Myron Bolitar receives a pleading phone call from a woman he spent one passionate weekend with 10 years ago, asking him to fly to Paris to see her. He hasn’t seen Terese Collins since that weekend, but something in her voice convinces him this isn’t a booty call she’s asking for. He can tell she needs his help, and as soon as he lands in Paris and is pulled into questioning at the airport by the local authorities, he knows Terese is in bigger trouble than he ever could have imagined.

Myron soon discovers Terese is a suspect in the murder of her ex-husband, another man she hasn’t seen in ten years, but one who called her to meet him in Paris with the promise that she would learn something that would change her life forever.  When the ex was found brutally murdered shortly after, Terese becomes the prime suspect when it is discovered that Terese and her ex-husband had a child and that child’s blood was also discovered at the scene of her father’s murder, but the child is nowhere to be found. That’s not the problem though, the problem is that their little girl was supposed to have died in a car accident ten years ago; an accident that left Terese in a coma long enough to miss her daughter’s funeral. After waking up from the coma, and discovering she was responsible for the accident, the grief and guilt caused Terese to estrange herself from her husband and leave him. But it may now be possible that the girl did not die after all, but instead had been taken away and raised in a cult to become a domestic terrorist for an international ring that Myron soon finds himself entangled with, leaving him fighting for his and Terese’s lives as they search to discover what happened to her daughter and ex-husband.

Personally, I thought this book was a good read, though it did sort of fall apart for me with the whole terrorist ring and its ties to 9/11. I think that sort of thing just isn’t my kind of reading. But that being said,  I did read it all in one go, something I haven’t done is a very long time, especially not since the birth of my baby boy a year ago, so it was thrilling enough to keep me engaged from start to finish. However, I wouldn’t say this is the sort of book that makes you think or work your brain too hard the way good suspense and complex details found in something like Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code can do, but it’s an entertaining read and has some fun characters in it, particularly Myron’s eccentric friend, Win, and their co-workers at his legal agency.

I haven’t read many of Coben’s books, and this is my first of his Myron Bolitar novels, but I can see myself picking up more of them for some quick, entertaining reads. (more…)

Fleur Savagar is known as “The Glitter Baby”, a model and actress whose meteoric rise in the entertainment industry took the world by storm. But after only a few years of modeling and one successful movie starring opposite Hollywood’s most sought after leading man, The Glitter Baby suddenly disappears from the limelight without any warning.

To understand The Glitter Baby’s disappearance, we are taken back to her childhood growing up in a convent where she was raised by nuns after her mother and father left her there. Fleur doesn’t understand why she must grow up in the convent and only see her mother twice a year for short vacations, especially when she has a brother who is allowed to live with her very wealthy parents. But she soon discovers the truth about her birth, her true heritage, and the masochistic game her parents play against each other with Fleur as a pawn to be used back and forth between them.

Once Fleur figures out the situation, she knows she can no longer trust anyone but herself, and she works to become independent and successful on her own terms. But life is difficult on her own, especially when her parents try to foil her at every turn. She decides the only way to win the game is to bring The Glitter Baby back to Hollywood, and become as powerful as she can through her fame and fortune.

I enjoyed this book. I didn’t find it to be very complicated in plot, but the characters are certainly complex and over the top — just the way you’d expect those rich and famous people to be. While I wouldn’t be holding this book up and talking about symbolism and morals and theme at a book club, it is definitely one of those fun books with characters you’d find yourself gossiping about with a group of friends if they existed in the real world.

(more…)

Anita Blake is known as “The Executioner” in St. Louis. She’ll occasionally hunt down vampires who have broken the law for the local police force, and she raises the dead for her day job. However, she finds herself in a position where she must help the master vampire of the city locate someone or something that has been killing vampires. You see, in Hamilton’s world, vampires are an accepted part of society and are even gaining legal rights for their existence and fair treatment under the law. And while Anita doesn’t particularly like vampires, and therefore doesn’t want to search for the killer, she doesn’t have much choice when the master vampire of the city, one who is a few hundred years old and very powerful, forces her to assist them. How? Powerful vampires are able to get into your head and read your thoughts or plant visions and feelings that can make life either very painful, or very pleasurable. In order to force Anita to help them, the master vampire makes it very clear that her life will be very difficult if she doesn’t. So Anita decides she will help… but she’s also going to take down the master vampire if it kills her.

This is book one in the Anita Blake, Vampire hunter series of novels. I thought I’d give the series a try because my husband is a fan (he bought the series) and because when I worked in a library, I noticed that Hamilton’s books were very popular (particularly the Anita Blake ones). But I have to say that this first novel didn’t impress me very much. The storyline is interesting and Hamilton is pretty good at the macabre details, but the writing can be a little too repetitive (I’m not sure how many times she has to let us know about the sound air conditioners make, or the way Anita’s sweat “gels”), and her characterization lacks those small details that can really bring a character to life. I’m hoping that, like I found with Twilight, the series will get better as it goes on, and that Hamilton’s writing improves with each novel. However, I’m only a few chapters into book two in the series (The Laughing Corpse), and already have encountered enough references to the A/C and Anita’s sweat to discourage me from continuing the series.