Copyright 1998 by Stuart Woods. Published by HarperCollins Publishing Inc, New York.

This was my second try at a Stuart Woods novel. I hated the first one. This one is considerably better. There is no question that Woods is a talented writer. Crisp dialog, rapid movement of the plot, short chapters. It is really a question of how ridiculous his plot and/or characters are. In this book the characters are very believable. The plot, not so much, but not too over-the-top to ruin it. The book is a very pleasant read.

The protagonist in this case is Holly Barker, an Army brat with MP experience who decides to leave the army due to a sexual harassment problem. Fortunately her father is old war buddies with the Chief of Police in Orchid Beach FL. She is offered the job of Deputy Police Chief. But when she arrives to take up her new post she learns that the chief was shot just the night before. She becomes, at the moment she is sworn in, the acting police chief.

She struggles to learn her new job and her new town while trying to unravel the shooting of her boss. And her bosses’ best friend who was murdered the same night. She learns that Orchid Beach is home to Palmetto Gardens, a very mysterious and very exclusive enclave of home for the super rich. It becomes apparent that something nefarious is going on at this resort for the rich and famous. Discovering the link between this resort and the shootings is her challenge.

The ending falls into the “mildly unbelievable” category, but it is still an enjoyable read.

7 out of 10.

Copyright 1999 by Jonathan Kellerman. Published by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Yes, another book review. I have been doing a lot of reading because (1) it is a pandemic so what else is there to do? (2) my vision, with glasses, is really clear after my cataract surgery making reading a pleasure again and (3) my To Be Read pile had grown out of control – up to 26 books at one point recently. I like to keep that pile under 10. I have been feeling a lot of pressure to reduce the pile.

So I have been reading a lot. I finished this book – nearly 500 pages – in less than a week. This reduces that To Be Read pile to 22 so more reading ahead.

The star in this book is Alex Delaware, a child psychologist and sometimes police consultant. This is #13 in the long-running series of Delaware books, #36 being published just this year. His sidekick in these books is Milo Sturgis, an LAPD detective. Milo is gay, but his gayness is only briefly mentioned in this installment.

Alex is invited to consult on two murders that are puzzling the LAPD – a young waiter who was cut in half and stashed in the trunk of a car and a 30-something psychologist who was also stuffed into the trunk of a car, but not bisected. In both cases the eyes had been mutilated. So similarities – mutilated eyes, stuffed into cars – but not much else to link the cases. So Alex and Milo start by trying to learn about the victims. The psychologist in particular is interesting in that she is a blank slate – a house devoid of pictures or amenities, a job at a hospital for the criminally insane which she took, inexplicably, after a successful stint as a researcher. Seems like a big step down to Alex. Why would she make that career move? Well, it turns out that she had a weird fascination with one of the inmates there – Ardis Peake, a low-IQ guy who slaughtered an entire family some 16 years prior. And it gets really weird when it is reported that Peake, the day before the psychologist’s murder, predicted some details of her demise. “Bad eyes in a box” – arguably a good description of her mutilated corpse in the trunk of a car.

Unraveling this mystery makes for a good story. And I won’t be giving too much away if I tell you that the plot spans 16 years. There is a lot of psychology talk – not surprising – and a whole bunch of red herrings (including the title – you will see what I mean). It is a good story up until the end which stretches credulity. There are also some coincidences that are hard to swallow and not a lot of twists. So a good story. But not a great one.

6 out of 10.

Copyright 2015 by Smart Blond, LLC. Published by St Martin’s Press, New York.

This is billed as #3 in Scottoline’s “Rosato & Denunzio” series. Well, she must have reset the counter after Denunzio became a partner because there are a whole bunch of Rosato books that precede this one.

For those of you not familiar with Scottoline’s barrister heroine, Bennie Rosato, let me make the introduction. She is a tough-as-nails Philadelphia lawyer who runs a law firm that is nearly all female. She has taken on a token male flunky and also employs a male investigator, but all the lawyers are female. As a result her stories are strong on estrogen and things like feelings and relationships. You know… chick stuff. This sometimes seems overdone and can make me, as a male reader, feel like I am left out of the joke. But Scottoline is a skilled writer and some of her plots are quite interesting.

Like this one.

In some of her previous books, all romance and sex was the province of her younger colleagues. Bennie herself seemed asexual and left me wondering, whether she, as a tough woman running an all-female business, might be a closet lesbian. Sure, she had a boyfriend, but you know how that goes.

Well, I don’t have to wonder anymore. She is a full-fledged heterosexual who both falls in love and falls in bed with a man in this book. But the nascent romance is nipped in the bud by tragic events and they break up within a week after meeting. The disrupting events involve the families of two teen boys who were jailed for a middle school scuffle, a simple conflict that didn’t seem to justify incarceration. And it is later discovered that the judge was benefiting financially from throwing innocent youngsters into jail Judicial corruption which ruined many lives.

Fast forward 15 years. Bennie volunteers to defend a young man accused of murder. He is one of the young men involved in the middle school scuffle. The victim is the other. Because her lost love interest is the uncle of the victim, they are thrown together again, in a not very romantic way, on opposite sides of a murder trial.

See the opportunity for conflict? That is what this book is all about – unimaginably intense conflict, tragic loss and hope for redemption. I would call it “gripping” as it really grabbed me.

My one complaint is that the “smoking gun” in this case was discovered in a video clip the night before Bennie had to mount a defense. This case took 6 months to get to trial. It seems like this information – and its significance – should have been seen much sooner. But a “night before” discovery is more dramatic.

But that is a minor complaint. Overall, the book was very satisfying. And I was very happy to learn that a hard-as-nails lady lawyer can fall in love.

9 out of 10.