels they're really not that great. He does a better job later in his writing.

HIS FATHER'S SON by Bentley Little ****

The protag Steve Nye suspects his father who is dying was a serial killer so he feels some demented apathy and begins killing people. He thinks he's doing the world a favor but often kills innocent people who do nothing but bother him. Mr. Big Ego who misinterprets almost everything anyone does likes to kill. He's a Dexter wannabe.

What I didn't like about it was the fact he did all this without ONE HINT of suspicion from the cops. What are they doing I kept wondering, without any answers. The one sided view of Steve was kind of boring at times. How does someone see a thrown out stuffed animal and think it's real? LOL Well I guess he's a moron as well as a killer. He really needs very little provocation to kill someone. Not only that but he kills people around him, so WTF are the cops? Not even suspicious?  DUH.

I thought it was ok, quick reading and not horribly written so but get at the library. I enjoyed the last book of his and dug out older ones from the library. He does improve very much.

The CONSULTANT by Bentley Little *****

I'm willing to bet that S. King and Bentley would have a hell of a dream marathon once they got started. I really liked reading this and it went quickly cuz it was hard to put down, I mean I read thru commercials on TV.

Some people at a company (CompWare) hire a "consultant" to help keep the company making money. The consultant is Mr. Patoff, which has a translation you'll find towards the end, so it's not likely a real name. This guy is some sort of monster and instead of firing people they are found to have committed suicide, or self inflicted gunshot, or hanging. This way the company doesn't have to extend benefits to the family so Mr. Patoff is doing pretty well. He scares the shit out of everyone but no one really defies him.

He calls employees at 2am for a "meeting" and when they show up the meeting is something useless that a meeting didn't need to be held. The consultant has "followers" who follow everyone around with little notebooks and cameras are installed all over the company even in the bathrooms. The main character is  Craig Horne, married to Angie with a son Dylan. The consultant has visited every one's place of work, even the school where Dylan goes. He becomes a very hated person or...is he even human? You'll need to read the book to find out.

The ending is a little unresolved in that you don't really know what the company name DFG stands for, nor do you know why rooms changed their shape, and you have no clue at the end what Mr. Patoff is or what his reason for existence is. I guess you could say he wants to have a successful company with one person doing all the work; which is impossible. So off you go, buy it or library it. Good writing, edge of the seat style.

STRATEGIC MOVES by Stuart Woods ****

Well this is a smallish book so I got thru it rather quickly. Terse writing, to the point and almost similar to any of Patterson's books. This is a Stone Barrington novel, with some hinky money issues, a guy on the run from the FBI and whoever else. Stone is a lawyer so he represents people and tries to protect them. Meantime he's always got some girlfriend, different one every novel.

Not horrible at all, good reading for a bedtime book and an easy read. Get it at the library or a yard sale like I did.