Mailbox Monday - April 11

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week.  Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!
Created by Marcia at The Printed Page, Mailbox Monday, now has its own blog.  This month Passages to the Past is hosting.  Stop on over and see what everyone else got this week (and don't forget to wallow in some of the glorious historical fiction featured there.)  I include not only print books I received but also books that arrived via the virtual E-book route.

 I only got one new one this week, from a galley sweepstakes at Crown on  Shelf Swareness - Mr. Tutu has already grabbed this one away from me....

The year is 2032. The third Iran-Iraq war is over; the 11/11 dirty bomb attack on the port of Long Beach, California is receding into memory; Saudi Arabia has recently quelled a coup; Russians and Turks are clashing in the Caspian Basin; Iranian armored units, supported by the satellite and drone power of their Chinese allies, have emer
Force Insertion is the world's merc monopoly. Its leader is the disgraced former United States Marine General James Salter, stripped of his command by the president for nuclear saber-rattling with the Chinese and banished to the Far East.  A grandmaster military and political strategist, Salter deftly seizes huge oil and gas fields, ultimately making himself the most powerful man in the world.  Salter's endgame is to take vengeance on those responsible for his exile and then come home...as Commander in Chief. The only man who can stop him is the novel's narrator, Gilbert "Gent" Gentilhomme, Salter's most loyal foot soldier and as close to him as the son Salter lost. As this action-jammed, lightning fast, and brutally realistic novel builds to its heart-stopping climax Gent launches his personally and professionally most desperate mission: to take out his mentor and save the United States from self destruction.

Infused by a staggering breadth of research in military tactics and steeped in the timeless themes of the honor and valor of men at war that distinguish all of Pressfield’s fiction, The Profession is that rare novel that informs and challenges the reader almost as much as it entertains. ged from their enclaves in Tehran and are sweeping south attempting to recapture the resource rich territory that had been stolen from them, in their view, by Lukoil, BP, and ExxonMobil and their privately-funded armies. Everywhere military force is for hire.  Oil companies, multi-national corporations and banks employ powerful, cutting-edge mercenary armies to control global chaos and protect their riches.  Even nation states enlist mercenary forces to suppress internal insurrections, hunt terrorists, and do the black bag jobs necessary to maintain the new New World Order.

This one sounds like it wil be a good thriller for a rainy weekend.  

Review: The Executor

Author: Jesse Kellerman
Format: unproofed galley, 343 pages
Subject: philosophy, greed, loneliness
Setting: Boston
Genre: suspense novel
Source: ARC from publisher
Challenge: ARC to complete

The blurb says: Things aren't going well for Joseph Geist. He's broke. His graduate school advisor won't talk to him. And his girlfriend has kicked him out of her apartment, leaving him homeless and alone. It's a tough spot for a philosopher to be in, and he's ready to give up all hope of happiness when an ad in the local paper catches his eye. 'Conversationalist wanted', it reads. Which sounds perfect to Joseph. After all, he's never done anything in his life except talk. And the woman behind the ad turns out to be the perfect employer: brilliant, generous, and willing to pay him for making conversation. Before long, Joseph has moved in with her, and has begun to feel very comfortable in her big, beautiful house. So comfortable, in fact, that he would do anything to stay there? 

Jesse Kellerman writes in clear, crisp prose that gives us an immediate picture of Joseph Geist the protagonist in this thriller. This is a very difficult book to review without spoiling. The philosophical discussions the protagonist has with the woman, and with his girlfriend, and above all with himself, are often almost convoluted. Through them we see a tortured, insecure person who has never managed to accomplish anything in his life except to get out of the mid-West and into Harvard where he has wallowed for 8 years. The conversations are so pompous at times that I actually had to resort to a dictionary. The book has a back cover that says “A masterly inventive thriller from a remarkably assured young writer.”

There are 343 pages in my copy. At page 240, I was still waiting for the thriller part to kick in.

Then it did, and I haven’t been on a roller-coaster that exciting or terrifying in my life. It is a spectacular story, told so well that even when things are slowly building, you feel the tension, you sense that something is going to happen, you posit several different scenes, and then BAM! Nothing like I expected, but definitely heart-hammering, page–turning good. The author brings the story to a clean concise denouement that leaves the reader with a sense of justice and sadness.

It could have been, and I suppose in many ways it is, a depressing and sad book. But it is so well written that I came away only saying WOW, what a great story.

Review: China Lake

Author: Meg Gardiner

Format: 12 discs , 416 pgs equivalent
Characters: Evan, Brian, Luke & Tabitha Delaney,
Subject: Cults, Naval Aviation, crime
Setting: China Lake Air Station California
Series: Evan Delaney mysteries
Genre: mystery- amateur sleuth, thriller
Source: Overdrive audio download from public library

A new protagonist for me.  Evan Delaney, attorney turned writer, has been given temporary custody of her nephew Luke.  Luke's father (Evan's brother) is a Naval Aviator who is deployed to keep the world safe for democracy.  His mother abandoned him because she could not abide the 'Navy way' of life.  Mom subsequently joins a cult, which cult subsequently tries to kidnap Luke.

Evan and her paraplegic boyfriend Jessie- another attorney become caught up in a series of rather 'suspend your belief' adventures as they try to return Luke to his father, now back from sea and stationed at China Lake Naval Base in the desert of California.

The book becomes a combination of good cop/bad cop, Rapture meets Hollywood, biological warfare meets Top Gun.  I enjoyed the story but found Evan's character really stretched my ability to believe any of this could really have gone down the way it is portrayed.





Challenge: Audio Books, Thrillers & Suspense, Support Your Local Library

2010 Challenges - Thriller and Suspense

I'm a absolute fanatic when it comes to this genre.  This challenge, sponsored by Book Chick City  even comes with a list of 38 sub-genres.



I'd love to say I'd read one from each of the 38, but some of them don't really appeal to me.  That however, is precisely the appeal of this challenge.  With 38 different types of thrillers, mysteries, etc. from which to choose, there is something for everybody.

The Book Chick has declared: 

Timeline: 01 Jan 2010 - 31 Dec 2010

Rules: To read TWELVE (12) thrillers in 2010

Check out the details on her post if you want to play along.

Book Chick doesn't seem to have a Mr. Linky up yet for individual review posts so here's my list with links.

1. Death Goes on Retreat
2. A Fountain Filled with Blood

Review: Guardian of Lies

This is a "clear your calendar and prepare to stay up all night" thriller.  Although Martini plants numerous clues, and the reader thinks he knows what's happening, the plot twists are numerous, and aggregate into an incredible story featuring the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war, Homeland Security, the Columbian and Mexican drug cartels, a beautiful model from Costa Rica, Guantanamo bay detainees, missing nuclear weapons, and a bunch of lawyers in San Diego California trying to prosecute or defend the beautiful model when she is accused of killing a local coin dealer (who turns out to be a retired CIA operative).

Anyone else trying to tie all that together would have left us in a sinking morass of confusion.  Martini pulls it into a breath-taking fast-paced, very scary (because it's so believable) story with an acceptable resolution.

I've read several others in the Paul Madriani series.  I think this is definitely the best.  I'll certainly be looking for the rest. 

This was an Early Review book I received from LT.