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There’s an old line which I’ve seen attributed to Pericles: “just because you don’t take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.” I am very skeptical as to whether Pericles said this, but the sentiment is fundamentally sound. Politics exists in all nations at all times, and can be defined simply as the endless competition for the power of governing. In democracies, people compete for votes. In oligarchies, for the support of the strongest factions. In monarchies, for the favor of the crown.

Thus, there will always be politics. In the latest Brad and Karen thriller, the pair are both caught up in developments stemming directly from government policy changes. Brad in that much of his research funding has been terminated and Karen in that she is having to work with a much more aggressive Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Both are affected when one of Brad’s colleagues is taken into ICE custody and then mysteriously murdered. As usual, the duo works to solve the murder, though this time getting information through Karen’s usual channels is more difficult, as the federal authorities are very secretive about their operations.

If you’re a fan of Brad and Karen thrillers, I probably don’t have to tell you to read this. Unless, perhaps, you are also so horrified by current events that you don’t want anything that reminds you of them. There were a few, I think, who declined to read Mark Paxson’s wonderful novella The Jump for that very reason. And that’s a pity, because it really was a phenomenal book that explains current events far better than most mainstream news outlets.

So, my advice to prospective readers of this book is to be undeterred by the political themes. Even if you don’t agree with them! As you might guess, the distribution of ratings for this book is bimodal, with some long-time readers of the series being alienated due to the beliefs held by the main characters.

This may be a controversial opinion in itself, but this review just makes me sad. When did people lose the ability to read a story even if they disagree with some of its ideas? Are some people unable to read Kidnapped just because they are not Jacobites? Political disputes, up to and including wars, get forgotten with time. (“Good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor…”) What doesn’t get forgotten are good stories.

Well, anyway, back to the book itself: in the end it practically turns into a spy-thriller tale, complete with secret agents leading double lives and a dramatic cycle of betrayal and revenge. And I love a good spy story.

Pick up The ICE Murders. Yes, it might force you to think about things outside of your normal perspective. But isn’t that what books are for?

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Book cover of 'Betrayal of Trust' by Geoffrey M. Cooper, featuring a woman in a lab coat with long hair, holding a bloodied syringe, set in a medical environment.

What’s better than a Brad and Karen thriller from Geoffrey Cooper? A Brad and Karen and Martin Dawson thriller! If you read earlier books in the series, you know him as the soldier-turned-medical-researcher who is a good friend of Brad, and who has helped the duo out in the past. I always enjoy his scenes, and so I was delighted when he teamed up with them again, assuming he would once again heroically help them all work as a team to catch the killer, as he’s done before.

Well, the way it all works out in this book is a little different. But I can’t say how. Sorry, you’ll just have to read it. What I can say is that the book is about a mysterious killer who keeps striking important medical researchers. Brad and Karen’s theories regarding her motives are forced to evolve with each crime, until eventually the pattern emerges in an unsettling way.

But what I think I liked best of all about this book is what the title refers to. The betrayal in question could be multiple things, including one possibility that isn’t even connected directly to the killer. I like ambiguity and mystery, leaving things up to interpretation. For one thing, it’s what helps keep critics like me in business. 🙂

Jokes aside, this is another good book from Geoffrey Cooper. I have only one slight, nit-picky complaint. As always in Brad and Karen books, part of the fun is the good food the protagonists enjoy as they try to crack the case. But I felt like in this one, it was always a lobster dinner.

Now, lobster is no doubt a northeast staple, so I can’t claim its not authentic. But I want variety! One lobster dinner is okay, but can’t we have some other delicacies, too?

I kid, I kid. This isn’t really a complaint, or if it is, it’s only the kind of complaint a long-time fan of a series can make. Like the Star Wars fans who wish there was a movie all about Porkins or somebody; it’s the kind of complaint that comes from a place of love, and I always love reading a Brad and Karen adventure.

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I think I figured out Geoffrey Cooper’s secret. This is the 8th book in his Brad & Karen series, and when a series reaches that many, you start to wonder what magic is behind it.

Well, I’ve got it, I think: they are like cozy mysteries.

Of course, they don’t fit the standard definition of cozy mysteries. Generally, cozies have at most one or two deaths, fairly lightly described, not very grisly, and usually of unlikable characters. Not so in these thrillers–sometimes bad things happen to good people.

And cozy mysteries tend to be fairly lacking in high-tension fights. Again, not the case here. The Plagiarism Plot has one of the most high-powered combat sequences of the whole series; a full-blown military-style gun battle that would not be out of place in a Peter Martuneac book.

So, again, not cozy. Therefore, on what do I base my assertion that it’s like a cozy mystery?

Mostly, it goes back to the two leads. No matter how dark the crime, it’s always a pleasure to rejoin Brad & Karen in solving it, because they are both likable and fun.

And then of course, there’s the food, which both of them enjoy regularly. Kingsley Amis said that writing about food is the surest way to get your reader sympathizing with your characters, and I think he was right on.

There’s a real comfort in reading about these familiar characters, and that’s what makes it feel cozy, or cozy-adjacent, even as Brad and Karen are once again plunged into the cutthroat world of academia, where ruthlessly ambitious people are willing to go to any lengths to achieve their goals.

I highly recommend this book and this series; even if thrillers aren’t normally your thing. You might just find that you enjoy the less intense, quieter moments of the story.

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A number of people I follow have read and reviewed this book already. I’m not sure how I didn’t hear about it before a few weeks ago.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the cover. As it turned out, what I got was part thriller, part magical-realism, and part revenge story.

The book follows Teri Altro, an investigator on an anti-drug task force in Michigan. Members of a drug cartel attempt to assassinate her, but a stopped by a mysterious man with inexplicable powers, who disposes of the would-be assassins.

This prompts Altro and the rest of the task force to try to uncover who the man is and what is motivating him. Gradually, they uncover a history of a soldier named John Walker, who fought in Vietnam, and is now seeking to liberate the Hmong people from oppression by a brutal drug lord.

That’s the high-level plot summary. But there’s more going on here. The strange and mystical powers which Walker possesses, and which he uses to take revenge against the people “without honor” who have used him and so many others, is in many ways about healing from trauma. The theme of the book concerns Walker and Altro recovering from their personal wounds.

So, it’s a page-turning plot about supernatural vengeance for corruption and conspiracies with interesting characters. Is there anything not to like?

Well, I had a couple nit-picks. Mainly, the members of the anti-drug task force just didn’t behave like I would have expected. Their maturity levels were more like those of high school students than professional government agents. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part.

Still, it’s a good story, and the flashback scene sin particular are very vividly written. Anyone who enjoys thrillers, mysteries, or good old-fashioned revenge stories should give it a try.

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Friends, I have a problem. Admittedly, it’s a good problem.

I’ve just read a new book by one of my favorite authors, and I’ve enjoyed it immensely. But the problem is now I have to review it. Ordinarily, when writing a review of a book, I start out by telling you something about the plot, the characters, etc.

But this book is the second installment in a series, and so to introduce you to it much at all, I would have to tell you a little about the first book, including what series protagonist Liza Larkin did in it. And this is the tricky bit, partially because to do so would not only risk spoiling the first book in the series, but also because Liza herself is always a bit of a Rorschach test. (Come to think of it, she’s also a bit like the character Rorschach, the anti-social vigilante from Alan Moore’s Watchmen.)

So what I say about Liza’s action in book one will carry over and affect how she’s viewed in book two. It’s a bit like how, at the beginning of Knights of the Old Republic II, you have to explain what happened in KotOR I, which can vary depending on your choices. And my interpretation of the first book may not be everyone’s interpretation. I alluded to this when I reviewed it, and it’s even more true now. All I can really say is the Liza discovers a friend’s aunt is dead. While the death is ruled an accident, Liza is not convinced, and this sends her analytical, logical—and sometimes paranoid—mind to work.

What happens from there, though, is very much a matter of who and what you choose to believe. There are all sorts of dark twists and turns: fentanyl overdoses, an ongoing attempt by an ex-con to blackmail Liza, and multiple visits to a BDSM club. And none of this is even the really strange aspect of the book.

Which, as I said with the first book, is exactly what makes it good. Your view of what happens here may not be the same as mine. The truth is that we, as readers, are being asked to solve a mystery as much as (or more than?) we are following Liza as she solves it. We get clues. But what do we make of them?

If you’re disappointed by the lack of specifics in this review, I hope I can at least convey this much: Malignant Assumptions is a terrific book, even better than the excellent Fatal Rounds. It is fairly typical for a thriller to keep a reader guessing what will happen next. What is more unusual is when it makes the reader second-guess what has already happened. But that’s what these books do, and so create a mental tension that, if nothing else, makes it easy to empathize with Liza’s own peculiarly (over?)active mind.

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It was a near thing, this. I almost didn’t have a book to review this week. I wanted an America-themed book since we just had Independence Day here in the USA. But until this past Monday, I couldn’t find anything short enough that I would have any hope of reviewing in time.

To the rescue rode Zachary Shatzer, on a horse that was white, but also red and blue. Or something like that. But you all know by now that I always love to read a Shatzer book, and when I saw his latest was a parody of political thrillers, a genre near and dear to me, you can well imagine my delight.

Puppet Dance features all the tropes we expect of thrillers: conspiracies, assassins, double-crosses and backstabbing. Except instead of being done seriously, it’s played for laughs. The president is a simpleton elected solely for his good looks. The vice-president has to juggle his Machiavellian plans for world domination with mending his relationship with his goth teenage daughter. And the assassin, who prides himself as a ruthless and efficient killing machine, is actually a bit of a bumbling buffoon; for example, when he drops his rifle and ammunition on the way to prepare for a job, and his forced to eat one of the bullets to conceal it from bystanders.

The plot is basically a power struggle between aforementioned vice-president and the director of the CIA, both of whom are vying to be the true power behind the throne of the empty-headed president. The only person capable of saving America–indeed, seemingly the only person capable of doing anything well–is Agent Dennings of the Secret Service, who saves the VP’s life at a hopscotch convention.

From there, it’s off into a madcap labyrinth of whimsy and silliness as only Shatzer can deliver. I could try to summarize it all, but really, the whole point of the thing is the humorous way the story is told.

Which is not to say there isn’t a deeper reading that can be made. What are literary critics for, if not to systematically suck the joy out of any work of fiction by imagining things in it that the author never intended? This, dear readers, is my speciality.

You can read a fairly scathing critique of 21st-century culture in the works of Shatzer. For example, the way Vice President Beanstar slowly builds a coalition of supporters by pandering to fans of various activities, celebrities, franchises and the like, could be read as a comment on consumerism; as people who fanatically (and remember always the word “fan” is short for “fanatic”) build their entire identity around some piece of pop ephemera are easily manipulated to advance the goals of a malevolent politician.

Or again, when Agent Dennings goes undercover as a television star, but the effort fails because people have so thoroughly conflated the actress with the character she portrays that they are unwilling to even speak to her. Much of Shatzer’s humor is derived from characters who have completely dedicated themselves to raising trivial issues to the level of zealous idolatry. Something that will be familiar to anyone who has ever been on the internet.

These are interesting themes, and no doubt a healthy corpus of literary criticism could be derived from them. However, that would just miss out on the real fun of Shatzer, which is basically that in his world, even the villains are basically good, if rather eccentric, and everything can always be resolved in a pleasingly amusing fashion.

Shatzer, like Wodehouse, is fundamentally optimistic, and this shows through in all his works. Even when he is making fun of something, you can always sense the affection at the heart of it. So, in these troubled times, when one can be forgiven for checking a little anxiously, and a little more frequently than usual, whether that star-spangled banner does indeed yet wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave, I think I’ll give the last word to Shatzer. Or rather, to Agent Dennings, the embodiment of humble competence in a world run by madmen, narcissists, and criminals:

It was a strange thing, she mused, that America could manage to be such a wonderful place when led by people like this. And it was wonderful, she had no doubts about that. The ideas on which it was based: freedom, equality, and opportunity, though never fully and perfectly realized, had also never been crushed by the ceaseless parade of corruption, morons, and corrupt morons at the highest levels of power. An incredible feat, when you thought about it. 

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I heard about this book thanks to Carrie Rubin, and it sounded like something I would enjoy. It has conspiracies, high-tech gadgetry, and exciting action sequences.

Journalist Ellie McLane is investigating genetically modified Olympic athletes. But when she learns that a mysterious group has cloned the President of the United States, she moves to get the scoop before anyone else.

What follows is a complex plot, as McLane and the FBI race to find out what connection there is between the president’s clone and bio-terrorists who are using genetically modified cancer cells to infect prominent politicians. Naturally, there are plenty of car chases and shootouts, not to mention corporate espionage, murder, and political conflicts.

I enjoyed the story very much. It reminded me of Geoffrey Cooper’s books, with maybe a bit more of a Tom Clancy-ish military element. My only complaint is that the ending felt a bit abrupt, but I see that it is the first book in a series, so perhaps many of the questions raised at the end will be addressed in the sequel.

The downside of reviewing thrillers is that spoilers are a real killer, so I can’t say too much more about what happens. This is pretty much the maximum amount I can reveal without spoiling it. So if this description strikes your fancy, give it a try.

Yet, I feel that you, my loyal reader, deserve some bonus content. So, for fun, I decided to run this post through WordPress’s AI assistant feature.

The AI assistant recommended I retitle the post: “Genetically Modified Bio-Terror: A Thrilling Race Against Time”. Eh, it’s okay, I guess, but I’ll stick with my standard format.

Next, I asked the AI assistant for feedback on the body of the review:

The content delved into the plot and the reviewer’s enjoyment of the book. The reviewer expressed a positive overall sentiment and mentioned a minor issue with the ending feeling abrupt. It was noted that spoilers couldn’t be shared, limiting the amount of detail that could be provided. Lastly, the reviewer mentioned adding bonus content for the readers and responded to a suggestion from a WordPress AI assistant.

Considering the feedback, actions to consider are:

1. Discuss the abrupt ending in more detail without revealing spoilers.

2. Add more specific details about what made the book enjoyable without giving away the plot.

3. Explore the bonus content in more depth to engage readers further.

When I was a kid, my friend had a toy called a “Bop It!” It was basically like a Simon Says game that commanded you to do various things. If you were unsuccessful, it would say, “Do it again, but, uh… better.” That’s kind of what this feels like.

The AI can also generate an image to go with the post based on the text. I tried this a couple times, and I have to say, the pictures are not bad. But I’m not posting them because I want the image associated with the post to be this book cover.

Well, that was certainly illuminating. Soon, we will achieve the ultimate dream of machines reviewing and creating art, freeing humans up to do manual labor or else just be directly converted into energy.

In the meantime, though, I hope you enjoy Fear Extinction!

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I love vigilante stories. I’m always down to read about a jaded person who, disgusted by the failure of social institutions to punish wrongdoers, takes the law into their own hands to seek retribution. You see this theme a lot in westerns and police stories, but one with a medical theme? Now, that’s something new!

Dr. Hope Sullivan is just one such jaded person, and her method of exacting justice is to kidnap the lowlifes she finds in the world, take them to a remote and secluded shed, and subject them to the same pains they have inflicted on others. “Her object all sublime, she will achieve in time…” Not that she kills them, to be clear. She just… teaches them a lesson, that’s all.

But one day, she gets a threatening message. Someone is stalking her, seeking revenge of their own against her for some perceived wrong. And this person has stumbled on to Hope’s extra-judicial activities. Oh, all right, I’ll just go ahead and call them what they are: torture sessions. Something which the medical board would probably not look kindly upon, and while Hope has suffered from suicidal thoughts ever since the recent deaths of her parents and fiancé, her reputation as a doctor is the one thing in the world that still keeps her going.

In other words, this book is rather dark, in case you couldn’t tell from the cover. It makes Fatal Rounds, Rubin’s most recent thriller, look like an after-school special. But it is similar to Fatal Rounds in the sense that the protagonists, while sympathetic, are also very well aware of what happens when you gaze long into the abyss. Actually, Hope and the abyss do more than just gaze into each other; they’re so well-acquainted they practically give each other high-fives every morning.

I’m writing this review shortly after editing a forthcoming Writers Supporting Writers chat where we discuss whether it’s necessary for characters to suffer. Well, of course, it depends on the type of story being told. But this is definitely the kind where there has to be a lot of suffering. I think it’s the most violent book I’ve read since Peter Martuneac’s His Name Was Zach series. And there is no doubt that every bit of it is key to Broken Hope‘s mood. It’s about capturing anger, depression, resentment and revenge; feelings which all of us must have at one time or another. Obviously, Hope’s reaction is rather extreme… but then, that’s what makes for compelling fiction, isn’t it?

Broken Hope goes to some dark places, but that darkness is also what makes it such a gripping story. Highly recommended for fans of psychological thrillers.

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It’s always tough to review sequels. Especially a sequel to a sprawling book like Sunder of Time, that has a large cast of characters and multiple different timelines. Thus, there are not only a lot of characters, but different versions of the same character. (Probably this is one of those books where it’s helpful to keep notes, so you can remember who is who.) And when you add in that I don’t want to spoil what happens in the first book, it’s pretty hard to explain the plot of this one.

So, what’s a poor book reviewer to do? I could just say that if you liked the first book, you’ll probably like the second one, too. And that’s true. But, of course, probably not very helpful. Especially if you haven’t actually read the first book yet. (My review is here.) I highly recommend it.

But as to this book, it carries on the story of the first one, although in an interesting way. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that while the first book takes place mainly in the distant past, this one is largely in the far future. But still, the same kind of intrigues and political machinations are there, as is the brisk pace and intense action.

I think what I’ll focus on here, to avoid giving away major plot spoilers, is McTiernan’s keen grasp of psychology. Everything the characters do is informed by this, perhaps most notably in the way one character uses subtle psychological tricks to manipulate people into giving him loyalty he really doesn’t deserve. There are people like this in real life, and knowing how these kinds of mind games work is helpful in dealing with them.

This is an excellent sequel to a very good book, and I’ll be interested to see where the series goes from here.

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Another excellent Brad and Karen thriller. In this one, a case of academic misconduct escalates to murder and corruption. As always, Cooper does a great job using the political machinations of academia as a starting point to weave a tale of deception and crime.

If you’ve read previous books in the series, you already are familiar with the dynamic between Brad and Karen, and together they once again form an effective crime-solving partnership. I don’t want spoil anything here, but I think the ending of this one is my favorite in the series. (So far.)

I’ve been reading some traditionally-published thrillers by big name authors lately, and I have to say, many of them have over-the-top, superhero-like characters, which makes them hard to relate to. I prefer a book like this, where the characters are people you would like to meet in real life. That’s the big draw of the Brad and Karen books for me; I just like these two, and they make for pleasant company while venturing into the darker side of the academy.