The Fifth Witness (The Mickey Haller Series) by Michael Connelly

As we know only too well, the devil is always in the details and Connelly is excellent with details.  I had to wait in line (in 24th position) to read Connelly's latest book or to be precise, the fourth book in the Mickey Haller series, The Fifth Witness, released in April 2011.  But it was worth the two-month wait!  The plot reflects what a lot of people are facing at the moment in this global economic downturn ie the home foreclosure crisis and the huge losses to which all lenders are now exposed.  This book is a courtroom/legal thriller and has Connelly's outstanding trademark stamped all over.  Nearly all reviews of The Fifth Witness from major newspapers and professional book bloggers are positive and enthusiastic and who can disagree with them after reading this book.  The question is, is there going to be a movie made of this book just like The Lincoln Lawyer?

Here is a video by the author introducing his new book:



Or you can listen to:

Conversations podcast with Michael Connelly on 23 May 2011 on ABC Sydney.


Hardcover blurb:  In tough times, crime is one of the few things that still pays, but if defense attorney Mickey Haller was expecting an uptick in business during the economic downturn, the reality is a different story.  Even people needing legal representation to keep them out of jail are having to make cutbacks, it seems.  In fact, the most significant part of Mickey's business right now is not about keeping clients out of jail but about keeping a roof over their heads, as the foreclosure boom hits thousands of people who were granted unrealistic mortgages in the good times and now face being kicked to the curb by ruthless corporations.

Lisa Trammel has been a client of Mickey's for eight months.  So far he's managed to stop the bank from taking her house, but the strain and sense of injustice are beginning to take their toll, and the bank recently got a restraining order to prevent her protesting against the bank's fraudulent practices.

But now their CEO, Mitchell Bondurant, has been found in the bank's car park with a bullet in his brain, and Lisa is about to be indicted for murder.  For Mickey, it's back to what he does best on the biggest stage of all, but if he thought defending Lisa Trammel was going to be a walk in the park, he'd be dead wrong.

Not only is he about to learn some startling truths about his client, but also about himself, and by the time the verdict is in, Mickey's whole world will have been turned upside down.

As always, you can check out Michael Connelly's official website for the latest information.  I cannot wait for Connelly's forthcoming book, The Drop (Book 17, Harry Bosch), which is going to be released in October 2011.

Rating:  7/5

Blood Work (A Terry McCaleb Series) by Michael Connelly

An excerpt from the book (conversation between Terry McCaleb and Buddy Lockridge):

(McCaleb)  "What happened to Inspector Fujigama?"

"What?"

"The book you had yesterday."

"Inspector Imanishi Investigates.  I finished it."

"Imanishi then.  You're a fast reader."

"Good books read fast.  You read crime novels?"

"Why would I want to read made-up stuff when I've seen the real stuff and can't stand it?"

Buddy started the car.  He had to turn the ignition twice before it kicked over.

"It's a much different world.  Everything is ordered, good and bad clearly defined, the bad guy always gets what he deserves, the hero shines, no loose ends.  It's a refreshing antidote to the real world."

"Sounds boring."

"No, it's reassuring.  Where to now?"



Blood Work (1998), featuring Terry McCaleb, won Connelly three important awards - in 1998, the Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel; in 1999, the Anthony Award for Best Novel and to top it off, the Grand Prix, the highest honour for a mystery novel in France.  It was also nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1999.  In August of 2002, Blood Work was released as a major motion picture produced and directed by and starring Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood with Jeff Daniels, Angelica Huston and Wanda de Jesus.  Most of this information is taken from Connelly's official website and I hope you will drop by to check it out.

I urge you to read Blood Work.  

Here is a brief video on the film Blood Work which is loosely based on the novel:



Rating:  5/5

Trunk Music (A Detective Harry Bosch Novel) by Michael Connelly

An introductory excerpt to the title of the book:

"...Bosch, you there?"


"Yeah, I'm here.  Yeah, capped twice in the trunk."


"Trunk music."


"What?"


"It's a wise guy saying outta Chicago.  You know, when they whack some poor slob they say, 'Oh, Tony?  Don't worry about Tony.  He's trunk music now.  You won't see him no more."

Trunk Music is one of the earliest Harry Bosch novels, the fifth book to be precise, published more than ten years ago in 1997.  In 1998, it was nominated for the Macavity Awards Best Novel.  Bosch is such a skilful writer that no matter when his books were written, they are purely timeless.  He does his research well and his details are impeccable.  What more can I say?  I highly recommend Trunk Music and again, the others in the collection.  Check out the synopsis, excerpt and reviews here. 

Rating:  5/5

Chasing The Dime by Michael Connelly

Chasing The Dime featuring Henry Pierce has been named one of the Best Books of 2002 by the Los Angeles Times.


Check out the author's official website for more information on this flawlessly constructed book.  Another unputdownable.  Michael Connelly, please keep on writing, that is all I ask of you, thank you!

Rating:  4/5

Lost Light (A Detective Harry Bosch Novel) by Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly received his second Maltese Falcon Award from the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan for Lost Light, for the best private eye novel published in Japan in 2006.  More deserved information can be found here which will bring you instantly to the author's official website.  It is truly deserving of its award and I agree with a review by Literary Review when it praised Connelly's work as "...securely anchored in procedure and purpose..."  Lost Light is the ninth Harry Bosch novel first published in 2003.  This whole month is dedicated to Michael Connelly by the blogger.  Happy reading!

Rating:  5/5

A Darkness More Than Night (A Terry McCaleb Series) by Michael Connelly

My favourite quote from the book:  "We do what we have to do," Bosch said quietly.  "Sometimes you have choices.  Sometimes there is no choice, only necessity.  You see things happening and you know they're wrong but somehow they're also right."

You can find out more about A Darkness More Than Night (named one of the Best Books 2001 by the Los Angeles Times) on the revered author's website.  USA Today hailed Michael Connelly as "one of those masters...who can keep driving the story forward in runaway locomotive style."  I agree.  Highly recommended series.

Rating:  5/5

The Narrows (A Detective Harry Bosch Novel) by Michael Connelly

Robert Backus, former FBI profiler turned cop killer AKA The Poet is back.  He has some unfinished business with a former FBI agent Rachel Walling in this sequel to The Poet.


On the other hand, Harry Bosch is now a father and has been asked by his deceased friend's wife to investigate his suspicious death on his boat.

Eventually, the above two unrelated events merge into one big showdown transporting you from the stark Nevada desert to the fabled Las Vegas strip to the dark Los Angeles narrows.  Another unputdownable thriller by this fine and respected author.  Can't say more than that.  Just read it!

The Narrows is a 2004 publication.  More information can be found on the author's official website.  Here is a video to further tantalize you:



Rating:  5/5 

Hell's Corner by David Baldacci

Dustjacket blurb:  An attack on the heart of power...

In sight of the White House...

At a place known as...

HELL'S CORNER.

Oliver Stone - once the country's most skilled assassin - stands in front of the White House, perhaps for the last time.  The president has personally requested that Stone serve his country again on a high-risk, covert mission.  Though he's fought for decades to leave his past career behind, Stone has no choice but to say yes.

Then Stone's mission changes drastically before it even begins.  It's the night of a state dinner honouring the British prime minister.  As he watches the prime minister's motorcade leave the White House, a bomb is detonated in an apparent terrorist attack against both leaders.  It's in the chaotic aftermath that Stone takes on a new, more urgent assignment:  to find those responsible for the bombing.

British MI6 agent Mary Chapman becomes Stone's partner in the search for the unknown attackers.  But their opponents are elusive, capable, and increasingly lethal.  Worst of all, it seems that the park bombing may just have been the opening salvo in their plan.  With nowhere else to turn, Stone enlists the help of the only people he knows he can trust:  the Camel Club.  Yet that may be a big mistake.

In the shadowy worlds of politics and intelligence, there is no one you can really trust.  Nothing is really what it seems to be.  And Hell's Corner truly lives up to its name.

This may be Oliver Stone's and the Camel Club's last stand.

Or you can watch Baldacci telling you what it is about on video:



About the author:  David Baldacci is the internationally acclaimed author of 19 bestselling novels.  With his books published in at least 45 different languages, and with over 100 million copies in print, he is one of the world's favourite storytellers.  His family foundation, the Wish You Well Foundation, a non-profit organization, works to eliminate illiteracy across America.  Still a resident of his native Virginia, he invites you to visit his website and his foundation, and to look into its programme to spread books across America at www.FeedingBodyandMind.com.

My brief thoughts:  Hell's Corner is the fifth and latest book in the Camel Club series released on 9 November 2010 in the USA and 31 December 2010 in the UK.  This is an author who knows a good yarn and not only that, knows how to tell it and write it.  High entertainment value and highly recommended indeed.  Will be checking out the rest of the Camel Club series.

Rating:  4/5

Void Moon by Michael Connelly

Cassie Black is an ex-con hot prowler.  Eager to get away from a boring existence selling high-end automobiles while still on parole, she promised herself she would try her luck at taking another job for the last time ever so that she is able to live her dream of moving to a place "where the desert is the ocean."

Three seemingly unconnected clues popped up to make the plot highly suspenseful:

1)  a briefcase that has a built-in stun gun holding stacks of cash of high denomination

2)  a photo album full of photographs of a young girl apparently taken with a long-range camera and

3)  the bad luck of a void moon.

The bad luck of a void moon?  What have they got to do with Cassie Black and her getaway plans?

This book is Connelly's first book to feature a female protagonist and a criminal at that.  The protagonist later made a cameo appearance in The Narrows (published 2004, sequel to The Poet).  With a heart-wrenching ending which tugs at the heart, Void Moon (published 2000) is unarguably '100% Connelly and 100% addictive.' Overall, well-constructed but in my opinion, not in the same depth and quality as his Harry Bosch books.  For more information, click here for the Void Moon Interview, 14 June 1999 with the author.  More Connelly to come soon...

Rating:  3/5

The Poet (A Jack McEvoy Series) by Michael Connelly

Who is The Poet?  He is the world's most wanted serial killer.  Brutal, sadistic and delights in the pain and death of others.  To him the thrill of the chase is as exciting as the kill and he specialises in killing cops.

Food for thought (a line from the book, Chapter 39):  "...There is a means to every end.  A root to any cause.  Sometimes the root is more evil than the cause, though it's the cause that is usually the most vilified."  (Jack McEvoy, cop beat reporter at the Rocky Mountain News, protagonist)

What is the book about?  Michael Connelly explains it here or you can find out more on Michael Connelly's official website.

I never tire of reading Connelly's books.  You cannot get much closer to an author speaking from his heart than in The Poet.  Pay attention to the mere simplicity of prose used to tell a complex story and you will be left in no doubt that this is the work of a master storyteller at his pinnacle.  There is no need for a long and in-depth review.  One word covers it all and that is Perfection.  If you have not read this book, I urge you to do so now.


The Poet won the 1997 Dilys Award presented by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.  The paperback I read is a re-issued published in 2004.  The original was published in 1996 and the sequel, The Narrows, was published in 2004. 


Rating:  5/5

City of Bones (A Detective Harry Bosch Novel) by Michael Connelly

My thoughts:  There is a picture of a good-looking younger Michael Connelly on the backcover of this hardback printed in 2002.

My favourite passage from the book:

Jerry Edgar had a warrant knock that sounded like no other Bosch had ever heard.  Like a gifted athlete who can focus the forces of his whole body into the swing of a bat or the dunking of a basketball, Edgar could put his whole weight and six-foot-four frame into his knock.  It was as though he could call down and concentrate all the power and fury of the righteous into the fist of his large left hand.  He'd plant his feet firmly and stand sideways to the door.  He'd raise his left arm, bend the elbow to less than thirty degrees and hit the door with the fleshy side of his fist.  It was a backhand knock, but he was able to fire the pistons of this muscle assembly so quickly that it sounded like the staccato bark of a machine gun.  What it sounded like was Judgement Day.

City of Bones has been nominated for the 2003 Edgar Award for Best Novel and named a Notable Book Of The Year by The New York Times.  Want to know what the book is about?  Read all about it here on Connelly's official website!

Some books do not require a long review.  A few words would suffice.  This is it.  Another book that does not disappoint by a consistently top-notch author.

Happy reading.

Rating:  5/5 

A Tiger In The Kitchen: A Memoir Of Food And Family by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

About the author:  Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan is a New York-based writer who has covered fashion, retail, and home design (and written the occasional food story) for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and InStyle magazine, among many other publications.  More can be learned on the author's website or you can like/follow her on Facebook and Twitter.  Don't forget to favourite her delectable blog on her travels and eating adventures.


Backcover blurb:  After growing up in Singapore, the most food-obsessed city in the world, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan left home and family at eighteen for America - proof of the rebelliousness of daughters born in the Year of the Tiger.  But as a thirtysomething fashion writer in New York, she felt the dishes that defined her childhood calling her back.  Was it too late to learn the secrets of her grandmothers' and aunties' kitchens?  In her quest to recreate the dishes of Singapore by cooking with her female relatives , Tan learned not only cherished recipes but long-buried family stories.

A Tiger in the Kitchen, which includes ten recipes for Singaporean classics such as pineapple tarts and Teochew braised duck, is the charming story of a Chinese-Singaporean ex-pat who learns to infuse her New York lifestyle with rich kitchen lessons that reconnect her with her family and herself.

The latest video of the author talking about A Tiger in the Kitchen (published 8 February 2011) on Channel News Asia:



My thoughts:  A much-needed book to read for those who live far from home and miss their childhood food and family; for those who are not, you will find yourself educated in Singapore cuisine and culture but much more than that, it makes you appreciate loved ones who slaved away in the kitchen to put those lovingly prepared dishes on the table no matter where and who you are because food as we know it connects us with our roots and "is the tie that binds."  A true gem of a book with life's lessons thrown in.  Do not miss it.

Rating:  4/5 

The Third Secret by Steve Berry

An excerpt from the Prologue:  Fatima, Portugal.  July 13, 1917.  Lucia stared toward heaven and watched the Lady descend.  The apparition came from the east, as it had twice before, emerging as a sparkling dot from deep within the cloudy sky.  Her glide never wavered as She quickly approached.  Her form brightening as it settled above the holm oak, eight feet off the ground.

The Lady stood upright.  Her crystallized imaged clothed in a glow that seemed more brilliant than the sun.  Lucia lowered her eyes in response to the dazzling beauty.

...The form was transparent, in varied hues of yellow, white, and blue.  The face was beautiful, but strangely shaded in sorrow.  A dress fell to Her ankles.  A veil covered Her head.  A rosary resembling pearls intertwined folded hands.  The voice was gentle and pleasant, never rising or lowering, a soothing constant, like the breeze that continued to sweep over the crowd.

...The Lady opened Her clasped hands and spread Her arms.  A penetrating radiance poured forth and bathed Lucia in a warmth much like that of a winter sun on a cool day.  She embraced the feeling, then saw that the radiance did not stop at her and her two cousins.  Instead, it passed through the earth and the ground opened.

This was new and different, and it frightened her.


Backcover blurb:  What is the Third Secret?  It is rumoured to be a prediction so shocking that it has been locked away for over 80 years.  But when it is finally revealed in 2000, it seems puzzling, less than sensational.  Is something being held back?  Could this be what is drawing Pope Clement XV to the Vatican archive, night after sleepless night?

When Father Colin Michener is sent on a secret mission to the highlands of Romania, he is pitched into a vortex of suspicion, deceit, murder and forbidden passion.  Suddenly, he is forced to face the very thing that has so distressed the Pope - and to unravel a mystery that will shake the world.

My thoughts:  As Berry wrote in his note, "The Catholic Church is unique among man's institutions.  It has not only survived for more than two millennia, but continues to grow and prosper.  Yet many wonder what will be its fate in the coming century.  Some want to fundamentally change the Church.  Others want a return to its traditional roots.  But perhaps Pope Leo XIII, in 1881, said it best - The Church needs nothing but the truth."  

There is without argument an imperceptible line between the truth and a lie.  The question that keeps arising is should we know the truth so that we can lie or is the latter used to cover up the former?  To have faith means to accept what the Lord has done without question and to have total devotion to the Lord.  Be happy in the knowledge that God is alive!  Why must we always question the meaning of things?

The Third Secret, a stand-alone book, is part fiction and part fact, but even more so...this one contains a wealth of reality.  I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and have come to rely on Berry's books for the two Es, "education and entertainment."  I think it would be prudent to know how to sieve fact from fiction and not to take certain information too seriously when you read this book.  Instead, have faith, sit back, put your feet up and enjoy this bestseller from a highly knowledgeable author.

More fascinating information, thought-provoking questions, images and others can be found on Steve Berry's official website.

Rating:  5/5

Winter And Night (A Lydia Chin/Bill Smith Novel) by S J Rozan

Backcover blurb:  Private detective Bill Smith is hurtled headlong into the most provocative - and personal - case of his career when he receives a chilling late night telephone call from the NYPD, who is holding his fifteen-year-old nephew Gary.  But before he can find out what's going on, Gary escapes Bill's custody and disappears into the dark and unfamiliar streets...

Bill and his partner, Lydia Chin, try to find the missing teen and uncover what has led him so far from home.  Their search takes them to Gary's family in a small town in New Jersey, where they discover that one of Gary's classmates was murdered.  Bill and Lydia delve into the crime - only to find it eerily similar to a decades-old murder-suicide...

Now, with his nephew's future - and perhaps his very life - at stake, Bill must unravel a long-buried crime and confront the darkness of his own past...

My favourite passage from the book displaying Rozan's talent in describing a situation.  Simple yet powerful.  I love it to bits:

In a front yard, a guy was raking leaves.  A gust of wind charged into his leaf pile, tossed the leaves around his lawn.  It shook the branches of the oak tree above him, raining down more leaves, and blew the maple leaves from his neighbour's yard over to him.  The man straightened up, stood holding his rake, staring around him, as the leaves swirled.

My brief thoughts:  Robert Crais wrote that "...Winter and Night...is also a full-bodied novel about the pressures we place on ourselves and our loved ones, and how these pressures can crush us."  Most often and unfairly, bad people get away with what they did and it is only too true that the problem with justice is that there is no such thing.

An excerpt from Chapter One is taken from the author's website and can be read here.

This is another top recommendation by me in as much as it is a rewarding read by one of the finest crime writers of today.  She never disappoints.  That is all I want to say.

In 2003, Winter and Night (published in 2002 and eighth in the series), won the Shamus Award (Best P I Novel), the Barry Award (Best Novel), the Edgar Award (Best Novel), the Nero Award (Excellence in Mystery Genre), the Macavity Award (Best Mystery Novel), and was nominated for the Anthony Award (Best Novel).  In 2009, it picked up the Maltese Falcon Award for "Best Hardboiled Novel" in Japan.

Rating:  5/5

The Burning Wire (A Lincoln Rhyme Thriller) by Jeffery Deaver

This book has two plots:

1)  Symbiotic terrorist cells, cumulonimbus communications and an invisible suspect with an invisible weapon and

2)  an attempt to trap Richard Logan AKA the Watchmaker (a criminal who got away the last time) in Mexico City.  No clues except for a mysterious circuit board, its owner's manual and two meaningless numbers, 570 and 379.

Does that sound like your kind of book?  Do the two cases eventually merge or are they two separate cases for Lincoln Rhyme and his entourage?

There are a lot of mixed reviews about Deaver's latest and ninth Lincoln Rhyme book on the internet.  Apart from the fact that I had to check the publication date a couple of times in the beginning to make sure that it was published in 2010 and that it was Deaver's latest book as it seemed a touch predictable in places, I would highly recommend The Burning Wire.  Deaver is a genius writer, one of my absolute favourites and has a permanent position at the top of my bookshelf and I look forward to his new James Bond book, Carte Blanche, out on 26 May 2011 in the UK and on 14 June 2011 in the USA and Canada.

The author introduces The Burning Wire with an electrifying ending (you have been warned):



Visit the author's official website or you can like him on Facebook or you can willingly follow him on the ubiquitous Twitter for further information.

Rating:  5/5

Mandarin Plaid (A Lydia Chin/Bill Smith Novel) by S J Rozan

George Pelecanos has called Shira Judith Rozan's Lydia Chin/Bill Smith books "the most consistently compelling series of traditional detective novels published in this decade."  Rozan has won most of crime fiction's greatest honours like the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Macavity, and Nero Awards.

The plot in this book is bland and the list of suspects is very short but nevertheless, it is testimony to Rozan's exceptional talent that she can produce a very entertaining story out of so little.  Pay attention to her excellent writing.  Highly recommended.

To view description, reviews and Chapter 1 from Mandarin Plaid (1996), the third in the Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series, click here which will bring you pronto to the author's website.

Rating:  5/5