#BookReview Blood Oath by Linda Fairstein @LindaFairstein @DuttonBooks @FreshFiction

Blood Oath by Linda Fairstein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

New York Times bestselling author Linda Fairstein explores the depths of Manhattan’s secretive Rockefeller University in this timely, captivating thriller about the deep—and often deadly—reverberations of past sins.

Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper of the Manhattan Sex Crimes Unit is finally back at work following a leave of absence, and not a moment too soon. With more women feeling empowered to name their abusers, Alex is eager to return to the courtroom to do what she does best. But even she can’t anticipate the complexity of her first case when she meets Lucy, a young woman who testified years earlier at a landmark federal trial…and now reveals that she was sexually assaulted by a prominent official during that time.

Yet Lucy’s isn’t the only secret Alex must uncover, with rumors swirling about one colleague’s abusive conduct behind closed doors and another’s violent, mysterious collapse. As the seemingly disparate cases of her client, adversary, and friend start to intertwine, Alex, along with NYPD detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, finds herself in uncharted territory within Manhattan’s Rockefeller University, a premier research institute, hospital, and cornerstone of higher learning. But not even the greatest minds in the city can help her when unearthed secrets begin to collide in dangerous ways…and unless she can uncover the truth, the life-saving facility just may become her grave.

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Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper is faced with trying to bring down a very powerful man in BLOOD OATH, a man that years ago groomed a young witness in a case. Now Lucy, the young woman, wants the man who used her brought to justice. But, how to prove what really happened all those years ago? It's just her word against the man in question. And, Lucy hasn't the best of reputation. Alexandra also has to deal with a personal blow when a friend of her mysteriously collapses on the street seemingly struck by a seizure.

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#BookReview The Malta Exchange by Steve Berry @MinotaurBooks @FreshFiction

The Malta Exchange by Steve Berry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A deadly race for the Vatican’s oldest secret fuels New York Times bestseller Steve Berry’s latest international Cotton Malone thriller.

The pope is dead. A conclave to select his replacement is about to begin. Cardinals are beginning to arrive at the Vatican, but one has fled Rome for Malta in search of a document that dates back to the 4th century and Constantine the Great.

Former Justice Department operative, Cotton Malone, is at Lake Como, Italy, on the trail of legendary letters between Winston Churchill and Benito Mussolini that disappeared in 1945 and could re-write history. But someone else seems to be after the same letters and, when Malone obtains then loses them, he’s plunged into a hunt that draws the attention of the legendary Knights of Malta.

The knights have existed for over nine hundred years, the only warrior-monks to survive into modern times. Now they are a global humanitarian organization, but within their ranks lurks trouble — the Secreti — an ancient sect intent on affecting the coming papal conclave. With the help of Magellan Billet agent Luke Daniels, Malone races the rogue cardinal, the knights, the Secreti, and the clock to find what has been lost for centuries. The final confrontation culminates behind the walls of the Vatican where the election of the next pope hangs in the balance.

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Ex-Justice Department operative, Cotton Malone has traveled to Lake Como, Italy in the hunt for some legendary letters between Winston Churchill and Benito Mussolini that disappeared at Mussolini's death. It is said that these letters could re-write history if they were ever found. However, for Malone will this little treasure hunt quickly lead to something bigger when he gets involved in a hunt for a document that dates back to the 4th century. A document that could change history for the Roman Church and not everyone wants the document to be found.

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#BookReview The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner @SusanMeissner @BerkleyPub @FreshFiction

The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Elise Sontag is a typical Iowa fourteen-year-old in 1943--aware of the war but distanced from its reach. Then her father, a legal U.S. resident for nearly two decades, is suddenly arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer. The family is sent to an internment camp in Texas, where, behind the armed guards and barbed wire, Elise feels stripped of everything beloved and familiar, including her own identity.

The only thing that makes the camp bearable is meeting fellow internee Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American teen from Los Angeles, whose friendship empowers Elise to believe the life she knew before the war will again be hers. Together in the desert wilderness, Elise and Mariko hold tight the dream of being young American women with a future beyond the fences

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Elise Sontag's life changes drastically in 1943 is sent, together with her family to an internment camp in Texas. Her father, who has been a legal US citizen for almost twenty years, is accused of being a Nazi sympathizer. Elise meets Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American girl at the camp and they form a close bond, despite that not all people around them approve.

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#BookReview Redemption Point by Candice Fox @candicefoxbooks @ForgeReads @FreshFiction

Redemption Point by Candice Fox
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

#1 New York Times bestselling author Candice Fox delivers a compulsive new crime thriller in Redemption Point.

When former police detective Ted Conkaffey was wrongly accused of abducting Claire Bingley, he hoped the Queensland rainforest town of Crimson Lake would be a good place to disappear. But nowhere is safe from Claire's devastated father.

Dale Bingley has a brutal revenge plan all worked out - and if Ted doesn't help find the real abductor, he'll be its first casualty.

Meanwhile, in a dark roadside hovel called the Barking Frog Inn, the bodies of two young bartenders lie on the beer-sodden floor. It's Detective Inspector Pip Sweeney's first homicide investigation - complicated by the arrival of private detective Amanda Pharrell to 'assist' on the case. Amanda's conviction for murder a decade ago has left her with some odd behavioural traits, top-to-toe tatts - and a keen eye for killers . . .

For Ted and Amanda, the hunt for the truth will draw them into a violent dance with evil. Redemption is certainly on the cards - but it may well cost them their lives...

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Two young bartenders are found dead in the Barking Fog Inn and it's up to Crimson Lake's most notorious private detectives to take on the case: disgraced former police detective Ted Conkaffey and convicted murderer Amanda Pharell. Together they will work this case with DI Pip Sweeney. Meanwhile, Ted is perhaps finally getting the chance to clear his name from the kidnapping of a young girl.

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#BookReview The Good Detective by John McMahon @PutnamBooks @FreshFiction

The Good Detective by John McMahon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Introducing Detective P.T. Marsh in a swift and bruising debut where Elmore Leonard’s staccato prose meets Greg Iles’ Southern settings.

How can you solve a crime if you’ve killed the prime suspect?

Detective P.T. Marsh was a rising star on the police force of Mason Falls, Georgia—until his wife and young son were killed in an accident. Since that night, caught in a spiral of grief and booze, he’s lost the ability to see the line between smart moves and disastrous decisions. Such as when he decides to ’help out’ an exotic dancer by confronting her abusive boyfriend. When the next morning he gets called to the scene of his newest murder case, he is stunned to arrive at the house of a dead man, the very man he beat up the night before. He could swear the guy was alive when he left, but can he be sure? What he does know is that his fingerprints are all over the crime scene.

But the trouble is only beginning. P.T. and his partner Remy begin to suspect the murder is connected to a local arson and lynching; two days earlier, the dead body of a black teenager was found in a burned-out field, a portion of a blackened rope around his neck—and P.T. realizes he might have killed the #1 suspect of this horrific crime.

Amid rising racial tension and media scrutiny, P.T. uncovers something sinister at the heart of the boy’s murder—a conspiracy leading all the way back to the time of the Civil War. Risking everything to unravel the puzzle even as he fights off his own personal demons, P.T. races headlong toward an incendiary and life-altering showdown.

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Detective P.T. Marsh has been on a downward spiral since the deaths of his wife and son, mostly drinking his life away. Now he may have killed someone... He's just not sure because he can't remember much from the night before, only that he helped an exotic dancer by beating up her boyfriend. Now the boyfriend is dead and Marsh's fingerprints are all over the crime scene. And, it keeps getting worse - the murdered man may be the lead suspect in the case of a lynching of a young black boy...

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#BookReview Inte utan dig (Don't Let Go) by Harlan Coben (SWE/ENG)

Don't Let Go by Harlan Coben
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

SWEDISH REVIEW

Femton år har gått sedan förortspolisen Napoleon ”Nap” Dumas bror Leo och dennes flickvän Diana dog i vad som antogs vara ett självmord eller en olyckshändelse. Samma natt försvann även Naps tjej Maura utan förklaring.

Nap har aldrig slutat nysta i vad som egentligen hände. Och när Mauras fingeravtryck dyker upp i en misstänkt mördares hyrbil kommer han allt närmare sanningen – om den kvinna han älskade, de barndomsvänner han trodde att han kände och Leos och Dianas tragiska dödsfall.

Inte utan dig är en kraftfull thriller, i vilken Harlan Coben med oöverträffad spänning och känslomässig inblick utforskar hur stora hemligheter och små lögner kan ödelägga ett förhållande, en familj och i förlängningen en hel stad.

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Det är nu flera år sedan jag läste min första Harlan Coben bok, och jag blir lika superglad varje gång jag får en ny bok att läsa. Coben är en fantastiskt bra författare och hans böcker är ofta svåra att sluta läsa.

Inte utan dig, är om jag får vara ärlig inte bland de bästa av Coben jag har läst. Dock är den ändå bra och Cobens sköna stil gör boken snabbläst och engagerande. Det kan vara så att jag fortväntar mig mycket mer av Coben, flera överraskande vändningar. Jag bara älskar Cobens böcker när han totalt överraskar mig med en vändning jag aldrig hade förväntat mig. Denna bok saknade sådana vändningar. Inte ens slutet förvånade mig. Samt, även om jag gillade Napoleon “Nap” Dumas så räckte det med en litet gästspel av Myron Bolitar för jag skulle sakna honom och Win. Myron Bolitar är så otroligt härlig att jag hade föredragit en ny bok med honom istället. Naps berättelse, hans tvillingbrors död och Mauras försvinnande funkade helt enkelt inte för mig.

Inte utan dig är en helt OK bok, men den är absolut läsvärd. Harlan Coben är en lysande författare, och även om berättelsen i denna bok inte helt föll mig till smaken så är den ändå bra.

Tack till Bookmarks förlag för recensionsexemplaret!

ENGLISH REVIEW

 

Suburban New Jersey Detective Napoleon “Nap” Dumas hasn't been the same since senior year of high school, when his twin brother Leo and Leo’s girlfriend Diana were found dead on the railroad tracks—and Maura, the girl Nap considered the love of his life, broke up with him and disappeared without explanation. For fifteen years, Nap has been searching, both for Maura and for the real reason behind his brother's death. And now, it looks as though he may finally find what he's been looking for.

When Maura's fingerprints turn up in the rental car of a suspected murderer, Nap embarks on a quest for answers that only leads to more questions—about the woman he loved, about the childhood friends he thought he knew, about the abandoned military base near where he grew up, and mostly about Leo and Diana—whose deaths are darker and far more sinister than Nap ever dared imagine.

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It's been years since I read my first Harlan Coben book, and every time I see that he is releasing a new book do I rejoice. He's such a fabulous writer and his books are the kinds that I often can't put down until I finished reading.

Now Don't Let Go, to be honest, isn't among the best I read, but it's still a good book, with the Coben's usual writing style. I just think that I expect too much from Coben and this book just didn't have the usual story with lots of twists and turns. I love how Coben usually pulls the rug out from beneath your feet several times during the story, but I lacked some seriously shocking twist. Now even the last twist towards the end felt really surprising. Also, Napoleon “Nap” Dumas was not a bad character, but having Myron Bolitar showing up for a short cameo just made me miss Myron (and Win) and Nap is just not as interesting to read about. His losses in life, twin brother, and Maura never really got to me and here lies one of the big problems with this book. I just didn't feel that Nap's sad story gripped me.

Don't Let Go is a book that was OK to read, not among the best Coben books I have read, but pleasant enough. A decent thriller that could have been better if it had had a more surprising storyline.

Thanks to Bookmarks förlag for the review copy!

#BookReview A Dangerous Collaboration by Deanna Raybourn @deannaraybourn @BerkleyPub @BerkleyMystery @FreshFiction

A Dangerous Collaboration by Deanna Raybourn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Veronica Speedwell returns in another adventure filled with secrets and betrayal from Deanna Raybourn, the New York Times bestselling author of the Lady Julia Grey Mysteries.

Victorian adventuress Veronica Speedwell is whisked off to a remote island off the tip of Cornwall when her natural historian colleague Stoker’s brother calls in a favor. On the pretext of wanting a companion to accompany him to Lord Malcolm Romilly’s house party, Tiberius persuades Veronica to pose as his fiancée—much to Stoker’s chagrin. But upon arriving, it becomes clear that the party is not as innocent as it had seemed. Every invited guest has a connection to Romilly’s wife, Rosamund, who disappeared on her wedding day three years ago, and a dramatic dinner proves she is very much on her husband’s mind.

As spectral figures, ghostly music, and mysterious threats begin to plague the partygoers, Veronica enlists Stoker’s help to discover the host’s true motivations. And as they investigate, it becomes clear that there are numerous mysteries surrounding the Romilly estate, and every person present has a motive to kill Rosamund…

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Veronica Speedwell is back in a new adventure where she has to solve the mystery of a bride that disappeared after the wedding. Together with her colleague Stoker and his brother are they guests on a remote island off the tip of Cornwall. And, all the other guests on the island where there when the bride disappeared three years before. Could it be that one of the guests is a killer or did she disappear of her free will? If so why?

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#BookReview To Kill the Truth by Sam Bourne @freedland @QuercusBooks

To Kill the Truth by Sam Bourne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Someone is trying to destroy the evidence of history's greatest crimes.
Academics and Holocaust survivors dead in mysterious circumstances. Museums and libraries burning. Digital records and irreplaceable proofs, lost for ever.

Former White House operative Maggie Costello has sworn off politics. But when the Governor of Virginia seeks her help to stop the lethal spiral of killings, she knows that this is bigger than any political game.

As Black Lives Matter protestors clash with slavery deniers, America is on a knife-edge and time is running out. This deadly conspiracy could ignite a new Civil War - but who stands to gain most from the chaos?

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I read The Last Testament the first Maggie Costello book several years ago. However, I've not read the previous two books after The Last Testament. Also, I hardly remember the story in the first book. Nevertheless, I found this book to be easy and engaging to read. The concept of destroying museums and libraries to destroy proof of atrocities is both frightening and thought-provoking. The idea of starting over with a clean slate sounds good. However, I can't say I found the part of the book when libraries etc. burned down to be especially nice to read. More like heartbreaking and devastating.

I found To Kill the Truth to be an excellent thriller and I want to read the previous two books that I've not read. This book was well-written and I found Maggie Costello to be just the kind of heroine I like to read about, tough and independent.

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!