December 28, 2015

Review: The Passenger by Lisa Lutz



Product Description:
In case you were wondering, I didn’t do it. I didn’t have anything to do with Frank’s death. I don’t have an alibi, so you’ll have to take my word for it...

Forty-eight hours after leaving her husband’s body at the base of the stairs, Tanya Dubois cashes in her credit cards, dyes her hair brown, demands a new name from a shadowy voice over the phone, and flees town. It’s not the first time.

She meets Blue, a female bartender who recognizes the hunted look in a fugitive’s eyes and offers her a place to stay. With dwindling choices, Tanya-now-Amelia accepts. An uneasy―and dangerous―alliance is born.

It’s almost impossible to live off the grid today, but Amelia-now-Debra and Blue have the courage, the ingenuity, and the desperation, to try. Hopscotching from city to city, Debra especially is chased by a very dark secret…can she outrun her past?


My Thoughts:
I devoured this book and finished in less than 24 hours. I was hooked from the very first few sentences. Slowly the tragic story unravels and with each page I turned the anticipation built up more and more. Towards the end I guessed a little bit of what was really going on but there is a huge twist at the end that I did not see coming at all. 

Lisa Lutz authors one of my favorite series, The Spellman Files and I loved her humorous collaboration with David Hayward Heads You Lose so I knew I would love this one but I didn't realize it would be come one of my favorite reads of this year. 

My Recommendation:
I recommend this to anyone who loves a nail-biting suspense thriller that keeps you guessing to the end. 

November 5, 2015

Review: Witches Protection Program by Michael Phillip Cash



Product Description: 
Wes Rockville, a disgraced law enforcement agent, is given one last chance to prove himself and save his career when he's reassigned to a 232 year old secret government organization. The Witches Protection Program. His first assignment: uncover a billion-dollar Cosmetics company’s diabolical plan of using witchcraft for global domination, while protecting its heiress Morgan Pendragon from her aunt’s evil deeds. Reluctantly paired with veteran witch protector, Alastair Verne, Wes must learn to believe in both witches and himself. Filled with adventure, suspense and a rousing good time, Michael Phillip Cash creates a tongue-in-cheek alternate reality where witches cast spells and wreak havoc in modern day New York City.

My Thoughts: 
Overall for a children's book this was a fun adventure. After disgracing his law enforcement family, Wes Rockville is assigned to a secret organization that is tasked with keeping the peace between two dueling factions of witches. Of course things go wrong but Wes pulls it out in the end and makes his father proud. 

Although the book had a slow start, the story picked up pace about halfway in and I finished it within a couple of days. If this wasn't a children's book it would rate it fewer stars but I can see tweens loving the book and hope it does well as a series. 

My Recommendation:
This would be perfect for younger teens and older children that love supernatural fantasy reads. 


November 4, 2015

Review: The Scam by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg


Product Description:
Nicolas Fox is a charming con man and master thief on the run. Kate O’Hare is the FBI agent who is hot on his trail. At least that’s what everyone thinks. In reality, Fox and O’Hare are secretly working together to bring down super-criminals the law can’t touch. Criminals like brutal casino magnate Evan Trace.

Evan Trace is running a money-laundering operation through his casino in Macau. Some of his best customers are mobsters, dictators, and global terrorists. Nick and Kate will have to go deep undercover as high-stakes gamblers, wagering millions of dollars—and their lives—in an attempt to topple Trace’s empire.

It’s a scam that will take Fox and O’Hare from the Las Vegas strip, to the sun-soaked beaches of Oahu’s North Shore, and into the dark back alleys of Macau. Their only backup—a self-absorbed actor, a Somali pirate, and Kate’s father, an ex-soldier who believes a rocket launcher is the best way to solve every problem. What could possibly go wrong?

My Thoughts:

I absolutely love this series. The Scam is book number four in the Fox and O'Hare series and I can't wait for more, especially with the huge cliff-hanger at the end of this one. 

Already being a huge Evanovich fan from the Stephanie Plum series, I feel that Kate is exactly how kick ass Stephanie should be after twenty-one books in that series. Kate is smart, sexy and a regular Jane all rolled into one brilliant package. Add to that the rich, handsome and devilish Nick Fox and you have my new favorite fictional couple. Move over Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall and Rourke and Eve Dallas.  


My Recommendation: 

This series is over the top fun and I recommend it for anyone who loves silly romantic thrillers. 



September 6, 2015

Review: The Winter Girl by Matt Marinovich



Product Description:
It's wintertime in the Hamptons, where Scott and his wife, Elise, have come to be with her terminally ill father, Victor, to await the inevitable. As weeks turn to months, their daily routine—Elise at the hospital with her father, Scott pretending to work and drinking Victor's booze—only highlights their growing resentment and dissatisfaction with the usual litany of unhappy marriages: work, love, passion, each other. But then Scott notices something simple, even innocuous. Every night at precisely eleven, the lights in the neighbor's bedroom turn off. It's clearly a timer . . .but in the dead of winter with no one else around, there's something about that light he can't let go of. So one day while Elise is at the hospital, he breaks in. And he feels a jolt of excitement he hasn't felt in a long time. Soon, it's not hard to enlist his wife as a partner in crime and see if they can't restart the passion. 
     Their one simple transgression quickly sends husband and wife down a deliriously wicked spiral of bad decisions, infidelities, escalating violence, and absolutely shocking revelations. 
     Matt Marinovich makes a strong statement with this novel. The Winter Girl is the psychological thriller done to absolute perfection.


My Review: 
The Winter Girl is one of those books that stayed with me long after I read it and even now, a month after reading it, I can't figure out if it was in a good way or not. I swear I had the eeriest feeling reading this book. It felt like my mind was in a haze and I was under a spell. I was pulled in from the beginning and stayed in suspense all the way through to the end. 

I can't say that it was a fantastic book because things just kept getting weirder and weirder but I really did love how strange it all was. Towards the end things really stepped into the land of incredulity so that brought my rating down a couple of notches. 

My Recommendation: 
I recommend this one for anyone who loves dark and twisted suspense thrillers. 

June 16, 2015

Review: Follow You Home by Mark Edwards



Synopsis:

It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime, a final adventure before settling down.
After a perfect start, Daniel and Laura’s travels end abruptly when they are thrown off a night train in the middle of nowhere. To find their way back to civilization, they must hike along the tracks through a forest…a haunting journey that ends in unimaginable terror.
Back in London, Daniel and Laura vow never to talk about what they saw that night. But as they try to fit back into their old lives, it becomes clear that their nightmare is just beginning…
My Thoughts:
Mark Edwards really knows how to build up the suspense. The first part of the book was all about how Daniel and Laura avoided telling their story and the consequences of that decision. In the back of my mind I knew that I would eventually learn what happened in Romania but I was dying to get there. 

Once that part of the story is revealed you just can't get over the creep factor. It's easy to imagine that there are terrors like this happening around the world right now. It kind of makes you think twice about traveling abroad. 

What follows next is how Laura and Daniel unravel and the slow realization that someone followed them home. Again it's super creepy. 

Towards the end of the story things get really unbelievable and that's the reason I couldn't rate this any higher than 3 stars. I just couldn't get past how everything is tied up. Too over the top cheesy. 

One little pet peeve, Edwards writes that Laura has an iPad and not even 2 pages later reveals that Laura doesn't use Apple products because she doesn't like how Apple treats their workers in China. How didn't an editor or early reader catch this? 

My Recommendation:
I recommend this for anyone who loves a good suspense thriller. 

May 25, 2015

Review: Moving Day by Jonathan Stone



Product Description:
Forty years’ accumulation of art, antiques, and family photographs are more than just objects for Stanley Peke—they are proof of a life fully lived. A life he could have easily lost long ago.When a con man steals his houseful of possessions in a sophisticated moving-day scam, Peke wanders helplessly through his empty New England home, inevitably reminded of another helpless time: decades in Peke’s past, a cold and threadbare Stanislaw Shmuel Pecoskowitz eked out a desperate existence in the war-torn Polish countryside, subsisting on scraps and dodging Nazi soldiers. Now, the seventy-two-year-old Peke—who survived, came to America, and succeeded—must summon his original grit and determination to track down the thieves, retrieve his things, and restore the life he made for himself.Peke and his wife, Rose, trace the path of the thieves’ truck across America, to the wilds of Montana, and to an ultimate, chilling confrontation with not only the thieves but also with Peke’s brutal, unresolved past.

My Thoughts:

Based on how much I loved The Teller by Jonathan Stone I have to say that I was a bit disappointed by Moving Day. There was some suspense but I was expecting more thrills. Stone gave us plenty of intrigue at the beginning by sprinkling in little teasers about Peke's past but not enough to sustain any action. 

When Peke goes on the hunt to get his belongings back it's just kind of a ho-hum adventure. I wanted so much more but really what can I expect from a 72 year old protagonist? The ending came through just a bit more but overall I was more disappointed than satisfied. 


I do however have to give credit where it's due. The writing is very well done and flows nicely. The characters come alive on the pages but I just wish they did more. 


My Recommendation:

I recommend this as a library read for when you want slower paced thrills.


May 9, 2015

Review: Eeny Meeny by M. J. Arlidge


Product Description:
Two people are abducted, imprisoned, and left with a gun. As hunger and thirst set in, only one walks away alive.

It’s a game more twisted than any Detective Inspector Helen Grace has ever seen. If she hadn’t spoken with the shattered survivors herself, she almost wouldn’t believe them.

Helen is familiar with the dark sides of human nature, including her own, but this case—with its seemingly random victims—has her baffled. But as more people go missing, nothing will be more terrifying than when it all starts making sense....


My Thoughts:
The creep factor is super high with this one! It really reminds me of how creeped out I was by The Book of Matthew by Thomas White. That one stayed with me for a long time afterwards and I feel like Eeny Meeny will also. I just keep thinking about what I would do if I was in the same situation as the victims in this book. Who I imagined myself with definitely made a difference in what I thought the outcome would be. (That's terrible, I know!)

Helen Grace is broken on the inside but not one ounce of it shows on the outside. She's a strong leader that has to make tough choices and the ending just breaks my heart for her.  I'm so glad that this is the start of a new series because I would love to see how her character develops with everything that unfolded in Eeny Meeny.

My only frustration with this one was who the serial killer turned out to be and how the case was resolved. It made me say, "Really?" but ultimately didn't take away from how much I loved this book. I just wish it would have ended differently.

My Recommendation: 
I recommend this one for anyone who loves suspense thrillers and intensely creepy books.

April 27, 2015

Review: Game On by Gabra Zackman


Product Description:
Part caper, part romantic comedy, this hilariously entertaining book in the Bod Squad series features a sassy and sexy undercover operative, Susannah “Legs” Carter, and her Ocean’s Eleven–style team of private investigators.

From Washington, DC, to Paris, Legs is tailing Charles Oakley Palmer III, a white-collar criminal she’s determined to bring to justice. But will romance or betrayal blossom along the way? Find out in the first in a sizzling new series about a team of highly skilled investigators who go undercover to catch criminals—while juggling romance, world travel, and danger around every corner.

My Thoughts:

As I first started reading Game on I was really irritated by the cheesiness and improbability of the story but as the "plot thickened" it was so over the top I couldn't help but find myself enjoying it more and more.

Legs gets herself into trouble over a man and struggles to fight her way out. She enlists the help of her team and a long-time personal friend to figure it all out. I hope that the next book in the series focuses on my two favorite characters Bod Squad team members, Lisa Bee and Jackson.

A little intrigue, a little sex and plenty of high-tech gadgets. It was James Bond meets Stephanie Plum. Actually I was reminded of the Fox and O'Hare Series series by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg and am looking forward to the next installment. 

My Recommendation: 

Recommended for anyone who loves romantic comedies. 

April 25, 2015

Review: L.A. Rotten by Jeff Klima


Product Description:
As an expert crime-scene cleaner, Tom Tanner charges big money to carve out bullets, mop up fluids, disinfect walls, and dispose of whatever’s left of whomever was unlucky enough to require his services. For a handsome young ex-con determined to stay out of trouble, it’s practically a dream job—until he discovers a grisly pattern to his work: a string of gruesome murders at a cheap motel chain, always in Room 236.
 
While prying into a serial killer’s nasty scheme, Tom finds himself with a sharp-witted strip-bar waitress plastered to his side—and his conscience. Even more surprising, the killer starts prying into his life, luring Tom into a twisted friendship. As Tom struggles against his adversary’s wicked whims, risking the lives of the few people he holds dear, bodies pile up everywhere he turns. With a psychopath calling the shots, Tom has little choice but to clean house once and for all.`


My Thoughts:
I absolutely loved L. A. Rotten. It is now my #1 read for 2015. Tom Tanner was one of those characters that stay with you long after you finish the book. He was a broken, tragic mess yet still managed to become a lovable character in the end. He kind of reminded me of Dexter who is another one of my favorites. Along with his sidekick Ivy, they managed to track down a serial killer that the cops didn't even know existed. 

Even better than reading this is the fact that L. A. Rotten is the first in the new Tom Tanner Mystery series. I absolutely cannot wait for the next book. 

My Recommendation:
I recommend L. A. Rotten to anyone who loves crime noir.

April 18, 2015

Review Arivaca: Guardians of the Light by John Poulsen


Product Description:
Jesse Ballard’s life is filled with misfortune. His parents are dead, he’s been convicted of a crime, and a dark secret torments his soul. But when he’s incarcerated on a ranch for troubled teens he discovers his troubles have just begun. A Supreme Power has literally hijacked his life, bringing him to the ranch to make him the guardian of a powerful relic that was hidden away 2600 years ago when Solomon’s Temple was destroyed.
Given superhuman powers, Jesse is suddenly thrust into a strange and perilous world of supernal treasures, killers and demons—battling the dark forces who desperately seek the sacred artifact. Thinking he’s on a one man mission, Jesse is shocked to learn that Cedar Lane, a girl who seriously despises him, has spiritual gifts essential for keeping the relic safe. Without her help, he’s in jeopardy of losing not just the relic, but his life.
My Thoughts:
The action in Arivaca started out from almost the very first page but once Jesse was sent to the boy's ranch it all came to a screeching halt and I struggled to continue reading. The religious relic part of the story is what kept me going and thankfully towards the last third of the book, the action picked up again.

Another reason I didn't get sucked in were the characters. With her poor attitude, initially it was really hard for me to like Cedar and Jesse wasn't very appealing either. He was too bland for my liking and there wasn't anything to make me feel invested in what happened to Jesse until the very end. The only characters I really liked were a couple of the boys in Jesse's posse and the ranch hand, Paco. The added some much needed lightness to the story earning a good chuckle here and there.

Overall I did like the way the book came together in the end and thought the cliff hanger ending was well done but not enough for me to want to read the next installment in the series.

My Recommendation:
Recommended for teens.

April 10, 2015

Review: The Teller by Jonathan Stone




Product Description:
Between her low-paying job as a bank teller and the high costs of caring for her terminally ill mother, Elaine Kelly is struggling to make ends meet. When one of her regular customers, Antonio Desirio – a lonely old man with no family or friends who has saved over a million dollars in his account – is hit by a truck outside the bank after making his weekly deposit, Elaine impulsively switches the money into her own account, figuring she’ll be long gone by the time the crime is discovered.

The problem? Antonio wasn’t just some lonely old man, and the hit-and-run was no accident. From New York’s darkest corners to its loftiest financial towers, Elaine’s problems are just beginning, and it will take all of her wits and determination to solve them.

My Thoughts: 
Elaine Kelly had an opportunity and took it. Being a trusted teller in the bank she knew just what to do not to get caught but instead of taking the money and running off she stuck around planning what she wanted to do until it was too late. 

Then once she found herself in real trouble she had to make the most of her situtation to ensure the bad guys paid for their dirty deeds and save herself along with a newly made friend. 

Any time lotto jackpots exceed the hundred million mark I start day dreaming about what I would do if I won even if I don't buy a ticket so I can see how Elaine got caught up in the planning instead of the running. The things she has to do to survive makes the ending that much more sweeter. The Teller is a page turner all the way to the end. I devoured the book in under two days and it has now taken the top spot as my number 1 read of 2015. 

My Recommendation: I highly recommend this one for anyone who loves a good suspense tale. 

March 20, 2015

Review: The Doomsday Equation by Matt Richtel


Product Description:
Computer genius Jeremy Stillwater has designed a machine that can predict global conflicts and ultimately head them off. But he’s a stubborn guy, very sure of his own genius, and has wound up making enemies, and even seen his brilliant invention discredited.
There’s nowhere for him to turn when the most remarkable thing happens: his computer beeps with warning that the outbreak of World War III is imminent, three days and counting.
Alone, armed with nothing but his own ingenuity, he embarks on quest to find the mysterious and powerful nemesis determined to destroy mankind. But enemies lurk in the shadows waiting to strike. Could they have figured out how to use Jeremy, and his invention, for their own evil ends?

Before he can save billions of lives, Jeremy has to figure out how to save his own. . . .

My Thoughts:
I wanted to read The Doomsday Equation because it was billed as "ingenious as the works of Michael Crichton". I'm going to have to highly disagree with that statement. The storyline had a lot of potential but the protagonist were just an annoying a-hole that was extremely rude to everyone around him. I hated him more than I cared about what happened in the story.

I actually put the book down halfway through and read another book before coming back to this one. Because the storyline had so much potential I thought I would try again and see if it got any better. A little over halfway through the action picked up and I was able to finish the rest of the it within 2 days but the ending was predictable and disappointing. Overall I wouldn't say I disliked the book but thought it was unsatisfying. 

Recommendation:
I wouldn't recommend this as there are too many well written techo thrillers out there to waste time on this one. Try Daemon by Daniel Suarez or Cyberstorm by Matthew Mather as alternatives.

February 28, 2015

Review: The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig


Product Description:
Four hundred years in the future, the Earth has turned primitive following a nuclear fire that has laid waste to civilization and nature. Though the radiation fallout has ended, for some unknowable reason every person is born with a twin. Of each pair, one is an Alpha—physically perfect in every way; and the other an Omega—burdened with deformity, small or large. With the Council ruling an apartheid-like society, Omegas are branded and ostracized while the Alphas have gathered the world’s sparse resources for themselves. Though proclaiming their superiority, for all their effort Alphas cannot escape one harsh fact: Whenever one twin dies, so does the other.

Cass is a rare Omega, one burdened with psychic foresight. While her twin, Zach, gains power on the Alpha Council, she dares to dream the most dangerous dream of all: equality. For daring to envision a world in which Alphas and Omegas live side-by-side as equals, both the Council and the Resistance have her in their sights.


My Thoughts:
The Fire Sermon was set in a vivid world with incredible characters. Haig gave us such wonderful descriptions that I could clearly imagine the landscape and the people so much so that it felt like I had paused a movie whenever I wasn't reading. The best part of it was the fear that the new world felt about the technology of the past. With dystopian books I always wonder what pushed society to the point of the total control that most books have their characters living under but with The Fire Sermon I could clearly understand why their world was the way it became. 

Starting the book I had no clue that it was part of a trilogy and towards the end I could tell there was going to be a resolution but I felt there was more of the story to be told. That's when I looked up the book online and found that it was just book one. I was so happy to learn that there was more to come and the book has also been optioned by Dreamworks so I'm hoping that a movie is soon to come. The Fire Sermon is now in the top spot on my 2015 Top 5 list. 

My Recommendation:
I recommend this one for fans of dystopian YA. 

February 22, 2015

Review: Influx by Daniel Suarez


Product Description:
Physicist Jon Grady and his team have discovered a device that can reflect gravity—a triumph that will revolutionize the field of physics and change the future. But instead of acclaim, Grady’s lab is locked down by a covert organization known as the Bureau of Technology Control.

The bureau’s mission: suppress the truth of sudden technological progress and prevent the social upheaval it would trigger. Because the future is already here. And it’s rewards are only for a select few.

When Grady refuses to join the BTC, he’s thrown into a nightmarish high-tech prison housing other doomed rebel intellects. Now, as the only hope to usher humanity out of its artificial dark age, Grady and his fellow prisoners must try to expose the secrets of an unimaginable enemy—one that wields a technological advantage half a century in the making.


My Thoughts:
Daemon and Freedom by Suarez were two of my favorite reads last year so I was looking forward to Influx and I wasn't disappointed. It was a great mix of futuristic technology, brilliant scientists and a secretive government agency. When the action finally starts (yes it was a little slow in the beginning) it's a wild ride to the end. So wild in fact that it gets a little over the top at the end with buildings flying off into space when hit by a gravity weapon. 

A lot of times sci-fi books are so plausible they even scare me a little but as much as I would like to imagine theres's all this amazing technology being secreted away the plot isn't at all realistic. As I usually do I set the unrealistic aspects aside and just try to enjoy the story within. That really what makes this one a recommended read. 


February 21, 2015

Review: The Glittering World by Robert Levy


Product Description:
In the tradition of Neil Gaiman (The Ocean at the End of the Lane), Scott Smith (The Ruins), and Jason Mott (The Returned), award-winning playwright Robert Levy spins a dark tale of alienation and belonging, the familiar and the surreal, family secrets and the search for truth in his debut supernatural thriller.

When up-and-coming chef Michael “Blue” Whitley returns with three friends to the remote Canadian community of his birth, it appears to be the perfect getaway from New York. He soon discovers, however, that everything he thought he knew about himself is a carefully orchestrated lie. Though he had no recollection of the event, as a young boy Blue and another child went missing for weeks in the idyllic, mysterious woods of Starling Cove. Soon thereafter, his mother suddenly fled with him to America, their homeland left behind.

But then Blue begins to remember. And once the shocking truth starts bleeding back into his life, his closest friends—Elisa, his former partner in crime; her stalwart husband, Jeremy; and Gabe, Blue’s young and admiring co-worker—must unravel the secrets of Starling Cove and the artists’ colony it once harbored. All four will face their troubled pasts, their most private demons, and a mysterious race of beings that inhabits the land, spoken of by the locals only as the Other Kind…

My Thoughts:

When deciding if I should read and review this book what really caught my attention and made me choose it was that it was compared to Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane  and Scott Smith's The Ruins. Both were books that I loved. The Glittering World is definitely a strange journey with suspenseful moments throughout. 

The story sucked me in at the very beginning and the book narration switching from Blue to each of his friends added even more suspense but about halfway through I felt it lost a little steam. Things just kept getting a weirder and weirder and I was actually more creeped out than hooked on what was coming next. 

The ending was very supernatural and eerie but it actually won me back over. Taking the entire book into consideration I will call this one a win. 

My Recommendation:
I recommend this one for anyone who loves supernatural fantasy books. 

February 1, 2015

Review: September Sky by John A. Heldt


Product Description:
When unemployed San Francisco reporter Chuck Townsend, 45, and his college dropout son, Justin, take a trip to Mexico in 2016, each hopes to rebuild a relationship after years of estrangement. But their journey takes an unexpected turn when they meet a cruise-ship lecturer who has discovered the secret of time travel. Within days, Chuck and Justin find themselves in 1900, riding a train to Texas, intent on preventing a distant uncle from being hanged for a crime he did not commit. Their quick trip to Galveston, however, becomes long and complicated when they wrangle with business rivals and fall for two beautiful librarians on the eve of a hurricane that will destroy the city. Filled with humor, history, romance, and heartbreak, September Sky follows two directionless souls on the adventure of a lifetime as they try to make their peace with the past, find new purposes, and grapple with the knowledge of things to come.

My Thoughts:
Having read 3 of the 5 books in Heldt's Northwest Passage that also focus around time travel I was looking forward to reading September Sky which is the first book in his new American Journey series. I ended up a little conflicted in my opinion of this one. It's a great story but I felt absolutely no attachments to the characters which was a bit of a disappointment. 

Chuck and his son Justin had no respect for the professor and the rules they agreed to. They immediately went off the reservation and followed about on their own agenda. Right from that moment I found myself a little disconnected and didn't feel invested in much of the story after that. 

I did however like the historical part of the story. I learned a lot about a real tragedy which prompted me to look up information on the actual event. Heldt captured the true horror of it and I was engrossed in that part of the story. This definitely made up for the detachment I had from the characters and I was left wondering about the next installment and who is going to travel next. Based on the author's other books I'm pretty sure I'll be reading book 2 in the series. 

My Recommendation:
I recommend this for anyone who loves time travel romances. 

January 21, 2015

Review: The Dead of December by Ryan Bowman


Product Description:
Growing up in the suffocating grip of Detroit's most crime-ridden neighborhood, Sugar Sinclair has always aspired to defy the odds and make something of his life. But on a bitter December night, he finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and his hopes for the future are extinguished in the blink of an eye. 

Meanwhile, Gerald Dawes is a weary beat cop weighed down by the disappearance of his son and a crumbling marriage. When a monotonous night shift turns catastrophic and his partner is killed in the line of duty, Gerald reaches an emotional breaking point. Desperate for vengeance, he wrongfully arrests affluent real estate agent Clarence Sanford, whose true crime is one he hopes to keep from his family. 

As Sugar, Gerald and Clarence wage war against their inner demons, their lives become increasingly intertwined, the fateful intersection of their paths increasingly imminent. 
Will truth and justice prevail? Or will the streets of Detroit swallow three more souls? 

My Thoughts:
I think this is the first time I've ever felt like I was reading in slow motion. I could clearly see where everything was leading and I was in tense suspense hoping it wouldn't play out the way I expected. Clearly from the book description things did go wrong and the fall out afterwards leads to gut wrenching decisions that need to be made by all three characters. 

Young Sugar has to make a life decision that has already affected his family and so many in his neighborhood. Clarence is faced with making a confession that will implode his so-called perfect family. Gerald is torn between the politics of the police force and his inner turmoil. They each have nothing but that night weighing heavily on them and have to come to terms with doing the right thing versus doing the easy thing. 

The only reason I didn't give the book a full five star rating was the way the disappearance of Gerald's son was told. I felt like it was only thrown in to explain Gerald's struggles with alcohol. There was no "meat on the bone" in that part of the story and it didn't hold up to the rest of the storyline. Otherwise this was an incredible book that is going on my Top Five list for this year and even though it's only January, I'm confident it will remain there all year.

My Recommendation:
This is the perfect read for anyone who loves crime fiction and page-turning suspense.