Book Talk with Fran Lewis

Proof of Life: J.A. Jance

 

Boredom can really take its toll on your mind except if you are J.P Beaumont who can find a way to get into the groove of things even when he’s just looking to spend time with his wife, Chief of Police Melissa Soames. A former homicide detective at 72 he’s still on the ball and yet needs a serious diversion. His wife is inundated with cases at work, murder, cold cases and more while Beau at times is asked to work at a volunteer cold-case center in order to have something other than watching television or reading to pass the time of day. But, wishful thinking sometimes comes from a direction you won’t expect. Maxwell Cole is a crime reporter and columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and someone who Beau really can’t stand. At one time they were in the same fraternity but when Beau used his charm and handsome ways and stole Max’s girlfriend the war was one and the friendship went south. Something happens to connect them in a different way when Max dies in what appears as an accidental fire that killed him but was it an accident or murder? Erin Kelsey Howard inherited all of Max’s money and worldly possessions and wants to hire Beau to look into the death of someone she called Uncle Max. Max was her godfather and his death bothers her since she was in a dangerous situation when someone tried to kill her and Beau saved her life. Erin is straightforward, to the point and although Beau might not be her favorite person, Max left a letter instructing her to call on Beau in case anything happened to him. Added in we learn that before his death he was working on a book focused on corruption at the highest level and the letter would be a start for him to find out what happened. Max’s letter specifically says NO POLICE!

Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles take center stage with I KNOW A SECRET. Murders are running amok and the murder vehicle dates back to the many Saints that were killed and multilated.

Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles—the inspiration for the smash hit TNT series—continue their bestselling crime-solving streak, as they pursue a shadowy psychopath keeping secrets and taking lives.

Two separate homicides, at different locations, with unrelated victims, have more in common than just being investigated by Boston PD detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles. In both cases, the bodies bear startling wounds—yet the actual cause of death is unknown. It’s a doubly challenging case for the cop and the coroner to be taking on, at a fraught time for both of them. As Jane struggles to save her mother from the crumbling marriage that threatens to bury her, Maura grapples with the imminent death of her own mother—infamous serial killer Amalthea Lank.

succumbing to cancer, Amalthea hasn’t lost her taste for manipulating her estranged daughter—this time by dangling a cryptic clue about the two bizarre murders Maura and Jane are desperately trying to solve.

But whatever the dying convict knows is only a piece of the puzzle. Soon the investigation leads to a secretive young woman who survived a shocking abuse scandal, an independent horror film that may be rooted in reality, and a slew of martyred saints who died cruel and unusual deaths. And just when Rizzoli and Isles think they’ve cornered a devilish predator, the long-buried past rears its head—and threatens to engulf more innocent lives, including their own.

While Jane tends to her mother, there’s nothing Maura can do for Amalthea, except endure one final battle of wills with the woman whose shadow has haunted her all her life. Though

In A Face to Die For, New York Times bestselling author Andrea Kane explores the urban legend of the doppelganger, as the readers' favorite team of investigators (Forensic Instincts) find themselves in a conflict of interest between two clients. When one case unexpectedly intersects with the other, the only solution is to find the link between the two and unearth who is pulling the strings and why.

 

Lives change at the drop of a hat or the flick of a burning match. Imagine looking into a mirror and wondering who you really are and what your future might hold. Three women age 27 are about to enter a world that will make them feel as if they have taken a trip into the Twilight Zone. Secrets, lies, deceits and one man who decided their fate in order to keep a promise to someone else and protect his own identity and future.

Colorblind: Leah Harper Bowron

 

Within this world there even in the present day are people who preach, hate, discrimination and are prejudice. Some dislike others because of the color of their skin while thers because of someone’s race or nationality. Within the pages of this book the reader learns some harsh realities about narrow minded educators, parents who teach disrespect and one young girl named Lisa Parker who lived her life in fear of bullies, insults and yet some day somehow she would hopefully overcome and remember the words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King: Free at Last: Free at Last: Thank God Almighty we are free at last! But, before she or anyone in her class or school would understand the meaning of his words we have to explain what she went through, how she dealt with the torments, sneers and insults of two bullies named David and Will who were relentless, fearless and took no prisoners because they thought they could and no one would stop them. The issues brought to light deal with desegregation, prejudice, bullying and racism within Montgomery Alabama during the time of the assassination of Dr. King. The teachers in this school that have to deal with a new Black Teacher named Miss Loomis should be ashamed of the way they shunned and ignored her. Lisa is a student in her class and through her we learn what happens when one young child stands up for all. Fran Lewis; Just reviews/MJ magazine Join me when I interview Leah Harper Brown .

Fans of Marisha Pessl and Christopher Moore will be captivated by the twists and turns of E.Z. Rinsky's second chilling noir mystery

 

When a U.S. Senator offers to have private investigator Frank Lamb’s criminal record wiped clean in return for retrieving a set of old books, he jumps at the opportunity. In the five years since his last paying job he’s been an international fugitive, separated from his daughter Sadie. He’s willing to do anything to return to normal life.

 

But once Frank and his old partner, Courtney Lavagnino, get to work, it becomes clear that the job is far more treacherous than they’d assumed. The books were written in prison by Oliver Vicks, a self-proclaimed prophet with a trail of grisly murders behind him. Frank and Courtney are soon piecing together a horrifying puzzle, devised by a prisoner who seems more god than man. 

 

In this riveting follow-up to the award-nominated Palindrome, Frank and Courtney find themselves mired in a tangle of desperation, cult-like fervor, and deception that will lead them to uncover an evil of biblical proportions.

Dark Light: Dawn: A Novel

 

 

 

From author Jon Land and creator Fabrizio Boccardi comes Dark Light: Dawn, a heart-pounding supernatural thriller about a deadly, global epidemic and the man who holds the power to either save the world or destroy it.

Since the dawn of time good and evil have challenged the free will of man. Now the time has come for one man to choose for all human kind.

With an uncanny ability to survive any combat situation, Max Younger has built a heroic life for himself as a Navy SEAL. That is, until a rogue rescue operation plunges him back into a past he thought he’d escaped forever.

Waiting for him back home in New York are terrible, long-hidden truths rooted in the tragic death of his father. But the origin of those truths lie even further back than that, and Max finds himself ensnared in a sinister plot involving nothing less than the biblical apocalypse.

The explosive conflagration of events reunites him with the only woman he ever loved: Victoria Tanoury a brilliant infectious disease specialist working for the World Health Organization, who’s on the front lines in a battle to stop the spread of a deadly pestilence threatening the planet. Max’s reunion with Vicky comes amid a combat mission, in which their dual quests merge in a desperate fight for survival against forces of unspeakable evil.Across the globe, inexplicably diabolic events are rising, sparked by a fearsome plan to visit the End of Days upon civilization in horrific form, as the lines between science and superstition become increasingly blurred. Max finds himself mired in a titanic struggle within his own soul, between love and hate, unsure whether his ultimate fate is to help fight the evil. . . or embrace it in the shadow of the Dawn of a Dark Light

Becky Kincaid ventures out in the middle of a snowstorm to buy a car seat for her unborn baby and never makes it home. When a second pregnant woman disappears, Marissa Rooney and the team at the Holt Foundation fear a sinister motive lurks behind the crimes.

Lead investigator, Seth Crawford, desperately searches for the thread that binds the two cases together, knowing that if he fails, another woman will soon be gone. While Seth hunts for clues, a madman has Marissa in his sights and she carries a secret that could tear her whole world apart.

Can Seth stop the killer before he reaps his dark harvest.

Rob Ramer was the perfect husband until he committed the ultimate family faux pas — he shot his sister-in-law to death. Believing himself under attack by an intruder in his home, he fired back. But when evidence is discovered that Rob’s wife, Brooke, was plotting his murder, Brooke is charged with conspiracy in her sister’s death. Geneva, a third sister, is desperate for answers and seeks the help of her friend, San Francisco astrologer Julia Bonatti. Geneva’s lost one sister and now it seems she’ll lose the other. Was this a murder plot or just a terrible accident? Julia vows to find the answer in the stars.

The Church of the Holy Child

by Patricia Hale

on Tour August 15 - October 15, 2017

 

A woman with a history of domestic abuse is missing. Her sister hires private investigators Cole and Callahan.

When the woman is found dead, her husband is charged but when a second body appears showing the same wounds, questions arise and what looked like a slam-dunk becomes anyone’s guess. The case goes to John Stark, a veteran cop and close friend of Griff Cole.

The bodies are piling up, and one person knows where the killer is. Father Francis, a priest at The Church of the Holy Child, listens to the killer’s disturbed account of each murder and wrestles with the vows that bind him to secrecy.

The case takes an unexpected and personal turn when Cole’s ex-wife goes missing and a connection to his past points to the killer.

Bring her Home: David Bell

Through the eyes of a father who has lost all reality and is trying to deal with the possible loss of his daughter and wife. Going through the motions of life Bill Price is about to find himself entangled in an intricate web of lies, hate, revenge, deceit, murder and wondering just who can be trusted when the truth comes out about the sudden death of his daughter Summer. Losing his wife to what appeared to be a accident at home, next learning that his daughter is in the Jakesville, hospital battered and bruised beyond recognition and in a coma the events that follow will not only turn this man’s life upside down but will make him relive the death of his wife, their arguments, the abuse he was accused of at the hand of his daughter and staring into the battered face of a young girl in a hospital bed thinking she was Summer. Two girls found beyond recognition in a local parsomeone’s in order to find some closure and feel that what was done to someone we love would finally be vindicated by an arrest. Thinking that three boys from her school and that were her friends might know something Bill verbalizes what he thinks might have happened and how they might have been involved. Most of the time his anger takes control and he does not think before speaking or acting making his situation even more vulnerable and tenuous and some thinking he has more to hide. With the aid of his sister Paige, who came to offer some support, they sit staring at Summer, hoping she will speak or wake up only to learn the harsh reality later on. Haley is buried and then Summer whose in the hospital takes several turns for the worse as they begin to analyze the evidence, the clothes worn by both victims and then with the help of forensic evidence and dental records and more the person lying in the hospital is not Summer.