Editing by Elizabeth

June 11, 2010

Hidden and Imminent Dangers
by D.W. Hardin

Hidden and Imminent Dangers by D.W. Hardin “During my career I’ve found leaders a scarce commodity. The world is full of managers and directors, but they’re not leaders.” – Colonel Nathan Zinsky, M.D.

A young man is brought into the ER at University Community Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky suffering from what appears to be a particularly nasty case of the flu. Upon learning that the man is employed at a poultry farm, Infectious Disease specialist Dr. Mercato Marcus is the first to recognize there is something much more serious going on.

Suspecting a case of H5N1 avian influenza (“bird flu”), Dr. Marcus sounds the alarm to the Centers for Disease Control. Her bosses, however, are more concerned with the hospital’s image should a panic ensue and it turns out that Dr. Marcus was wrong… she is not.

Unfortunately, the virus’s point of origin being a poultry farm allows for its lightening fast spread: migrant workers, infected but not yet symptomatic, disperse home for the holidays; long haul truckers who truck out the season’s last shipments unwittingly spread the virus at every stop along their routes; a group of global investors looking to acquire the farm are exposed during a tour of the facilities and take the virus back to their home countries with them.

The President tries to control the situation on the domestic front by quarantining several counties surrounding the hospital, but he is met with resistance from the Governor of Kentucky who sees the crisis as a chance to make a show of power for his constituents. So much time is lost to the posturing and playing of politics that by the time Colonel Nathan Zinsky, M.D. from the Centers for Disease Control finally arrives in Louisville University Community Hospital has become ground zero for a global pandemic, the worst since the “Spanish Flu” pandemic of 1918.

Author D.W. Hardin’s unique background in both emergency medicine and law enforcement lends Hidden and Imminent Dangers an unmistakable aura of legitimacy. Every action taken by the medical personnel and police officers rings true, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the character of Mac MacIntosh, a former medic in the Special Forces currently working as an RN in the ER of University Community Hospital.

Given today’s highly mobile society the scenario presented in Hidden and Imminent Dangers is not only entirely possible, it’s just a matter of time some experts argue. An immensely enjoyable medical thriller, Hidden and Imminent Dangers will leave even the most levelheaded reader with flashbacks to the recent H1N1 influenza (“Swine Flu”) scare and questions as to just how ready we are for the next super-virus that comes along.

D.W. Hardin is a registered nurse who has worked in an ER at a university teaching hospital which is designated as a class one trauma hospital. He is also a Reserve Lieutenant Deputy Sheriff. He drew on his experience working in the emergency room and as

June 08, 2010

Blanket of White by Amy Grech

Blanket of White by Amy Grech “Everyone’s patience has its limits.” – Rampart

The fourteen tales that comprise author Amy Grech’s second collection of short stories, Blanket of White, are all about finding people’s limits. Grech takes common themes – love, death, coming of age, sex, family relationships – and drags the reader across the line of comfort on an exploration of the dark side of those familiar situations.

In some, Grech forces the reader to confront that darkness head on, sparing no detail in the horror that people can inflict upon one another: “Prevention,” a demonstration of how the pressure of decades of sibling rivalry and parental neglect can explode horribly sideways; “Raven’s Revenge,” a supernatural tale that tips its bloody cap to the master, Edgar Allan Poe; “Russian Roulette,” in which a love triangle turns decidedly deadly; and “Perishables,” a post-apocalyptic exploration of just how far one man will go to survive.

In others, however, Grech builds her stories around the more nuanced psychological and emotional traumas that people encounter: “Blanket of White,” the title story, is a poignant look at the desperate measures people are willing to take in the name of love; “Initiation Day,” in which a young man makes a life altering choice between fitting in and standing alone; “Crosshairs,” where a father learns, with devastating consequences, just how much his young son has taken his teachings to heart; and “EV 2000,” a clever, futuristic tale of an electronic vampire run amok in its desire to understand what it is to be human.

It is in exploring those emotional shades of gray where the true power of Grech’s writing shines through. As such, it is the wonderfully understated “Damp Wind And Leaves” that is far and away the standout of the collection. Set against the backdrop of a Halloween party, the story skillfully unfurls the emotional evolution of a seventeen year old, over the course of a single evening, from that of a child trying to hold on to his delight in the manufactured scares of Halloween to that of a young man ready to let go of childish things and take the truly scary step forward into adulthood.

While each stands on its own, taken collectively the stories in Blanket of White represent a complete journey through emotions that everyone has experienced – love and hate, jealousy and rage, pride and shame – and does so in an unflinching way that packs a huge emotional wallop.

Amy Grech has sold over one hundred stories and three poems to various anthologies and magazines. In addition to Blanket of White, Amy is the author of the novel The Art of Deception, and co-authored the novella Fallen Angel with Mike McCarty. To learn more about Amy, visit her website.

June 03, 2010

Swallow by Tonya Plank

Like so many times since arriving on the East Coast, I realized that, for all the oohs and aahs I received back home for my accomplishments, they amounted to absolutely nada here. – Sophie Hegel

It’s hard to believe that someone who graduated from Yale Law School and landed a prestigious fellowship with the New York City Public Defender’s Office could think her accomplishments amount to “nada,” but when we meet Sophie Hegel at the beginning of author Tonya Plank’s debut novel, Swallow, Sophie is experiencing serious self-confidence issues.

Originally from a small town in Arizona, she’s not found it easy transitioning to the fast paced world of NYC. It doesn’t help that her boyfriend, an attorney at a prestigious law firm, works insane hours and the only socializing they do seems to bring her into contact with a crowd of upscale attorneys from generations deep ivy league pedigrees… which only makes her feel more insecure.

Things seem to be looking up when her boyfriend proposes to her at dinner one evening, except that she suddenly gets the sensation that she has a lump in her throat and finds it nearly impossible to swallow. Not only does the sensation not go away, it gets progressively worse and her inability to eat anything substantial causes her to lose such an alarming amount of weight that her friends and family think she has an eating disorder. Though she doesn’t, she does realize that she needs help, and thus begins her search for the cause of her condition.

Despite that rather dire sounding set-up, Swallow is actually a very engaging, darkly humorous read. Sophie’s attempts to find the answer to her problem in the medical world, first with a physician then a psychologist, are fertile ground for misadventure. She’s also surrounded by an extremely colorful cast of supporting characters: the fashion maven who takes Sophie under her wing; her gay, law school dropout turned artist friend; her father, a semi-successful maker of pornographic films; a surprisingly insightful client, currently incarcerated at Sing Sing; even the enigmatic doorman of the building Sophie lives in makes for a memorable presence in his few scenes.

The supporting cast, however, is not merely there as pretty window dressing. Each serves as a unique piece of the puzzle that is Sophie’s life. Her challenge is in learning to understand how her interactions with each are either helping or hurting her growth as a person and potentially contributing to her condition, which is eventually diagnosed as a psychosomatic illness caused by stress.

Plank has created a wonderfully three-dimensional and quite believable character in Sophie, and Swallow presents an almost painfully realistic portrait of a young woman’s journey from emotional repression and self-doubt to emotional freedom and self-assurance.

Tonya Plank worked as a criminal appeals attorney in New York City. A former competitive ballroom dancer and a longtime balletomane, she writes the dance

June 01, 2010

Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell

The only oath I took, as I recall, was to first do no harm. I’m thinking we’re past that point. – Dr. Peter Brown

As should be abundantly obvious from that quote, Dr. Peter Brown is not your typical doctor. In fact, he spent the majority of his adult life before we meet him in Beat The Reaper taking lives, not saving them.

He didn’t even begin life as Peter Brown but as Pietro Brwna, a young man whose life was set on the path to violence when his grandparents, who were raising him, were murdered when he was fourteen. Fortunately, he is taken in by the family of his best friend, “Skinflick” (don’t ask) Locanos. Unfortunately, it just so happens that the Locanos family is a major player in the mob.

It takes him a year, but Pietro tracks down his grandparents’ killers and exacts his revenge. Impressed with the young man’s natural talent for killing, the Locanos “family” recruits Pietro as a hit man. He enjoys and excels at the job until one day circumstances arise which force him to choose between going to jail and turning state’s evidence.

Not thinking that’s really too difficult of a choice he enters the Witness Protection Program, Pietro Brwna becomes Peter Brown, the Feds send him to medical school, and he ultimately finds himself working as a medical intern at a low-rent hospital in Manhattan.

Everything seems to be going fine until one day Brown goes to break the news to a patient that he has cancer, only to discover that he recognizes the man as a wiseguy from his days working with the mob. Worse, the patient also recognizes Brown. The mobster, who’s terrified of dying during his scheduled operation, offers Brown a deal he can’t refuse: make sure he gets through his surgery ok and he won’t rat Brown out to the family. Except… he rats him out anyway. And this is the point, boys and girls, where you’d better buckle-up because the ride gets decidedly bumpy. →

May 28, 2010

Love Kills by Dianne Emley

“Speaking from personal experience, I don’t recommend getting in touch with your dark side. Not healthy.” – Nan Vining

Pasadena Police Department Homicide Detective Nan Vining most definitely knows about the dark side. Two years prior to the events in Love Kills she was attacked by a serial killer in a vicious knife assault that left her scarred both physically and psychologically.

While her physical wounds mended on their own over time, it took Nan going to a very dark place psychologically before she emerged feeling confident and free again, which is where we find her at the start of Love Kills, the fourth book in author Dianne Emley’s Nan Vining series.

And she’s going to need every ounce of her rediscovered confidence to deal with the three death investigations that cross her path in Love Kills, as not only do they all appear to be linked to each other, but also to someone close to Nan.

When Nan and her partner, Detective Jim Kissick, are called to the site of a Pasadena socialite’s drowning, Nan is startled to realize that she recognizes the victim, Catherine “Tink” Engleford, a longtime friend of her mother, Patsy.

Nan is even more startled when she goes to Patsy’s apartment to inform her of Tink’s death only to find two Los Angeles detectives already present and questioning Patsy… about two completely different deaths. It turns out that Patsy’s most recent boyfriend, a sleazy private investigator to the stars, was found shot to death in a motel room alongside a young woman who had been stabbed to death.

Complicating matters even further, charismatic self-help guru to the stars Georgia Berryhill appears to have links to all of the victims, as well as to Patsy. Given that Berryhill’s Malibu Canyon compound is frequented by a virtual who’s who of the rich and famous, none of whom welcome a police investigation with open arms, Nan has an uphill battle on her hands to get to the bottom of things.

As with all previous entries in the series, Emley has given Nan and her partner a wonderfully complex puzzle to solve, one that even the most savvy reader of mysteries will be hard pressed to get out in front of. Emley has also served up a healthy dose of black humor in addition to the mystery, as Berryhill and her followers are obviously a wickedly funny poke at the Hollywood set and their fascination with flavor of the month gurus and trends.

Emley’s descriptions of Pasadena and Malibu are picture perfect, and the locales are a refreshing change of pace from the numerous detective series set in Los Angeles proper. Emley also continues to masterfully bring Nan to life in a way that rings true to the delicate dance a single mother engages in on a daily basis to balance job and family. She’s a competent, take charge detective,

May 26, 2010

Slow Fire by Ken Mercer

Just a few hard knocks. That’s what he’d kept telling himself, these past couple of years, but now he had to consider a more disturbing possibility. That perhaps the circumstances were not to be blamed, but only himself. – Will Magowan

Former LAPD narcotics detective Will Magowan has pretty much hit rock bottom. Having been fired because of the heroin addiction he picked up while working undercover, he’s estranged from his wife and living in a beat up Airstream trailer at the opening of author Ken Mercer’s debut novel, Slow Fire.

Still unemployed and trying to get his life together two years after his firing, Magowan’s prospects for another job in law enforcement are looking rather grim. Until, that is, he gets an offer from the Mayor of Haydenville, California to become their Chief of Police.

Located far upstate and deep inland in National Forest territory, the once idyllic town is suffocating under a growing methamphetamine problem, one so bad that the Mayor is willing to overlook Magowan’s current baggage in favor of his past expertise.

Magowan accepts the position, and in relatively short order identifies the person he believes to be the source of the meth; Frank Carver, a man who served time in the 1970’s after being convicted of the voluntary manslaughter of his wife. Unfortunately, Carver also wrote a bestselling book shortly after his release from prison which, in conjunction with his generous patronage of the town’s library, makes him ‘hands off’ as far as the Mayor is concerned. →

May 24, 2010

Deadfall by Shaun Jeffrey

The usual principles of combat seemed useless when fighting an impervious enemy, an enemy that didn’t need sleep and that functioned on the compulsion to kill, and she knew if they were to get out alive she had to adapt. – Amber Redgrave

If someone had told weapons specialist and ex-military member Amber “Big Red” Redgrave that a security assignment gone bad resulting in two deaths was going to be the best part of her day, she’d probably have stayed in bed. Fortunately for readers of author Shaun Jeffrey’s newest book, Deadfall, she didn’t.

Following the ill-fated security assignment that starts Deadfall off with a bang, Amber returns to the office for debriefing by agency owner and ex-SAS man, John Richmond. Though a lucrative and time sensitive matter has arisen, given the morning’s events he doesn’t want Amber involved and insists that she take some time to decompress.

Amber, however, wants to get right back into things, so when she takes a call from the client indicating that they need an additional team member she talks herself onto the mission team… without Richmond’s knowledge. Understandably, he is not pleased to see Amber later that day at the mission rendezvous point. It being too late to replace her, he begrudgingly accepts her presence.

The eight man team is informed that their mission is to rescue the client’s two children, who have been kidnapped. Though the wealthy client is willing to pay the ransom, he’s not convinced the kidnappers will actually release the kids even if he does. Therefore, having learned that the kidnappers are hiding out in a remote, abandoned mining village he wants the team to go in and get the kids back before the 24 hour ransom deadline expires. A classic insertion and rescue mission, right?

Not quite. Instead of finding the kidnappers and missing kids in the village, they find it eerily quiet and seemingly quite empty. That is until hundreds of people start pouring out of the abandoned mine shaft and begin attacking the team. As they try to repel the assault they notice that the people are not slowing down, let alone dying, despite being shot… unless it’s a head shot. Impossible as it seems, the team quickly realizes that they aren’t dealing with living people, but with the undead. And we’re not talking Night of the Living Dead shuffling, slow moving zombies. No, these are the 28 Days Later chase you down speedy kind of zombies, and the resulting fight by the team to stay alive and get back to civilization is a white-knuckled ride with gore aplenty.

But there’s more going on in Deadfall than just a good zombie romp. In addition to having to deal with scores of the undead, there’s the question of exactly who their client really is and why they were set up, as well as the realization that not all the team

May 20, 2010

No Hope For Gomez! by Graham Parke

It was like suddenly getting a glimpse of a giant invisible hand turning the world. You were not supposed to see those kind of things. You were not supposed to notice the machinery at work. – Gomez Porter

Cleverly presented as a series of blog entries, author Graham Parke’s debut novel, No Hope For Gomez!, chronicles the experiences of Gomez Porter. Being rather unsuccessful at running the antiques store he inherited from his parents, primarily because he knows absolutely nothing about antiques, Gomez decides to earn some extra cash by participating in an experimental drug trial.

As part of the trial, Gomez is instructed to keep a detailed blog of his daily activities and experiences, especially anything strange he notices. One thing in particular that Gomez notices, though he doesn’t find it at all strange, is how attracted he is to Dr. Hargrove, the scientist running the drug trial. In fact, he develops a mad crush on her and decides to devote all his time to winning her affection.

Dr. Hargrove, however, is already being stalked by someone so Gomez becomes her stalker’s stalker in order to determine the stalker’s identity and prove himself to Hargrove. Which he does, and an incredibly awkward romance ensues.

Things take a turn for the strange, if not downright disturbing, when one of Gomez’s fellow drug trial participants turns up dead, and shortly thereafter the detective investigating the case goes missing. Dr. Hargrove assures Gomez that the drugs being used in the trial had nothing to do with the death, but when yet another participant dies Gomez believes he has no choice but to go off the grid and investigate for himself in order to get to the bottom of things.

Interspersed throughout Gomez’s romance and investigation are the laugh-out-loud funny interactions he has with his decidedly left-of-center downstairs neighbor, Warren, an aspiring novelist, Hicks, the antiques store’s sole employee, who has a “pathological fear of all things unpunctual” (At one point Gomez becomes so frustrated with Hicks’ bizarre behavior that he puts him up for auction on eBay.), and the parade of oddball customers who frequent the antiques store.

Since it is known that Gomez is participating in an experimental drug trial, the reader is often left to wonder whether what is being relayed in his blog entries is real or the product of some drug-induced hallucination. After all, he can’t possibly have actually heard Warren stir-frying hamsters in an enameled wok… can he? And surely no one really came into his antiques store wearing a three-piece suit accessorized with sandals and a sombrero covered in “I love pasteurized milk!” stickers, right?

No Hope For Gomez! is one of the most delightfully odd books I’ve ever had the pleasure to read. It’s part humor, part mystery, part romance and entirely original. It was, in fact, like getting sucked into an alternate reality called Gomezland, and what

May 17, 2010

The Third Rail by Michael Harvey

Someone is going to die. I sat in my car and felt that certainty pump through my veins. I took a minute to distill the violence into a more refined form and tucked it away until I needed it. – Michael Kelly

P.I. Michael Kelly most definitely needs it, as there is all kinds of trouble afoot in Chi-town. Starting with an execution-style murder on an L (elevated train) platform that Kelly witnesses, followed by a second L related shooting across town barely an hour later, The Third Rail quickly pulls the reader into the sense of panic that sweeps through the city of Chicago as it realizes there is a spree killer on the loose.

At first thinking he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, Kelly receives a call from someone claiming to be the shooter who indicates that Kelly’s presence at the scene of the first killing was no coincidence. Though dubious that Kelly is somehow the ultimate target in what appears to be a string of random shootings, the FBI / Chicago PD task force working the case reluctantly brings him into the investigation.

And that’s about as much as can be revealed without spoiling what is a spectacularly well plotted thriller. Suffice it to say that before all is said and done the investigation, which seems to get wrapped up about halfway through, actually downshifts, makes a hard turn and rockets off again in another direction that brings Homeland Security, the Archdiocese of Chicago, and Kelly’s old frenemy the Mayor of Chicago into play.

As with the first two installments of the Kelly series, the city of Chicago itself is a central character. From the L trains to the Irish pubs, from the opulence of the Archdiocese to the ominous semi-derelict buildings of the Cabrini-Green public housing development, from Chicago’s infamous brand of ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ politics to everything in between, Harvey effortlessly brings the city to life. Though it’s normally ill-advised to do so, this is one time when you definitely should grab onto The Third Rail.

Michael Harvey is the co-creator and executive producer of the television show Cold Case Files. The Third Rail is the third book in the Michael Kelly series, following The Chicago Way and The Fifth Floor. To learn more about Michael, visit his website.

– The Third Rail: Book Trailer –

– The Third Rail: Book Trailer –

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