Crusader's Cross by James Lee Burke

FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Crime writer James Lee Burke returns to Louisiana where his hero, Dave Robicheaux, sleuths his way through a hotbed of sin and uncertainty. For Dave, life in Louisiana is filled with haunting memories of the past - images from Vietnam, the violent streets of New Orleans, and his own troubled youth. In Crusader's Cross, a deathbed confession from an old schoolmate resurrects a story of injustice, the murder of a young woman, and a time in Robicheaux's life he has tried to forget." "Her name may or may not have been Ida Durbin. It was back in the innocent days of the 1950s when Robicheaux and his brother, Jimmie, met her on a Galveston beach. She was pretty and Jimmie fell for her hard - not knowing she was a prostitute on infamous Post Office Street, with ties to the mob. Then Ida was abducted and never seen again." Now, decades later, Robicheaux is asking questions about Ida Durbin, and a couple of redneck deputy sheriffs make it clear that asking questions is a dangerous game. With a series of horrifying murders and the sudden appearance of Valentine Chalons and his sister, Honoria, a disturbed and deeply alluring woman, Robicheaux is soon involved not only with the Chalons family but with the murderous energies of the New Orleans underworld. Also, he meets and finds himself drawn into a scandalous relationship with a remarkable Catholic nun.
Series: Dave Robicheaux Series, #14

The Patriots Club by Christopher Reich Another co...

The Patriots Club by Christopher Reich

Another conspiracy book. A street smart investment banker finds himself a victim of a conspiracy originating in the highest levels of the government.

Good read, recommended.

The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly Criminal d...

The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly

Criminal defense lawyer with a penchant for Lincoln town cars finds himself targetted by his own client whom he is defending.

A new character from Micheal Connolly, good gripping read, recommended.

The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly

Criminal defense lawyer with a penchant for Lincoln town cars finds himself targetted by his own client whom he is defending.

A new character from Micheal Connolly, good griiping read, recommended.

Iron Orchid by Stuart Woods

Was one of my favorite authors but sadly he is losing it. He is churning out massmarket potboilers. I used to like this character Holly Barker but now that character has almost lost all charm. I the current novel Holly resigns form her post as a chief of police, steals an unholy amount of money and joins the CIA where she is promptly tasked to track a rogue agent who is killing off bad guys. Her character which was kind of cute with the acompanying dog in her role as a small town police officer now becomes ungainly when she joins the CIA and she takes her dog everywhere in the manner of a blind taking the seeing eye dog everywhere. This gets old very quickly. Also there is a cameo appearance by his other hero Stone Barrington.
This will be the last book that I will read by this author.

Quote

He who builds a better mousetrap these days runs into material shortages, patent-infringement suits, work stoppages, collusive bidding, discount discrimination--and taxes."
- HE Martz

The Blood Price by Jon Evans
Hiker gets caught in an internatinal conspiracy involving human trafficking and war criminals.

EVERY DEAD THING by John Connolly

FROM THE PUBLISHER
Former NYPD detective Charlie "Bird" Parker is on the verge of madness. Tortured by the unsolved slayings of his wife and young daughter, he is a man consumed by guilt, regret, and the desire for revenge. When his former partner asks him to track down a missing girl, Parker finds himself drawn into a world beyond his imagining: a world where thirty-year-old killings remain shrouded in fear and lies, a world where the ghosts of the dead torment the living, a world haunted by the murderer responsible for the deaths in his family - a serial killer who uses the human body to create works of art and takes faces as his prize. But the search awakens buried instincts in Parker: instincts for survival, for compassion, for love, and, ultimately, for killing. Aided by a beautiful young psychologist and a pair of bickering career criminals, Parker becomes the bait in a trap set in the humid bayous of Louisiana, a trap that threatens the lives of everyone in its reach.

14 Peck Slip by Ed Dee

Bait by Kenneth Abel

FROM THE PUBLISHER
A mesmerizing edge-of-the-seat thriller that combines the gritty realism of a cop's world with some of the most hair-raising scenes in modern fiction, Bait heralds the stunning debut of Kenneth Abel, a brilliant new voice in suspense fiction. Abel's nerve-shattering novel introduces a hero who gives us all reason to cheer ... a man who refuses to run, a cop who crosses the line to protect what matters most - his family and his pride. The life and career of narcotics detective Jack Walsh goes to hell the night his partner gets shot. First he drinks to blank out the memory; then getting drunk leads to the accident where Boston's boss of bosses, Johnny D'Angelo, loses his only son. It's Walsh's car that plows into the boy's birthday Mazda, and Walsh's badge that makes the whole "tragedy" seem suspicious. Maybe the collision is pure chance, but one thing is sure: Johnny D'Angelo needs to salve his family's grief by making Jack Walsh pay. Stripped of his badge, Walsh spends his time reviewing this strange series of events, putting together enough firepower to hold off an army, and watching the men who are watching him. That is until pretty U.S. Attorney Kate Haggerty comes knocking at his door, telling him the deal: They want him to wear a wire and be the bait that catches D'Angelo. But neither Walsh nor the feds count on the inept gangsters and loose cannons who are coming after Walsh. And nobody counts on Walsh's keeping the code of silence and loyalty to his own kind. Walsh is after personal justice. He'll be the bait to catch the fish he wants hooked in the violent underworld of narcs and crime kingpins ... where a cop who knows too much may be the only one smart enough to survive.

The Devil's Right Hand by J.D. Rhoades

FROM THE PUBLISHER
"This is the story of Jack Keller, a man tormented by the nightmares he's had ever since a disastrous tour in Desert Storm. Destroyed by his experience, Keller now makes his living tracking bail jumpers for H&H, a North Carolina bail bonds company run by a reclusive, beautiful, and horribly scarred woman named Angela. In truth, Keller doesn't work bail enforcement to live, he lives to work - the only thing that breaks through the numbness is the thrill of the hunt, the sound of gunfire, the high that comes with each successful takedown." "When H&H is required to track down a lifelong loser for jumping bail on a routine burglary collar, Keller has no idea how gravely events are about to spiral out of his control. He chases his quarry straight into the center of a firestorm involving a pair of local Indians blinded by rage and hell-bent to avenge their father's murder. Along the way they encounter a vicious North Carolina cop with a mean streak and very few moral boundaries. Not to mention the cop's beautiful partner, Marie, caught between a newfound desire for the just-on-the-edge-of-the-law Jack Keller and her loyalty to a police department with a serious ethics problem." These people, each hurtling forward on his or her own individual trajectory of self-destruction, begin to intersect one another's lives in a series of volatile, escalating, and deadly events.