Carl Deuker -- Books, Movies, TV

Action packed, to say the least. Lizzy is being stalked by the serial killer. His signature is leaving beetles with the dead bodies, sometimes in the dead bodies. Hayley is under house arrest at Lizzy's, but she's managed to get free from her ankle bracelet.  Her mother's abusive boyfriend is back. Her mother is headed to a shelter. Violence, alcohol  . . . and the serial murderer has made it in the house. Jessica on surveillance. She thinks it's a simple:  Is this guy a womanizer or not? job for a woman contemplating marriage.  Could be (Is!) more.  Perhaps connected to the serial killer. Extremely well-written.  The quotes that begin each chapter from various serial killers are chilling.

This was fine 3.5 out of 5, but not as good as A Perfect Lie.  Almost a Shakespearean comedy ending--All's Well That Ends Well. Too neat, too tidy for my taste.  The plot turns on industrial crime.  The cubicle manufacturers were cutting corners.  Fire. Death of employee.  Simon, the man with the daughter with leukemia, had warned of shoddy work.  He didn't know about the fire--it took place in a state outside his territory. The really bad guys murder a semi-bad guy and make it look like Simon did it. The plan is to get Simon convicted before he can learn about the fire. Our two lawyers figure it out. They are then kidnapped by the bad guys and nearly killed at a remote hunting cabin.  Through talk and courage, they defeat the bad guys.  Turns out that the head of the firm, a slick schmoozer who pretended to be too far up to know what was happening, did know.  So he's arrested too. Simon's daughter gets donor (Bennie, the lawyer). Mary turns out to be pregnant.

Nice conflicts.  Firm that fired the man with ill daughter won't settle.  The law firm must break up in order for one partner to be on opposite side of the case as the other partner.  The firm fires the partner.  The two partners both would like to hire lawyer three, an associate.  The partners are doing all this (so far) amicably. Is the father of the ill girl a liar?  That would be quite a twist.  Or is there other nefarious doings with the firm. Very enjoyable

Hackman is PI who is hired to bring back runaway 16 year old.  Mom (minor actress still slightly connected to films) doesn't really care about her daughter who is sexually precocious. Hackman follows her to Florida Keys.  Couple living there (stepfather and new girlfriend) have allowed 16 year old to stay with them.  James Woods is mechanic who works on vehicles for stunts in movies.  Plane discovered (crashed) underwater in Keys.  Girl goes back with Hackman.  16 year old dies in car crash. Whole plot revolves around smuggled Aztec art.  Hackman uncovers plot after 16 year old dies.  Florida Keys couple are smugglers.  Hackman in Keys going in circles after the smuggling is uncovered, there is a plane crash, etc. Plot isn't as good as the interactions among the characters.  Deception, unhappiness, greed. Liked it.

Nice conflict. Lawyers, partners.  One has a friend who was just fired because 1) his work quality was falling or 2) his daughter (leukemia) was driving up the cost of insurance for the company.  The other partner has the parent firm as her main client.  Partner 2 would like Partner 1 to drop the case (conflict of interest), but #1 learns this is not always required.  Interesting law and conflict.

Liked this very much.  Detective with a past (parents died in fire). Brother has different feel for parents (brother is gay--Dad beat him). Brother alcoholic--is he the serial murderer?  Street urchin, librarian, side kick from a lower social stratum, all the threads brought together at the end. Nice feel for Edinburgh.  Really well done.  Not quite a cozy mystery; not a violent mystery. Old fashioned in a good way

Vincent Price is terrific as scientist investigating fear. Tingler is physical manifestation of fear: microscopic, then grows, then shrinks away with screaming.  Movie theater owner hears all this, then decides to kill his mute wife who cannot scream. It works. Tingler captured, crawls around attacking people in a theater. Price has a slut wife who tries to kill him with the Tingler and then takes off when the plan fails.  Sister-in-law is the good girl and Vincent makes it so she can marry.  Wonderfully wacky.

Strangler loose in Edinburgh. Also operated in France.  Ian, our detective, had parents burned to death in arson fire.  He is scarred. Murderer has homosexual undercurrent motive working; detective Ian might be suppressed homosexual as well.  Street urchin, Derek, helping as is a lower class copper.  Murderer passages with brother suggest murderer was abused by father. Pretty good so far . . . nice descriptions of the Royal Mile and Edinburgh in general.

Film Noir ending works pretty well--I did like the beginning of the book more than the end.  Fifty fewer pages would have improved the novel. Richard Ruen sees that Suzy's daughter makes it safely out of Vegas with money.  He meets up one final time with Son.  The fight, nearly kill one another, then Ruen is rescued by Son's son (Junior). House is burnt to the ground--with Son and Happy inside.  (Son had killed Happy.)  The sons release Ruen--they don't need him anymore.  "Don't ever come back to Vegas."  Suzy/Hong missing at the end, and her daughter is gone too, after honorably leaving half of the money for Ruen. It's a tough world out there.

Still enjoying this very much, but I suspect it would have been better were it shorter--like the film noirs which it recalls.  Suzy, it turns out, had a child--a daughter--whom she deserted. Son, whom she marries in Vegas, was in the same refugee camp as she was.  Tough guy, criminal in Vegas, henchmen.  Suzy's daughter is also in Vegas, unaware of her mother, but found out by Robert.  All the pieces in place.  Gangsters, missing daughter now found, found mother now missing, detective.   So, I'd like to fly to the ending, but the book is taking its sweet time.  I'll know in a couple of days if the extra pages are worth it. 

Great start. Feels like an LA film noir.  Our main character is a cop who falls for Vietnamese woman (Hong/Suzy). Stormy marriage.  She leaves him for a Vietnamese Las Vegas (probable) criminal.  He goes back to get some revenge, though he doesn't kill anyone.  Returns.  Now the Vegas Vietnamese are after him --Lucy has disappeared.  They want the cop to help them find her.

Felt too much like a lecture to me.  In the end, boy (son of Home Secretary) and girl are blown up (jihadists strap belt around the boy) in a Pakistani cemetery.  Girl has kept the body of her twin brother under ice for days, hoping to get a return to UK for a proper burial.  Antigone is a tough act to follow.

A retelling of the Antigone story, with a Pakistani boy who foolishly joins ISIS and gets himself killed.  Twin sister, in love with the son of the Home Secretary, wants her dead brother brought back to England for burial.  The son, deeply in love, agrees.  Other sister . . . not so much.  Weakness here is that it's hard to see why devoted twin would keep her dead brother on ice in Pakistan in order to bring him back. A stretch.  The other problem, for those familiar with Antigone, is that from early on it's pretty clear what's going to happen.  Brother joins ISIS . . . he must die.  Sisters must argue . . . Father must be stubborn . . . Just feels fated. Author:  Hmmm.  The best writer in every creative writing class she ever took.  Very literary, very talented . . . but almost too smart for her own good.  I'm guessing future books -- less schematic -- will be better.

Plot:  Missing childhood friend, presumed murdered by older brother who disappears . . . Lorna returns home after death of mother . . . bodies are found on her land . . . young men, including the older brother . . . serial killer of young men--gay bar . . . Private I on scene. . . Lorna smitten . . . nice uncovering of plot . . . suspicion falls on Fritz, who is gay and lives in closet in community. . . police check his house . . . evidence found . . . but wait!  . . . not Fritz but his brother Mike . . . Lorna nearly killed . . . saves herself by hiding until P.I. shows up and kills Mike. So, sort of a romance thriller.  Interesting in that it is not PC at all. Our female CPA protagonist hides until her man saves her.  Realistic, and in a way points out the problem with PC books. Well written, but this is probably my first and last Mariah Stewart book.  Definitely a female target audience!

So far--very good. Prologue--little girl with abusive mother disappears.  General feeling is brother probably killed her.  Brother disappears also.  Chapter one:  Woman (friend of little girl) returns to bury her mother. While she's home, the police uncover bones on her property.  Not her friend--but the brother.  Who killed the brother?  Mom?  She's arrested so she can't be the one.  The past will yield its secrets.

This is a book whose parts are better than the whole.  The good:  characters, language, metaphors, action, humor, and a fantastic reader on audible. The not-so-good.  SPOILERS FOLLOW The denouement is a little clunky.  IQ and Dotson take out the hit man in a parking lot with the help of a roll of tar paper (?). The villain in the inner circle was the most obvious from the beginning, and his henchman was someone I barely remembered.  The final 15 pages were a bit of a yawner, and the hit-and-run killer of Marcus isn't tracked down, which is an odd loose thread.  I'd read another by Joe Ide.