Night Over Water by Ken Follett

Multi-layered and fascinating read.

Crime, intrigue, espionage, instant romance, and fleeing spouses not to mention backstabbing business partners. This novel will not disappoint and is worth every penny whether you purchase the Kindle version or the paperback.

Night Over Water has it all, and Ken Follett has done a masterful job of weaving a story set on the brink of World War II. 

The Pan American Clipper a transatlantic luxurious seaplane based on some nearly lost aviation history sets a captivating scene for this wonderful tale.

At no time during the story was the end predictable. A great tale.

EENY MEENY Book Review

Bone-Jarring * Brutal * Intense

Great piece of crime fiction by M. J. Arlidge. 
Not your usual fair (Cliche I know, but it's true)– Detective Inspector Helen Grace pursues a twisted serial killer. The story setting is the English coastal city of Southampton. Grace is a tough, determined police officer who rides a motorbike and prefers to travel through life alone; she nevertheless is beset by personal demons. The killer is kidnapping pairs of victims and torturing them in ways that to tell you would be a spoiler. The identity of the predator unveiled only in the last ten percent of the book comes entirely unexpected.

Much like an out of control car careening towards you on a rainy night, some aspects of this story can be seen coming; nevertheless, they were unique as fingerprints. Piece by jagged piece added up to a chilling razor-sharp tale, and the story never lagged. The cold brutality of the action was felt in every letter of sparing descriptions which were never gratuitous. At times, my stomach lurched at the vivid depictions. The only distraction or complication I felt was a purely American one, the British idioms lent realism but confused me more than once.
Great story.

...and the Smell of Old Leather

What is it with the smell of old leather? Do you love it or hate it?
Knowing me as a lover of words, Nichole, one of my five daughters (read 'em and weep (5)) gifted me a new journal for Christmas. All of those daughters are in their thirties and some are watching forty loom ever closer. I have journal's dating back to when most of them were in Middle School.
This new journal is leather-covered and smells grand.

Hi, my name is Mike. I am a journal keeper and leather smeller.
Journal keeping is becoming ever scarcer these days. Perhaps rare, only because they/we are often driven underground by mock and ridicule, seen as nerds choosing hovels and holes over the bright sunlight or hypnotic glare of a big flatscreen TV.
Electronic journal keeping has not won me over to the dark side – yet. Everything else can go electronic, and it has, but you will not get my paper and ink journal until you pry it from my cold dead hands.
Not to worry, I have fully embraced electronics, typing this blog post on my Mac over Starbucks Wifi, checking my iPhone for Twitter updates and feeding Instagram selfies via my iPad. Quick call the shrink; I am one sick puppy. Although, if I am sick, you better bring a big bus; there are a lot of us here.
Perhaps the feeling of legacy or durability drives my desire to see ink applied to paper by my hand. In a dark corner of my needy mind, my hope is that when I am dead and gone, some as yet unborn descendant will be crazy enough to dig through my effects and find a lasting nugget or two from the chronicles of my crazy life.
I love the smell of leather, mostly old leather. Searching the subject on Google, I found much to my disappointment that the smell is from the chemicals used to preserve the animal hide. Up until then, my brimming imagination pictured old pioneers stripping hides from majestic Bison and cattle to provide me with an olfactory treat.
The smell of leather promises danger and adventure, something that I lived a lot of in my younger more infamous days. During my outlaw biker days, the leather jacket was a second skin, and though I hate to admit it – GIANT MAN PURSE. Its pockets were full of carburetor parts, weapons and other illegal substances. Up until I experienced an awakening in Christ, there was even a new Gospel of John tucked away in one of the myriad pockets. The thing (the jacket) weighed a ton, and I loved its smell which was a lethal mix of whiskey, blood, oil, gasoline and sweat.
The odor of leather proffers the dream of big adventure much like reading a crime novel or riding a big motorcycle from the comfort of your living room chair.
Boil it down, and sniffing leather is a lot like reading a book, albeit fiction, but a book nevertheless.
And there you have it.
Peace,
M. Matheson

We're not Murderers We are Killers. There's a Difference.

The following excerpt is from Flatline my next book, a full tilt running crime novel in which the heroes of the story are not the good guys. It's a wicked twist on the Robin Hood story. Our protagonists, who are not very nice men are preparing for their first sortie into the streets of Recife, Brazil. Their mission is to kill the murderers of street kids. 

Troy is the retired motorcycle gangster. Enrique is a sixteen-year-old boy who he rescued from a contract hit that he performed. And, Hercules was their bodyguard but is now their great friend.

July was my original target for completion, then October, but the characters just wouldn't stay in the box. I am on the second revision/edit and hope to be published by the end of January. March at the latest.

~~~~0~~~~

That information added to intel provided by Commander de Lima helped them develop their first hard target.

It was ten o’clock on a Tuesday night. The weather was warm, and the stars were fuzzy points of light thanks to the smog of the city. At their clandestine safe house, room 107 in the Hotel Veraneio, Troy spread the old map and went over their positions and instructions for the fifth time. Inventorying their weaponry, ammo, and surveillance gear for the first strike, they felt like exterminators riding out to rid the city of an unseen plague.

Four Remington Compact Sniper Rifles were broken down into small custom-fit rucksacks. The rucksacks went into backpacks similar to what a school kid would carry and then all four packs were stowed into a single duffel until they reached the site. They tested their earwig communications. When Troy had been teaching him how to fight and use guns, Enrique never imagined that one day this would all come to life.

“Boy! Get those dreamy thoughts out of your head!” Hercules snapped. “You need all your wits about you, or we'll be dumping your carcass in the water along with those murderers.”

“Ain't we murderers Herc?” Enrique rocked on his heels thinking he might have bested the large man.

Hercules fumed and stamped, and the sound reverberated off cheap walls. Even the concrete underfoot rattled as if it might crack from his undecipherable bellowing. “No!” he shouted. “We're not murderers.” He jerked open the threadbare drapes and pointed his finger out the window and into one of the largest cities in South America. “Those baby killers out there, they are the murderers! We're killers. Get that in your head. There's a difference. God doesn’t murder; he kills.”

If you'd like to leave a comment and find the form tedious you can comment on my twitter feed @mikeyznsacto or Facebook M. Matheson

Book Review- The Drop by Michael Connelly

The Drop is the 24th novel by American crime author Michael Connelly, and the fifteenth novel featuring Los Angeles Police Department detective Harry Bosch. The book was published on 22 November 2011.Wikipedia 

This is the first book I’ve read/heard by author Michael Connelly. I listened to the audio version and it was performed well. The character of Harry Bosch was well portrayed as were other characters.

I felt the story took off slowly, but it worked well for the story to do so. It was much like the detective/protagonist building a case. When it got going the story couldn’t be put down.

The story intertwines the hunt for the truth in a case that waffles back and forth between suicide and murder as the cause of death. Each waffle had me convinced that was the truth.

Simultaneously Bosch works a twenty-year-old cold case that ends with…

Detective Bosch is made very believable as the single parent of a fifteen-year-old daughter, and by his relationship with a woman he meets during the course of his investigation. Relational dynamics between he and his partner keep tension throughout.

I will be reading more books by Mr. Connelly and gave it a solid four stars.

Trivia from Wiki
In March 2011, Connelly auctioned off the naming of a character in The Drop on eBay. The fundraiser will benefit the DeKalb County Public Library Foundation. The bidding ran until 13 March 2011, at which time, after 65 bids, the auction closed at $2,917.00. The name of the winner has not been disclosed

Book Review- The Hook by Donald Westlake

The Hook by Donald Westlake

Combination Crime and Writer’s Drama

Bryce Proctorr is a successful writer, well-known wherever he goes. His wife is famous only for being married to him, and she’s dragging him over the coals in an ugly divorce. 

Bryce is stuck with a bad case of writer's block, and an impending deadline. His chance encounter with an old college buddy and fellow writer, Wayne Prentice, generates an evil idea, and Proctorr has a proposition: If Prentice gives Proctorr his unsold manuscript to be sold under Proctorr's name, they will split the book advance fifty-fifty. There's just one small catch to the deal.... and that is what drives the entire story.

The story moves amazingly well but gets hung up two-thirds through and spends a great deal of time in internal dialog about the angst within both writers. The story was still so good I was afraid to put it down. Nevertheless; the inner workings of each writer are a point of empathy. If you are a writer, you will recognize the thought schemes from your own.

The story provides lots of surprising twists and turns. The ending though is anticlimactic and leaves you hanging.

It is a worthwhile four-star read. I listened to it as an audio book, and it was well performed.

If you'd like to leave a comment and find the form tedious you can comment on my twitter feed @mikeyznsacto or Facebook M. Matheson

Life Better Lived Dead

Life Better Lived Dead, that's the tagline of my second novel twisting in the grinder of the editing and revision process. I can’t recall how those words first emerged from the loamy earth, but I immediately liked the taste, smell and sound. That short phrase encapsulated the message of, ‘FLATLINE’.

It’s a crime novel, a fun little read, 90,000 words plus of bullets, blood, splattered brains, and big – make that – HUGE knives slipped from hidden sheaths between the shoulder blades of Goliath-sized cartel soldiers.

Can a book like that have a message to edify one's soul?

All books and stories have a lesson, moral or message – for someone. I'm a believer. Every book I've read had something to say.

Stories, like primeval notes stuffed in bottles, are penned, corked and set adrift upon stormy seas just waiting to land on some foreign shore in the hands of its next reader. This happens by chance and providence alone. Or, how else would they find us? Or, we find them?

Every year for Christmas, Nichole, one of my five daughters, has given me a book. Not a one of those has failed to spark some big shift in my psyche. They arrived exactly on time. She had no idea what was swimming in my soul at the time, and we never discuss books since she is not a big reader. Even our tastes and styles run divergently to one another.

Asked how she picked them, she responded, “Oh, it just looked like something you would like.”

By the same process, 'Life Better Lived Dead' came to life. If I were to think on it much longer, I might wonder if it would stir some controversy, but then again, it may drive some people away. Perhaps it was not in the stars for them to read this book.

How do those words strike you? What do you think of me as an author for penning “Life Better Lived Dead?" Does it bring up thoughts of suicide or vampires, or a biblical verse you once read or heard?

Suicide:

Do I think suicide would be a better option than a living breathing above ground existence?

Not on most days, no. This story and that line are not a lead into a discussion on assisted suicide. I have strong thoughts on that, but would rather leave them where they're at for right now.

Vampires and the Undead:

Am I a vampire or am I promoting the life of the undead as some better option than what most of us have here? Or, on the other side of the same coin, do I have something against the undead or a vampire’s lifestyle?

I’ve enjoyed reading vampire tales, but it doesn’t stir a belief in them. The original Dracula tale might come close, but is definitely more Christian than my story. Dracula was chock full of Christian truths in a metaphorical battle of good against evil.

Looking for the correct words to describe my experience with Dracula, I searched the internet and found Mike Duran’s tremendous blog and comments. His well-worded explanation for what I found during my read of the original Dracula was better than I could have come up with.

“For one, Christianity is portrayed in a positive light throughout Dracula. The protagonists pray, quote Scripture, seek God’s guidance, and ultimately prevail. If Count Dracula is meant to symbolize the devil, then it is clearly Stoker’s intent to show that the evil one is resisted through the power of God. And unlike much contemporary vampire fiction, Christianity is not minimized or mocked. Rather, our heroes display an unabashed reliance upon the God of Scripture and His Son, Jesus Christ.”

“Life Better Lived Dead,” should be better explained…

In my novel ‘Flatline,’ Troy Bittles is retired from decades as an enforcer for the world's most notorious motorcycle gang. He sees his best years behind him. Life was once a constant flow of blood, bullets, and fists which never stopped flying. But those wild times have slowed to a nonexistent trickle. He and Sam, his Bulldog, go from one day to the next in a snails-paced progression towards the end…

All in one day, Troy moves from bemoaning his flatlined existence to tumbling headlong into a mad dash of crime and murder across two states and three countries. Troy is strong-armed into using his former skills in the killing arts to perform for a mystery organization. These deeds run counter to his newly formed set of values, but his only choice is kill or be killed. The only reason Troy finds to go through with it is one faint sliver of hope that he can redeem himself from an old dark regret that looms over his life.

He pours his life into that purpose rather than keep his life to himself. And, in that sense, his life is better lived dead.

“If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.” (Matthew 10:39 NLT)

When Jesus said this, there were no churches, so he meant more than church attendance and missions service. What he meant was, if you pour your life into his cause, you will find your life.

Jesus’ cause was people, not necessarily their comfort, but their life.

Our lives scream for a purpose, a cause to throw ourselves into, a cause outside of our own small world. When we chase that cause, it brings us life. Hence, our life is better lived dead.

You could read Flatline, ignore its message, and still enjoy it, but, why the hell would you waste your time like that?

I’m on my second pass of revisions. My next pass is to print it and read it aloud to the cat before turning it over to an editor.

Hopefully, it will be done by the end of 2015.

'Flatline' The heroes of this story are NOT the good guys.

My next novel, (which I initially expected to publish in 2015) started as a speculative fiction piece intended to be a short story. But, the characters and events got loose, and I was never able to corral them into the seven or ten thousand words I originally intended. They wanted a crime novel, and I became their galley slave.

Despite its cry for guns, guts, blood and violence, it is a clean and fairly flinch-free read. Flinching as you duck the bullets and brains.

The protagonist, Troy Bittles, is a retired enforcer for an infamous worldwide motorcycle club (gang). In retirement, he has turned his former exploits into fodder for a semi-successful writing career. He lives alone with an aging English Bulldog, Sam.

Life seems good, but the monotony is not all he thought it would be. Stacked against his former action-filled life, as an enforcer amongst outlaws, his current life is a definite flatline. For a while, he finds peace with the life he yearned for, yet one haunting deed he never can shake, the accidental murder of a child, continues to haunt his mind and heart. The hit was never supposed to go down that way. The boy was not expected to be in the house. On law enforcement logs, the child is still listed as missing, likely kidnapped.

While out for a routine walk with his dog, Troy is rat-packed by a group of street thugs. Initially, it seems unplanned although provoked by Troy. A much older outlaw shows up to help. Silas Parker, who in the spectrum of organized gangs, is the polar opposite of Troy's world. The only thing the two have in common is violence and murder.

Silas' help comes with a bite, though, as both men are propelled headlong into a series of calamitous events filled with hitmen, murder, drug cartels and runs from the police. Within these developments, Troy sees a dim chance at redemption for the one deed he felt had doomed him to a life of torment.

The story winds its way through California, Arizona, Mexico, Central America, and Brazil. In Recife, Brazil they are killing killers, the death squads preying on children whose only real crime is poverty. The story took a turn I could never have imagined, and redemption for the protagonists remains in sight but just out of reach.

The ending flabbergasted me and made me flinch.

Flatline is a crime novel. A wanton wild tale with a cast of strong, colorful characters that ride with impunity through violent circumstances mostly of their making.

The heroes in this novel are not the good guys.

Look for Flatline's release by mid-2016.