A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

I tell myself that this is not an investigation. It is for others to be investigated, but not for my family and not for me. I will delve into the lives of strangers, and I will expose their secrets and their lies ... but I do not want to pick and scratch in such a way at what I have always believed of my mother and father. They are gone. Let them sleep. But there are too many questions left unanswered, too many inconsistencies in the narrative constructed of their lives, a tale told by them ... I can no longer allow them to remain unexamined. from page 3 So John Connolly released the latest installment of the saga that is Charlie Parker's life earlier this month and I finally got my hands on a copy, read it, and was not disappointed. This new novel is narrated by Parker and focuses on his story; Connolly's previous novel, The Reapers , focused on Louis and Angel. The Lovers returns to the questions first raised about Parker's parentage and history by the Collector in...

This much is mine, though: everything I did. Frank puts it all down to the others ... while as far as I can tell Sam thinks that, in some obscure and slightly bizarro way, it was Lexie's fault. When I say it wasn't like that, they give me careful sideways looks and change the subject ... But give me more credit than that. Someone else may have dealt the hand, but I picked it up off the table, I played every card, and I had my reasons. from page 3 The Likeness is Tana French's follow up to her novel In The Woods . The previous novel focused on Rob Ryan as narrator; the follow up is narrated by Ryan's former partner Cassie Maddox and the action commences in the months following the conclusion of the events portrayed in In The Woods . A little tidbit for French fans: her next novel will have for its narrator Frank Mackey, Maddox's old undercover boss who was introduced to us in The Likeness . And while I anxiously awaited her second novel, I'm not sure about...

In the suspense novel Blood and Ice by Robert Masello, the most thrilling and unique element is the unusual setting of Antarctica. Not many books or movies are set on that continent. Blood and Ice tells the tale of the lovers, Eleanor and Sinclair, in mid-nineteenth century England; she is a nurse and he is a soldier who is preparing for deployment to the Crimean war front. These star crossed lovers eventually find each other again in the midst of the bloody business of war. Ultimately, a mysterious and cruel malady befalls them and as a result an even more horrifying fate awaits them. The tale of Eleanor and Sinclair alternates with the tale of freelance journalist, Michael, who is recovering from a brutal, personal tragedy of his own. Michael is offered an opportunity to spend a month at an antarctic research station and report on his experiences there. Little does he know what adventure and danger he will encounter once he arrives and how his story will intertwine with that ...