Knife (Harry Hole #12) by Jo Nesbo

Book Description:

Published: July 11, 2019

Format: Audio/OverDrive

Stars: 5

A man like Harry had better watch his back…

Following the dramatic conclusion of number one bestseller THE THIRST, KNIFE sees Harry Hole waking up with a ferocious hangover, his hands and clothes covered in blood. Not only is Harry about to come face to face with an old, deadly foe, but with his darkest personal challenge yet.

The twelfth installment in Jo Nesbo’s internationally bestselling crime fiction series.

Review –

In Knife, translated from the Norwegian by Ned Smith, an eighty year old sexual predator named Svein Finne is at large in Oslo. “Finne’s driving force is to spread his seed and father children,” we learn. “It’s his way of gaining eternal life.” If he fails to impregnate his victims, he casually kills them. If any of the women should have an abortion, he punishes them in vile ways. And if any of them should bring a child to term, “the Fiancé,” as he’s known, appears in the delivery room to “assist” in the birth.

While Finne’s intervention at the hospital is disturbing, it provides this weirdo with an ironclad alibi for the killings being investigated by Harry Hole, the rogue police detective in Nesbo’s bleak Nordic noir series.

Harry is at a low point in his unstable life. He’s drinking much of the time — to the point of sucking up the last drop of whiskey from a filthy floor — and when his wife leaves him, this time for good, he completely falls apart. But this is what readers expect of Harry, whose weaknesses somehow contribute to his manly appeal. And whenever he does fall flat, there always seems to be a good woman around to pick him up.

“He was unshaven, his eyes were bloodshot and he had a liver-colored scar running across one side of his face,” according to one such woman, upon meeting him for the first time. “But even if his face had something of the same brutality as Svein Finne, there was something that softened it, something that made it almost handsome.”

A life-altering murder puts Harry Hole in the spotlight. With his career and credibility at stake, Harry falls into a deep dark abyss of self-destructive behavior. To clear his name, he will risk his life. But if he survives, it will be bittersweet.

I was SHOCKED by the murder and even more shocked when the murderer was revealed. While I was surprised by the identity of the murderer, I realized there were clues galore but I was too caught up in Harry to see what was going on right before my eyes.

Knife is dark and weighty and Harry is at his lowest point, which made this hard to read at times. There isn’t much action, but Harry develops and grows as a character, which I appreciated.

In an unexpected move, Nesbo resolves the business of the psycho fiancé rather early in the story, which necessitates the introduction of another slippery killer, as well as a chilling flashback to a military mission in Afghanistan. There’s an explicit description of that reliable old method of execution, “drawing and quartering,” if that’s your thing, plus many other throwaway delights, including a list of the eight categories of killers, of which No. 8 is “just plain bad and angry.”

Parts are overly detailed and could have been edited down. While I didn’t love the events of Knife, the plot allows for Harry’s character to take a new path. We will have to wait and see if we get drunk, messy Harry or a new Harry Hole in the next book.

It’s been two years since I read a Harry Hole novel and I soaked this one in like a dry sponge! This is truly one of my all time favorite foreig crime fiction series.

I HIGHLY recommend you read this series starting with the first book, The Bat!

Touch & Go (Tessa Leoni #2) by Lisa Gardner

Book Description:

Published: February 5, 2013

Format: Audio

This is my family:  Vanished without a trace…

Justin and Libby Denbe have the kind of life that looks good in the pages of a glossy magazine. A beautiful fifteen-year old daughter, Ashlyn. A gorgeous brownstone on a tree-lined street in Boston’s elite Back Bay neighborhood. A great marriage, admired by friends and family.  A perfect life.

This is what I know:  Pain has a flavor…

When investigator Tessa Leoni arrives at the crime scene in the Denbes’ home, she finds scuff marks on the floor and Taser confetti in the foyer.  The family appears to have been abducted, with only a pile of their most personal possessions remaining behind.  No witnesses, no ransom demands, no motive.  Just an entire family, vanished without a trace.

This is what I fear:  The worst is yet to come…

Tessa knows better than anyone that even the most perfect façades can hide the darkest secrets.  Now she must race against the clock to uncover the Denbes’ innermost dealings, a complex tangle of friendships and betrayal, big business and small sacrifices. Who would want to kidnap such a perfect little family?  And how far would such a person be willing to go?

This is the truth:  Love, safety, family…it is all touch and go.

Review –

Five stars.

Fantastic read!

“Ever since Libby Denbe caught her husband, Justin, a handsome and wealthy Boston construction czar, cheating on her, their marriage has been on life support. Their experimental night out turns into a nightmare when they return to find three masked men in their Beacon Hill home terrorizing their 15-year-old daughter, Ashlyn. Swiftly overpowered and driven off in the kidnappers’ van, the family can only wonder why they’re being held in an unused prison in northern New Hampshire. At the same time, corporate investigator Tessa Leoni, whose firm had been hired by Denbe Construction to handle security problems, and New Hampshire county cop Wyatt Foster wonder why all three of them were kidnapped when Justin is clearly the one worth the most money—and why long hours pass with no ransom demand. The clues point to an inside job masterminded by one of Denbe Construction’s top brass: chief financial officer Ruth Chan, chief operating officer Anita Bennett, or construction manager Chris Lopez. Alternating, as in Catch Me (2012), between third-person installments of the search for leads in the case and the beleaguered heroine’s first-person accounts of her torment at the hands of the bad guys, Gardner generates such irresistible momentum that most readers will forgive the combination of cool-eyed professional investigation and heavy-breathing domestic soap opera as a family even Libby describes as “three mere clichés” begins to disintegrate still further under the grueling pressure.

Even readers who figure out the ringleader long before Tessa and Wyatt will get behind on their sleep turning pages to make sure they’re right.” from Kirkus Review

I HIGHLY recommend this book!

 

Stuck Up Suit by Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward

Book Description:

Published: April 11, 2016

Format: Audio/OverDrive

It started out like any other morning on the train.
Until I became mesmerized by the guy sitting across the aisle.
He was barking at someone on his phone like he ruled the world.
Who did the stuck-up suit think he was…God?
Actually, he looked like a God. That was about it.
When his stop came, he got up suddenly and left. So suddenly, he dropped his phone on the way out.
I might have picked it up.
I might have gone through all of his photos and called some of the numbers.
I might have held onto the mystery man’s phone for days―until I finally conjured up the courage to return it.
When I traipsed my ass across town to his fancy company, he refused to see me.
So, I left the phone on the empty desk outside the arrogant jerk’s office.
I might have also left behind a dirty picture on it first though.
I didn’t expect him to text back.
I didn’t expect our exchanges to be hot as hell.
I didn’t expect to fall for him―all before we even met.
The two of us couldn’t have been any more different.
Yet, you know what they say about opposites.
When we finally came face to face, we found out opposites sometimes do more than attract―we consumed each other.
Nothing could have prepared me for the ride he took me on. And I certainly wasn’t prepared for where I’d wind up when the ride was over.
All good things must come to an end, right?
Except our ending was one I didn’t see coming.

Review –

I love it when a contemporary romance has substance to it, like a plausible plot, instead of just sex for the sake of sex.

In this stand alone novel a rich, stuck up, angry man in a suit loses his phone on the train and an Italian girl with a smart mouth and color on the tips of her hair finds it and after a few days returns it to him with a few pictures of her legs,butt and cleavage plus her number. Graham finally discovers who she is and the two start a hot and heavy relationship. The sex scene, which did not happen at their first meeting, was very well written and not over the top. What made it so good was the chemistry they had and their suggestive texts to one another.

They both come into the relationship with baggage, she has trust issues because of her father leaving when she was young and he not wanting to get hurt again after his fiancée cheated on him with his best friend.

It was fun watching Mr. Stuck Up Suit soften and allow his real self to emerge from his tough exterior and to watch her learn to trust again and take a chance on love.

Along the way there is a death, an ex-girlfriend/fiancée , a new-found daughter, and a happily ever after. 

( But it takes awhile to get there.)

I really enjoyed this book and will now look for more books by this team of authors.

 

A Mess of Reason by A. Wilding Wells

Book Description:

Published:  February 2016

“Scout Steele is the country music star People magazine just voted “sexiest bachelor”. More than that, he’s my best friend forever, my bff. OK, not quite my lingo – I’m almost thirty. We’ve shared everything, and then some. Even crossed the line a few times, but not too far. Well, mostly…. He’ll go to the end of the world to make me happy; he knows me inside and out. Except, that is, my most intimate and darkest defect; this he must never know. It would ruin us, and ‘us’ is the only thing that matters. So I’m marrying someone who doesn’t care about the truth or, frankly, even me.”

“She’s twisted and sexy as all get out. Brilliant and beautiful, Tess Harlow is my best friend and my forbidden fruit – the woman I’ve always known and loved the best but can never have. Between my tours (and sexy groupies) and her man-juggling, we’ve never found “our time”. I love her to pieces but she’s about to marry the bane of my existence, rocker Creed Luce. He’s a walking cliché and he treats my Tess like hell – why she stays with him I still haven’t figured out. I am always there for her…but not this time. Tess deserves better, way better, my better. The door is half-open and I have my ways. Her best friend is about to become her best lover.”

Review –

So, this book has a common story line-best friends, who have known each other for ages but want more from each other but won’t act on it. Also the girl, Tess, is engaged to a real jerk.

Tess also has a secret that no one knows about, but it’s not as bad as the build up leads you to believe, so when Scout finds out, it’s like no big deal.

The only reason they finally did act on their attraction to one other is that her fiancée had se with another woman. Who knows what would have happened if Tess actually went through with the wedding. Scout should have acted long before e did.

To me, the story didn’t flow and it felt like there were holes in it; like Tess’s accident, hospital stay and recovery. It was just glossed over, yet Tess contends it’s a secret as big as the location of the Ark of the Covenant. Overall, it’s not an award winner but it was a pleasant read and I LOVE the cover.

 

Never Never (Never,Never #1)by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher

Book Description:

Published: January 7, 2015

Best friends since they could walk. In love since the age of fourteen.

Complete strangers since this morning.

He’ll do anything to remember. She’ll do anything to forget.

 

Review –

 

OMG!  I can’t believe that I haven’t read this book until now.  The blurb doesn’t do it justice. Really it is  just a teaser.  The book  is FREAKING AMAZING!

Charlie and Silas “wake up”(although that’s not an accurate statement) and realize they have no memories, NONE, of anything: who they are, where they are, who their friends or enemies are, what the dynamics of their family relationships are and most importantly, what their relationship is to one another.

They don’t let anyone know about their conditions and slowly piece a few things together.  They’re in love, or used to be, Their families hates each other and don’t want them together, they both have tattoos on their backs, Charlie’s father is in prison for embezzlement and more in regards to a business he used to co-own and run with Silas’s father and Charlie has been cheating on Silas with Brian, a boy from school and Silas has been cheating on Charlie’s with the school’s guidance counselor, Ms. Ashley.

After after a disastrous tarot reading in the French Quarter, Charlie pretends to get in a cab to get away from Silas and disappeares.Silas finds with out the next morning when she doesn’t show up for school and goes to her house and while arguing with her mother (who is a drunk) sees a letter addressed to her and takes it.   Reading it he finds out that THEY have written themselves a letter stating that “the waking up with no memories” has happened twice before that week and seems to happen every 48 hours. They put everything in the letter they have discovered about themselves and others so when it happens again they won’t haven’t to start from scratch.  It’s three minutes until the 48 hours is up and Silas is frantically writing things down that he and Charlie have found out in the last two days. The last thing he writes it that Charlie has disappeared and he has to find her.  The book ends.

TALK ABOUT A CLIFF HANGER.

Absolutely loved it.