TWISTED by Andrea Kane ****

A former agent named Sloane during this adventure is rekindling her sexual relationship with a boyfriend in the FBI Derek who she thinks abandoned during her last struggle with a killer when she got her hand chopped up by a knife.

This story is about some deluded idiot no one of course can even guess who he is, he also leaves prints everywhere and kills Asian prostitutes, I think he's been arrested before which would put his stats online and he'd have been found quicker. Meantime he's collecting women by kidnapping them to bring with his dying mother to Mt Olympus (in his crazy-ass head) and Sloane is going with them all. With all her kick ass FBI training she gets subdued and abducted even with a FBI agent protecting her. Nice job guys.

It was interesting enough most of the time to continue reading, there were a few spots you wondered why they didn't pursue stuff, or be more aggressive in their questioning. They sort of accepted everything anyone said without grilling anyone at all. Obviously a loner living with a dying mother in the middle of murders and kidnapping should be first priority. Anyone would think so if they read mysteries. Oh yeah I was really disturbed about a techie getting killed when the murderer had no idea what info he was developing and he never even tried to get the answer or try to shut down the computer that was searching for him via input by the dead guy. All the stuff was done, they were only waiting for a response. So stupid killer just bypassed that computer and killed the guy for no reason. DUH.

Otherwise I'd think it was worth buying.

RIPTIDE by Tim Dorsey ****

Not bad, sort of comedy meets murder in Florida. A couple vacationing from Wisconsin get in the middle of a coke deal and luggage full of money. So the two main characters Serge and Coleman get involved either helping or hindering everyone.

I thought at times it was ok, too many people involved, I have no idea who is doing the bad and who is doing the good. Too difficult to figure out. There isn't a cop involved in any place in the book tho they've been called numerous times, Dorsey has little respect for law enforcement.

Have fun reading it and don't take any of it seriously for a second.

The STORYTELLER by Jodi Picoult ***

An unexpected reading for me. I thought it would be a murder mystery. Turns out this girl, Sage with a scar on her face (car accident-mommy died) screws a married guy then some guy Josef she meets asks her to help him kill himself because of things he'd done as an SS soldier during the Holocaust. She contacts or is contacted by an investigator who of course falls in love with her mixed up mental mind. She has sisters also named for spices. Geez mom was a mess too I guess.

Turns out her grandmother was in the same compound and Josef did things to keep her alive. But he was still part of all the crematoria stuff. Meantime the author copies another writer and the grandmother writes stories for her boss the SS guy. He finds them and wants to know what's next in the story and she thinks that's what is keeping her alive, never ending the story. That's a Greek mythology or something she sort of stole for her book.

Anyways it was somewhat confusing at times, different typefaces depicting the story, the grandmother's story the grand daughter's story, sometimes I had no idea what was going on until I was a few pages into it. I don't like that type of confusion.

I don't think the author knows a lot about Jewish burials because no Jew can be buried in a Jewish cemetery with tattoos UNLESS they were in the camps. During the funeral service this granddaughter steals the grandmothers entire life history by covering her number tattoo with cover up. Why? Is she ashamed of her grandmother's struggle to live? Is she ashamed she did live? I don't get why she would hide the truth from the family. It's stupid. That woman went thru hell, turned out to be a sweet woman, had children and a normal life after the war yet her dumbass grand daughter erases her entire history from the family. Who gives her the right? Did the grandmother ask her to? NO. I want to know what right she had to interfere in another persons backstory. That woman EARNED the right to wear that tattoo if she wanted, or she could have had it removed, which she didn't. That means she wanted it there for whatever reason. The grand daughter is an ass.

Not crazy about the entire thing. Lots of stuff end up way off the trail from what you expect. I think the story had potential to be much better. JMO.

BAD LITTLE FALLS by Paul Doiron ***

The story is about a Game Warden named Mike Bowditch in the furthest reaches of Maine. Like way out in the boonies where idiots keep wild animal game reserves so the rich people have something to shoot and bring home the head for a trophy.
So while he's working he sort of falls in love with some girl who works at McDonalds and has a retarded sister and evil son who puts rat poison in his sisters brothers drugs killing people. Never dealt with in THIS book. A guy drives a sled with huskies and lets them drown in the ice while he swims to shore, he's added extra bricks to his sleigh to work the dogs. Sounds like something a game warden should do something about but guess not. Just makes sure the bodies are recovered. The bad guy Kendrick gets away, the killer kid and his mother get away. I don't think one person was arrested for anything.
They either took off for somewhere else or evaded the police. Most of the situations were never followed up with an ending that satisfied me. I hate the writer for allowing a team of dogs to be treated so poorly, I hated him for liking a loser slut who slung hamburgers as if she had more of a brain than her sister. I hated most of the story to be honest, Too cold, too freezing, snowy and of course snow gets in the middle of stopping everyone from being saved on time. Not my choice if I knew what it was about first.

GOOD BAIT by John Harvy

Brit Crime Unit story. Here's a paragraph to explain why I generally hate Brit writers: Sod's law, a SIM card been found in the last but one bag of gubbins from the Andronic crime scene to be methodically searched, sorted and labelled; missed on a first, preliminary (do we know what first means?) sortie, it had been buried inside a sodden wedge of blahlahblah.

Not anything I want to continue after I got to page 50 or so. DONE WITH THAT.

THE RIGHT HAND by Derek Haas *****

I like this spy mystery aside from the hundreds of names, I could do without. The rest of the book was exciting, there was someone to save and a spy who was very good at his job. Lots of moles to uncover, people to kill, chase scenes and Russian spies.
Austin Clay is the main character and he is very good at what he does just sit back and enjoy the ride. I would buy it.