Crime – Page 8 – Baskerville Book Reviews

Review: Second Chance

When a second chance turns into something much more…

Piper Happ’s dead-end life turns into the ultimate nightmare when her roommate and upstairs neighbor are both murdered.

To further complicate things, Piper’s former best friend Nicolas is back in town. In high school, Piper would have done anything for him — until he moved across the country without warning or explanation. Against Piper’s better judgment, she seeks comfort and support from Nicolas, as she might be the killer’s next target.

He wants a second chance, but she isn’t sure she wants to risk a second heartbreak.

With a murderer on the loose, and danger lurking in every corner, is she putting just her heart in jeopardy — or her life as well?

Review: One Hundred Bullets

Captain Lou Rush of the New Orleans police department is the leader of the Tribunal, a band of 10 cops dedicated to eliminating the criminals that fall through the cracks of the justice system. Their success has made them powerful and untouchable in the Crescent City, but that is about to change.

After two decades, the time has come for Lou Rush’s son Nick to join the Tribunal, as aging members are due to retire. However, a fellow officer is killed by the Tribunal, and Nick discovers that his father may have also murdered an innocent man.

For years, Nick’s fiancé Cali Maddox quietly blends into the background. With an agenda of her own, her secrets will force father and son to decide where their true loyalties lie – with the Tribunal or with the love of Nick’s life, because one of them will not survive the aftermath.

Review: Dead in the Water

When Maisie Mitchell sold her restaurant and retired to sunny Florida, she couldn’t wait to get out of the kitchen and do absolutely nothing except enjoy lazy days by the pool.

Thirty-five years with the Chicago Police Department was enough for detective Donna “Dot” Pinetta. She was ready to escape the daily stress of big city crime and retire under a palm tree with a tall glass of something cold and a little paper umbrella.

But, as these two friends soon find out, retirement can get a little, shall we say, tiring? Sometimes you just need a vacation from your vacation. Maisie and Dot concoct an exciting plan of hitting all the destinations on their bucket lists, but when the dead body of handsome recreation director, Mason Jacobs is discovered floating in their own little piece of paradise, chaos ensues. Maisie and Dot’s plan for adventure gets shoved to the back burner when a good friend tops the suspect list and Dot jumps back into detective mode dragging Maisie along with her.

With a millionaire, an aging beauty queen and a jealous husband among the long list of suspects, can they expose the real killer and clear their friend’s name? Or will their first road trip be to the prison on visitor’s day?

Dead in the Water is the first book in a brand, new series by cozy author, S.C. Merritt. Join Maisie and Dot on their travels in the Bucket List Mysteries.

Review: The Ursulina

I know you’ll never forgive me for what I did. I’m sure you’ve asked yourself that question many times over the years.

Why? Why did I do it?

Well, sweetheart, this is the answer.

I was only twenty-six years old when the monster came back to Black Wolf County. The answers you want begin at Christmas time that year. However, if you really want to understand everything that happened to me—to us—you have to go even further back in my life.

Years back, to the night I met the Ursulina face to face.

So let’s start there.

Review: The Deep, Deep Snow

Deputy Shelby Lake was abandoned as a baby, saved by a stranger who found her in the freezing cold. Now, years later, a young boy is missing – and Shelby is the one who must rescue a child.

The only evidence of what happened to 10-year-old Jeremiah Sloan is a bicycle left behind on a lonely road. After a desperate search fails to locate him, the close bonds of Shelby’s hometown begin to fray under the weight of accusations and suspicion. Everyone around her is keeping secrets. Her adoptive father, her best friend, her best friend’s young daughter – they all have something to hide. Even Shelby is concealing a mistake that could jeopardize her career and her future.

Unearthing the lies of the people in Jeremiah’s life doesn’t get the police and the FBI any closer to finding him. As time passes and the case grows cold, Shelby worries that the mystery will stay buried forever under the deep, deep snow. But even the deepest snow melts in the spring.

When a tantalizing clue finally comes to light, Shelby must confront the darkest lie of all. Exposing the truth about Jeremiah will leave no one’s life untouched – including her own.

Review: Great Illustrated Classics: Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles

For generations, readers have enjoyed classic literature. They have delighted in the romance of Jane Austen, thrilled at the adventures of Jules Verne, and pondered the lessons of Aesop. Introduce young readers to these familiar volumes with Great Illustrated Classics. In this series, literary masterworks have been adapted for young scholars. Large, easy-to-read type and charming pen-and-ink drawings enhance the text. Students are sure to enjoy becoming acquainted with traditional literature through these well-loved classics.

Review: The Names of the Dead

They locked him up. Now he’s out–for revenge.

Former CIA officer James ‘Wes’ Wesley paid the ultimate price for his patriotism when he was locked up in a French jail for an anti-terror operation gone wrong–abandoned by the Agency he served, shunned by his colleagues and friends, cut off from his family.

Now he is shattered by the news that his ex-wife, Rachel, a State Department analyst, has been killed in a terrorist attack in Spain. He also discovers that his young son, Ethan, is missing. But Wes didn’t know he had a son–until now.

Why was Rachel in Spain? And why did she keep his son secret from him?

Granted early release, Wes takes flight across Europe to search for the truth and exact his revenge. But can he catch the spies who betrayed him before they track him down? In order to find the answers and save his son, Wes realises he must confront the dark secrets in his own past–before it’s too late.

Review: Blue Madagascar

A candidate’s suicide. A death on the French Riviera. And a secret men will kill for.

A candidate for U.S. President, ahead in the polls and about to win the election, suddenly commits suicide. No one knows why. A mysterious woman the media has dubbed “the Invisible Woman” may hold the key.

During a botched jewel heist on the French Riviera, an American bystander is killed. This death triggers a worldwide hunt by intelligence agencies for something the dead American left behind – a secret so explosive they will let nothing get in their way.

U.S. Homeland Security Special Agent Casey Ramirez is a young woman with a troubled past. On the trail of a human trafficking ring, she uncovers a clue involving the dead American in France. The discovery catapults her into a deadly cat-and-mouse chase across Europe to find the dead man’s secret before it’s too late.

Review: Blood in the Water : A True Story of Small-Town Revenge

A brutal murder in a small Nova Scotia fishing community raises urgent questions of right and wrong, and even the nature of good and evil, in this masterfully told true story.

Blood in the Water offers a dramatic narrative set in a unique, lovingly drawn setting, where a story about one small community has universal resonance and raises a disturbing question: Are there times when taking the law into your own hands is not only understandable but the responsible thing to do?

This is a story not about lobster, but about the grand themes of power and law, security and self-respect.

In June 2013, three upstanding citizens of a small town on Cape Breton Island murdered their neighbor, Phillip Boudreau, at sea.

While out checking their lobster traps, two Landry cousins and skipper Dwayne Samson saw Boudreau in his boat, the Midnight Slider, about to vandalize their lobster traps. Like so many times before, the small-time criminal was about to cost them thousands of dollars out of their seasonal livelihood.

Boudreau seemed invincible, a miscreant who would plague the village forever. Meanwhile the police and local officials were frustrated, cowed, and hobbled by shrinking budgets.

One man took out a rifle and fired four shots at Boudreau and his boat.

Was the Boudreau killing cold blooded murder, a direct reaction to credible threats, or the tragic result of local officials lacking the resources and authority to protect the community? As many local people have said, if those fellows hadn’t killed him, someone else would have.

Review: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Box cover.

Could the sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville have been caused by the gigantic ghostly hound that is said to have haunted his family for generations? Arch-rationalist Sherlock Holmes characteristically dismisses the theory as nonsense. And immersed in another case, he sends Watson to Devon to protect the Baskerville heir and observe the suspects close at hand. With its atmospheric setting on the ancient, wild moorland and its savage apparition, The Hound of the Baskervilles is one of the greatest crime novels ever written. Rationalism is pitted against the supernatural, good against evil, as Sherlock Holmes seeks to defeat a foe almost his equal.