Lindsay takes a chance by breaking the covenant with the reader that Dexter is a “good monster”; the result doesn’t really work and leaves me wondering if I should continue reading the series.

What drew me to the book

Once I start reading a series, I continue until it no longer holds my interest. I started the Dexter series simply because I was intrigued by the fact that Jeff Lindsay (the author) had managed to write a serial killer who was the good guy, a serial killer who only kills other serial killers. It seemed an interesting way to get the reader to side with a serial killer as a protagonist and I wanted to see how the premise was executed.

My thoughts on the book

In this book, Dexter finds himself on his honeymoon in Paris watching bizarre performance art that amuses his Dark Passenger (that would be his serial killer side). He and new wife Rita then return to Miami where a serial killer with an artistic bent makes himself known to Dexter, drawing Dexter into some very un-Dexter-like situations.

I always have difficulty getting into the Dexter books. It’s been the same for each one, but I’ve kept with them because, as I said above, I’m intrigued by the premise. I have the same difficulty getting into the DVDs of the TV series so I think the problem lies in with the use of Dexter’s point of view, which is (or claims to be) detached from the rest of society. It keeps the reader at a distance and it’s not something that works well for me.

Up until now I’ve been relatively happy with the books, but Dexter by Design deviates from the premise that attracted me to the series in the first place and the plot just doesn’t hang together for me.

The performance art in Paris at the beginning of the book is very graphic, bizarre, and attention-getting so I expected it to be tied into the plot at some point, but the connection never appeared which I found annoying. Without the tie-in to the rest of the book, the beginning seems gratuitous and a throwaway scene just to get the readers attention, which seems like lazy writing to me.

The other thing that bothered me about this book is the abandonment of Dexter as a good guy who only kills bad guys. Gone is the meticulous, careful killer who chooses his targets carefully. This Dexter makes mistakes, kills the wrong people, and is saved only by the most convenient of circumstances in the end. It could be argued that having Dexter deviate from his meticulous ways is a sign of growth in the character, but it simply didn’t feel like that as I was reading the book. It felt like an attempt to keep the series interesting that failed by changing the wrong things.

I’ll read the next book, Dexter is Delicious, to see if the series gets back on track but if it doesn’t then I’m done with these books.

About the book author

Jeff Lindsay is the creator of the character Dexter Morgan and the writer of the Dexter series books. He doesn’t appear to have an official presence on the web other than his publisher (too bad, it would be interesting to read a blog of his experiences).

There are three other books in the Dexter series and a new one, Dexter Is Delicious, out in September:

Find this book online

Dexter by Design: Amazon US | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK

One-line review

The core premise, once revealed, seems contrived and I found some elements of the story distracting, but The Last Surgeon still managed to hook me for a day’s reading.

What drew me to the book

I’ve been reading medical thrillers for a long, long time. Michael Palmer is one of the three that I started out reading (the others were Michael Crichton and Robin Cook) and the only one that I continued to read into the ’90s. He is still on my auto-read list of writers, along with Tess Gerritsen, Diana Gabaldon, and Karen Marie Moning (er, most of those writers write in different genres than Michael Palmer so don’t take that as a list of if-you-like-these-authors-you’ll-like-this-one).

My thoughts on the book

There are some books that I pick up and then have to read all the way through, putting off all other things that I had planned for my day. I expect certain authors to deliver that kind of book, so I wasn’t surprised that an entire day of to-dos didn’t get done when I picked up The Last Surgeon.

If you read the prologue to The Last Surgeon you can see how I got sucked into the book. It did keep me turning the pages despite a few distracting elements that will probably keep me from re-reading this one.

As I was reading this book, I had a vague sense of deja vu because the medical victims reminded me somewhat of the victims in Extreme Measures (both books’ victims are drawn from the homeless population and are experimented upon). I found the similarity a bit distracting because I kept comparing the two books.

The protagonist has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from a tour in Afghanistan, which is timely, but I often got the feeling I was being deliberately “educated.” Palmer is fund raising for PTSD as part of his book launch so it may be that the intent was to educate the public through the book (laudable), but it felt a bit forced in the novel.

There were aspects of this book that I enjoyed, like the killer making all the murders appear to be accidents rather than murders (as you can read in the excerpt), and others that left me feeling a bit ‘meh.’ As I closed the book I was left thinking, why didn’t they just do B instead of A and avoid all this in the first place?

The Last Surgeon was a good read, but isn’t a book I’ll re-read like some of his other books. Flashback is still my favourite for that.

You can still enter to win a copy of this book until tomorrow. [This giveaway is now closed.]

About the book author

Michael Palmer can be found at his online home where you can read the prologue to The Last Surgeon. He is the author of fourteen other medical thrillers:

Find this book online

The Last Surgeon: Amazon US * Amazon Canada * Amazon UK

On Christmas Eve in Santa Fe, an undercover agent defies his controllers by interfering with a Russian mafia kidnapping of a newborn child. Wounded and on the run with a child that has the power to change global events, Paul Kagan needs a safe haven. He finds that haven at the home of a battered wife and disillusioned son. Now they are all defending their haven against enemies determined to get in.

I’ve read almost all of David Morrell‘s books and there are some that I absolutely love and there are others that are okay but not on my reread list. The Spy Who Came For Christmas falls into the latter category. There are two stories being told in The Spy Who Came for Christmas. One is the story of the undercover agent Paul Kagan. The other story is Kagan’s retelling of the nativity story as a tale of espionage. I’ll deal with each one in turn.

The story of Paul Kagan and the baby suffers from a pacing problem. The story takes place mostly with the characters under siege in the Santa Fe house. In fact, the characters remain under siege for 187 out of 233 pages before the bad guys storm the house. That is a particularly long period for the characters to be confined to a couple of rooms. There are flashbacks to liven things up and add background information, but I still found myself losing interest in the characters and situation. As for the kidnapped baby, a strong case is never made for why this is child is so important to the Russian mafia (or the rest of the world for that matter). There are hints that this child is supposed to mirror the birth of Jesus but as a reader I need something more concrete than that to buy into the story.

I don’t have much to say about the retelling of the nativity story. I get the nagging feeling that in order to get the full effect that Morrell intends a knowledge of Christianity is necessary as well as assumed. That’s a departure for Morrell who has had religious themes in his books before, but has never depended so much on the reader’s knowledge to impart the story.

Although David Morrell is one of my favourite authors, I’m not a fan of this particular book. If you’re new to Morrell, I recommend The Brotherhood of the Rose or Creepers instead. You can find David Morrell’s books at amazon.com, amazon.ca, and amazon.co.uk as well as other online and bricks and mortar booksellers.

The Brotherhood of the Rose is a thriller that follows the story of two orphans, brothers by choice, trained as assassins by a man who paid them regular visits at the Philadelphia boys’ school where they grew up. Eliot is the father neither of them ever had, the person who brought them candy and took them on cherished day trips. He trained them to be assassins. And then one day, Eliot decides that they are expendable. He sets one brother up and then puts out a contract on him. The other operative is soon enmeshed in his brother’s troubles. Now the two operatives must saves themselves and find the answer to the one question that plagues them: Why?

I first read The Brotherhood of the Rose about 20 years ago after picking it up in a used bookstore in the sleepy little tourist town my grandparents lived in. I’d never heard of this David Morrell guy, but the book looked interesting enough to take a chance on. I was completely absorbed in the book that first time I read it and I still find it a captivating read every few years since then. The only other thriller that I’ve read that long ago that I still reread every few years is The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum (the movies have deviated significantly from the original Bourne trilogy, but that’s a topic for a whole other post).

Morrell creates a fascinating world of assassins, spies, and international intrigue with fast-paced writing and an intricate plot. Of course, since the book was published 25 years ago the reader does have to make allowances for the book’s age, but not too many. There is little reliance on technology as a device in the book and the worldwide political climate does not feature prominently since the focus is on the betrayal of agents by their controller; this makes it easier to ignore that the book takes place 25 years ago.

I have often recommended this book and occasionally I get an upturned nose when someone realizes that David Morrell wrote First Blood (“Oh, that guy,” they say as the make a note not to pick up any of Morrell’s books). I have read First Blood. Once. I’ve read all of David Morrell’s books at least once; some I reread and some I never pick up again. Morrell is too good of an author to dismiss based on any single title.

If you like The Brotherhood of the Rose, there is a sequel called The League of Night and Fog. In order to get the most out the sequel though, it’s best to first read The Fraternity of the Stone since characters from that book also appear in The League of Night and Fog.

You can find David Morrell’s many books at amazon.com, amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk.

I should know better than to start one of Tess Gerritsen‘s books right before bed. I do it anyway because there is something delicious about being snuggled under a comforter with the wind howling outside, everyone else fast asleep, and being sucked into a world where danger lurks at every corner. And it’s a pretty safe bet that that’s what I’m going to get when I pick up one of Gerritsen’s books.

I have to confess that Tess Gerritsen is one of my favourite thriller writers because it’s evident that she’s always working to better her writing and because she goes where her interests lie instead of sticking to a cookie cutter formula that so many one-book-per-year authors do (that she can do that while putting out one book per year is even more impressive). I have read Tess Gerritsen’s romantic suspense from when she first started out, her medical thrillers, her Surgeon serial killer series, and her foray into science thrillers (Gravity
, which unfortunately was not given a chance by many readers expecting the-same-old-thing). Her last three books (The Mephisto Club, The Bone Garden, and The Keepsake) have delved into the past in some form or another and the nature of evil.

Last year’s book, The Bone Garden, was a bit of a departure from her other books in that it was set in the past with a frame story set in the present. It wasn’t one of my favourites (though I did enjoy it). The problem was more one of reading preference than anything to do with the book, so if the plot appeals to you by all means check it out.

Her new book, The Keepsake (known as Keeping the Dead in the UK) is a return to her thrillers set in the modern day. Like The Mephisto Club, someone has been hiding from a stalker for years and things come to a head during the book. In The Keepsake, a perfectly preserved mummy is discovered in the basement of a private museum. During a CT scan to authenticate the mummy, a discovery is made that leaves everyone puzzled: The mummy has a bullet imbedded in her leg and it got there while the mummy was still alive. Further investigation shows that this is a modern day murder victim. More victims are uncovered, preserved using some of the more gruesome preservation methods documented. Each victim contains a clue, but only one person knows what these clues are: References to a past better left buried. Messages from a killer: I am coming for you.

I am always happy when I am still guessing on the last page of a book and haven’t quite figured everything out. I am especially thrilled when everything makes sense at the end without resorting to coincidences or convoluted plot twists. That’s what I got from The Keepsake when I finally finished it at 3 am (not of the same night that I started, the next night — I don’t read quite that fast).

If you haven’t read Gerritsen’s other books then some of sections on the personal lives of the medical examiner and the investigating officers in The Keepsake may seem extraneous. It isn’t a big issue, but there isn’t much context to the medical examiner’s issues with her boyfriend (that context is given in previous books) so the passages dedicated to that relationship might seem a bit out of place to new readers.

In previous books the relationships were more tightly woven into the plot, whereas in this book it seems like the relationship issues of the characters are only continued because they were started in other books and long term readers would wonder about them if they weren’t addressed. It was something that stood out to me because it’s been a while since I read previous books featuring these characters. The momentum built up around the characters personal lives has dissipated in The Keepsake (particularly since The Bone Garden only deals with these characters fleetingly). Having said that, most of Gerritsen’s books can be read as stand alone books. There are a few that should be read in a specific order, but The Keepsake isn’t one of them (unless it’s really vital to you to know the background to the characters personal lives, but it’s not vital to enjoying the book).

The Keepsake is a book that I will be rereading and that’s the highest compliment I can give a book (I wait a year until I’ve forgotten the details so there’s suspense all over again). You can track down Tess Gerritsen’s books at Bookcloseouts, Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, and Amazon.co.uk.

Note for new Gerritsen readers: Be aware that the publisher Mira (which owns Harlequin) periodically re-releases Gerritsen’s early Harlequin novels. Check the publisher even if the publication date is new to make sure you’re not buying a renamed and repackaged Harlequin novel (see Tess Gerritsen’s post on this issue on her blog). I have read some of Gerritsen’s Harlequin novels and they are good Harlequins, but they are Harlequins and not nearly as sophisticated in plot as her later books.

Capitol Reflections: A Thriller by Jonathan Javitt is a story of friendship as well as investigation. Gwen Maulder is an FDA scientist whose best friend Marci, a young lawyer, dies suddenly and spectacularly of a seizure while in court. Everyone else dismisses it as a rare and unfortunate occurrence, but Gwen just can’t believe that. Her friend was young and healthy despite her high-stress lifestyle and poor, but not unusual, eating habits. Gwen has a nagging feeling that there is more to her best friend’s death than simple bad luck.

As Gwen starts investigating her friend’s death she finds herself the target of some very influential people who clearly want her to accept her friend’s death and move on. The more she investigates, the more perplexing her friend’s death becomes and the more forceful the opposition to her efforts. Before she is done, she is fighting to save the lives not only of the people around her, but also of everyday people who are blissfully unaware of the danger lurking in their daily routine waiting to claim more lives … unless Gwen can live long enough to stop it.

Capitol Reflections is a medical thriller, a genre that benefits from intimate knowledge of science and medicine. In this case, author Jonathan Javitt is a physician and a scientist, as well as a senior White House health adviser for the last three presidential administrations. He knows his stuff, and he knows how to write.

The plot revolves around the usual unexplained illness and conspiracies. Javitt manages to stay fairly true to current science, which is nice because the food safety questions raised by the book are ones that readers should spend time thinking about. Capitol Reflections has an unusually large cast of good guys, which was interesting because it allowed flexibility in the way events happened and who they happened too instead of having everything happen to one or two people.

I did guess some of the plot points before they were revealed to the reader, but that’s part of the fun–seeing if you can figure out what’s happening before it’s explained to you. The secondary conspiracy (which I won’t elaborate on) was a bit hard to swallow, but I can see why it was included. What you really need to know is that I stayed up until three o’clock in the morning reading.

Jonathan Javitt has written a science-based thriller that should leave you thinking about what you eat and who’s making sure that it’s safe.

Addendum: I’ve read the reviews on the amazon pages that I’ve linked to. The comments lead me to believe that the book underwent further editing between the hardcover and the paperback editions. If you have questions about the book or my review, feel free to ask below.

First Daughter by Eric van Lustbader is a political thriller that may hit too close to home for some. Jack McClure is one of the Bureau’s top ATF agents, despite finding reading a continual nemesis due to his dyslexia. When the president-elect’s daughter, Alli, is kidnapped mere weeks before the swearing in ceremony, McClure is hand-picked to get her back. What follows is a journey that takes McClure into his past and the country’s future as he tries to save Alli from her kidnapper and the country from itself.

I enjoyed First Daughter (in fact, I read the whole book in 24 hours). It is intricate enough to keep you guessing with enough action and intrigue to keep you from thinking too much. The effects of dyslexia, positive and negative, on Jack McClure’s life and daily functioning are not only interesting but integral to the plot. Also interesting is the interplay between religion and atheism, though this is where, unfortunately, some of First Daughter‘s potential audience may be lost.

The struggle of separating church from state, which has increasingly been lost in the United States in the last decade (maybe it has been longer, but I live outside the United States and am going by what enters my consciousness through the international news), is central to First Daughter. There is a battle between secular and religious views fought throughout the book both in the main plot and in the private lives of all the characters.

The characterization of religion and the religious is unflattering (and, arguably, so is that of the secularists), which may offend or at the very least put off some readers. The positions on both sides are extreme. I was not offended, but I was starting to tire of it by the end of the book. For another perspective, see Christine’s review at She Reads Books. First Daughter is worth reading, whichever side of the argument you inhabit, as a glimpse of a possible future, but don’t expect nuanced philosophical positions (it is, after all, a thriller first).

After reading First Daughter I realize that I may have been too hasty in avoiding van Lustbader’s books, which I had been doing primarily because he took over writing Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne series. I’m a fan of the original Robert Ludlum trilogy so I wasn’t thrilled to see the character passed on to another writer. I’m not ready to pick up a Bourne book, but I am going to look for van Lustbader’s other books on the strength of First Daughter.

Kimberley Quincy is an FBI Special Agent. Someone is killing prostitutes according to a pregnant prostitute who insists she’ll only talk to Quincy. A predator who uses spiders in very nasty ways. The only problem is there are no bodies, no missing persons reported. Despite the lack of proof, Quincy can’t not look into it as she tries to balance her FBI career, her new husband’s expectations, and impending motherhood.

Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly …

I had never read a Lisa Gardner novel before, so I didn’t know Kimberly Quincy (a recurring character), but that really didn’t cause me any problems getting into or following Say Goodbye. This was a very quick read. I started one night, forced myself to go to sleep after 100 pages, and then read the rest the next morning!


I was a little surprised that the book started with a blow job (I’m not giving anything away, it is literally on the first page). I wasn’t expecting that for this genre, but it wasn’t belabored and or gratuitous.

The book’s subject matter involves child molestation, serial killing and a pregnant protagonist in danger. If you’ve read Tess Gerritsen‘s series with the Surgeon serial killer and were put off by the subject matter then this book may not be for you. Otherwise, I recommend it as a fast-paced thriller.

I will have to go back and reread this book more slowly and look at how it was put together. I read too fast and missed some clues Gardner left along the way. I did find the separate plot of the old woman and the young boy confusing because I couldn’t quite figure out how they fit in and whether it was a flashback or in the present (it did come together in the end).

This was my first Lisa Gardner book and I will definitely be putting her on my reading list.

Patrick Rush is on a downward spiral. His wife has died, leaving him to raise their son alone. He is systematically being demoted at the newspaper where he works as the arts section becomes the entertainment section and he finds himself being the TV critic with the unflattering moniker of The Couch Potato for his column.

Feeling the need to recapture some enthusiasm for something in his life, Rush joins a writing group hoping to start on the novel he feels is buried somewhere inside of him. Unfortunately, no one in the writing group seems to have much in the way of talent. Except for Angela who tells a haunting story of abuse and an evil man who does evil things: the Sandman. As Angela reveals snippets each week, Rush finds himself showing up just to know how the story ends.

When a serial killer appears who’s technique is just like the Sandman, the need to know how the story ends takes on more urgency. Especially when all signs point to Rush being the killer.

That’s as much I can tell you without giving the plot away. This is one of the best thrillers that I’ve read in a long time (and I realize that I recently said something similar about Reich‘s Rules of Deception). If I had to boil it down to a single element, it is Pyper‘s refusal to stick to conventions that makes this book for me. The main character doesn’t act the way I would expect him to and the book doesn’t end the way I expect thrillers to end. And those are all good things, great in fact.

Now I’m going to geek out a bit about the fact that Pyper is Canadian. If you’re not Canadian, you may not realize that much of our publishing industry is either devoted to CanLit (literary fiction which is often also very self-consciously Canadian) or imported popular fiction (mostly from the US). Finding Canadian popular fiction writers is difficult. Finding Canadian popular fiction writers who set their stories in Canada and manage to sneak in some Canadian pop culture while they are at it is even more difficult. Pyper does both, which thrills me as a Canadian reader (hence the geek out in progress).

I have nothing against reading American popular fiction (or British, or Australian, or New Zealand-ish?). In fact, I read quite a lot of it and I’m used to having stories set in Boston or New York or wherever. As long as it’s a good story and good writing, I’m happy. But it’s nice, ever once in a while, to have the extra bonus of sharing the culture of the protagonist and not having to translate things like Barnes & Noble to Chapters (not actually mentioned in Pyper’s book, but you get the idea).

No matter where you live, if you love a good thriller this is definitely a book to buy. As soon as I get through my current stack of books (which keeps multiplying when I’m not looking—why is that?), I’m going to track down Pyper’s other books: The Wildfire Season, The Trade Mission, and The Lost Girls.

You can find Andrew Pyper’s Books on Amazon:

I took the advance reader’s copy of Christopher Reich‘s Rules of Deception on a road trip a couple weeks ago. The back copy looked so enticing that I didn’t want to wait until I got back to read it. I didn’t manage to finish it while I was away so I spent my first half a day back finishing up the book instead of working on my own writing. I’m happy to say the book lived up to its promise.

Dr. Jonathan Ransom loses his wife in a climbing accident in the Swiss Alps. A few days later, baggage claim tickets are delivered to his hotel room–for his wife. Not knowing what they might be for, he goes to claim them only to have two thugs try to steal the bags. The thugs are actually Swiss cops, and Ransom, having killed one of them, is now a killer and on the run. The contents of the bags reveal that his wife was not who he believed her to be. Ransom finds himself the subject of manhunt and the target of an assassin as he tries to discover who his wife really was and what is really going on.

The plot is intricate, the chapters are short, and the pacing is fast. I found that I was drawn right into the story and was no longer aware of the author writing. Reich uses the technique of having a lot of separate strands of plot at the beginning of the book that he eventually connects until everything comes together. This technique is tricky because if it doesn’t work the reader ends up confused and aggravated. For me, Reich pulls it off. I did get confused a couple of times, but I chalk that up to only being able to read a chapter or two at a time when I was reading the beginning of the book (I was visiting family).

Reading Reich reminded me of David Morrell in some ways. Reich ties everything together and pays attention to all the details which reminded me of David Morrell’s Creepers (also an excellent and fast-paced read).

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