The characters are stock and cliched and I really didn’t like any of them. I especially hated the protagonist, Ivy Rose (how’s that for a cutesy name???) She’s nine months pregnant with a much wanted child, she’s had several miscarriages, BUT she does dumb things that endanger her own and her baby’s health. She’s wimpy and doesn’t stand up for herself. Yup, she’s TSTL (too stupid to live). At one point she goes to an empty creepy house, walks in and proceeds to find a dead body! Oy, I was waiting for Jamie Lee Curtis to come screaming out of the closet. Don’t even get me started on the ending, Ivy (nine month PG!) and dumbwaiter!

The basic plot is, Ivy and her hubby decided to clean out their old Victorian House and have a rummage sale.  Another very pregnant woman comes up to Ivy and introduces herself as Melinda. Does Ivy remember her from high school? Well, sort of – see Melinda has changed. She’s not the schlub  as in high school. Melinda tells Ivy she used to play in the Victorian as a child because her mother worked there. She asks to see the inside of the house . Ivy’s husband, Dave, agrees to take Melinda inside and….no one ever see her come out. Have you figured out the plot? Not too hard, I know.

I was very irritated when Ivy and her best friend, Jody got together. They reminisced about things that happened in high school and….third grade! Please, these women are in their 30’s! Well, maybe they do remember – this all takes place in Massachusetts after all, where people grow up with six friends, don’t want anymore and never leave the area.  Sorry, got off on a rant. I lived in Mass for nine years and could tell you SUCH stories!!

But back to “Never…..” – it just wasn’t very good! I have to tell you, I believe the ONLY reason this book got published is because the “author’s” name is Ephron. “Nut said.

Want to read some GOOD books? Check out my EIGHT published books at www.carlenedater.com – then buy one. You won’t be sorry!

The book starts with a little girl, Janet Troy, who is kidnapped and killed. Yes, it’s hard to read, but this IS a mystery after all. When the child’s body is discovered, local law enforcement calls in a special female agent from the FBI. Leia Bines has dealt with crimes against children and is the perfect person to solve the case. Leia is puzzled as to why she was yanked from her much-needed Hawaiian vacation and sent across the country to New England, until she discovers the child’s body has been found on the property of a U.S. Senator.

From the beginning the story is told in the alternating viewpoints of the main characters. Besides FBI agent Bines, we have Dr. Peter Gram, a Pediatric Psychiatrist who practices at a local hospital. He’s called to the ER to handle the case of a seven-year-old little girl who almost jumped off the families high balcony while sleepwalking. The girl, Naya, was adopted from India as an infant, and up until now, has been perfectly normal and healthy. Dr. Gram decides to admit Naya for a few days of observation….and then the fun begins.  Naya is a very good artist and when she starts drawing pictures of her dreams, Dr. Gram knows he’s up against something he’s never seen before.

I can’t disclose too much more without giving away the plot.  I read a lot of mysteries and can almost always tell who did it but Grandhi had me fooled. All I can say is, get a copy of “A Circle of Souls!” You won’t be able to put it down.

“I’ve always wondered what people felt like in the final few hours of their lives.”

The narrator, Sandra Jones, a young mother, wife and teacher, continues to describe her normal evening up till she’s in bed and then, she hears a noise in the hall and… he steps into the room.She doesn’t scream – she doesn’t want to wait her daughter.  Do you have shivers yet? I sure did. From there the story jumps to Sergeant Detective D.D. Warren of the Boston Police Department who is assign to a missing persons case – yup, Sandy Jones. D.D. goes to the Joneses house and is struck by how normal it is….almost staged. Not too messy, not too neat. She’s puzzled that the Jason Jones waited almost three hours before calling the police. He is a devoted father to his four-year-old daughter, Ree, a precocious  little cutey. The young couple don’t have friends or relatives. They go to work, take care of their child and are….normal. Or are they? We know right away that Jason has secrets, bad ones.

From there the book is told in alternating voices: D.D., Jason, Sandy’s  emotionally cold husband, a neighbor and several other minor players. When Jason is confronted in his backyard by Aiden Brewster, the neighbor, the man tells him he heard a car by the Jones’ house in the middle of the night. Jason is suspicious of the man – was his wife having an affair with Aiden? They are close to the same age and live only a few houses apart. Aiden warn Jason that the cops will be looking at him. After all, isn’t it usually the husband who did it?

There are so many twists and turns in the book that it leaves you breathless. So many possibilities – so many suspects. Both Sandy and Jason have secrets in their pasts, and Gardner teases us throughout the book, only letting a little out at a time until – well, you just cannot put the book down. While I thought the ending was a bit rushed, it was still satisfying because all or most of the loose ends were neatly tied up. Is there a happy ending? You’ll have to get a copy of the book to find out! I’m not telling!

Imagine my surprised when I found none of the humor of his second book! Oh, there are a few jokes, but most are lame and just not that funny.  The second and worse problem is that this book is WAY too long! It’s 574 pages and would have been a good book at about 350. There are a couple of subplots that add nothing to the story and should have been dropped. You know what Elmore Leonard says in his 10 rules of good writing – “Leave out the parts readers tend to skip.” Well, Karp had a LONG sub-plot about Mike Lomax dead wife that….I skipped. I’m sure Karp was trying to establish something about the character for future books (the dead wife is mentioned in “Blood Thirsty), but come on! It’s sad, tragic and has nothing to do with the plot of the book! The author could have given us the basics in a page or less. There’s a shorter but equally unnecessary sub-plot about Mike’s brother – who is 32 but sounds more like 12!

Okay, the premise of this book is that someone is killing people related to Dean Lamaar’s Familyland – a Disney clone. We start off when the signature character, Rambunctious Rabbit is strangled in one of the underground tunnels beneath Familyland. Lomax and Biggs are assigned the case and before they can even start investigating, one of Lamaar’s most famous male movies stars is murdered. Each victim has a similar clue on its body, is killed with something that can be bought in a Familyland gift store and the cops are afraid a serial killer is targeting Lamarr’s staff. When the chief  (and apparently ONLY)  CSI determines there were two different killers, the boy are stumped. That part bugged me a bit, too. The killings continue in different parts of LA  and yet the same female forensic technician shows up at all the crimes scenes to make semi-funny remarks and discover important clues. Come on! They work in shifts and there are, of necessity, a lot of them. That’s one thing that irks me when reading mysteries. I read a lot of them. I write them. I volunteered at the Sheriff’s Department for two years to gain information. If you’re going to write a mystery, for God’s sake get the procedures right. Okay, end of rant.

The first two-thirds of the book are a mess – rambling and hard to follow. Those darn sub-plots sure don’t help. In the last part of the book, all the clues come together and it’s a decent read. I was actually surprised at the ending, which is rare for me.

I have to say, if the author had been an ordinary person, this big, bloated, boring, book in this form never would have been published – however, he’s a friend of James Patterson. Nuff said.

All the action in the book takes place in and around Los Angeles. The story starts out from the bad guys point of view and it’s disturbing. A man and woman have just slit the throat of a Hispanic teenager and watched him bleed out and die. The man admits he perfected his technique by slaughtering a couple of pigs. Now both of them are ready….and you know that’s not going to be good for someone.

Next we switch to the POV of Mike Lomax, an LAPD homicide detective, who narrates most of the book. He and his partner, Terry Biggs are in the process of going to a Hollywood film premier. They’ve been offered money and a contract by a big producer to tell the story of one of their famous cases. The producer invited them to the premier so they could meet, Barry Gerber, one of the most powerful and most hated men in the movie business. When Barry doesn’t show, you just know something bad has happened to him.

Yup, he’s found dead the next day, stuffed in a garbage bin, naked. Biggs and Lomax are assigned to the case and neither they nor anyone in forensics has ever seen anything like it before. Two days later, the prime suspect, another despised show-business bad boy, is found murdered in the same sadistic manner. In spite of the gruesome nature of the crimes, this is one of the funniest books I’ve read in a long time. Biggs has opinions, hysterical opinions, about everything and everyone in Hollywood, and is not shy about expressing them. I found myself laughing out loud several times.

There are plenty of twists and turns in the books that keep me guessing. Just when you think you know who and why the couple is killing Hollywood insiders, there’s another twist and you’re left guessing again. I did have one picky – and it’s not really a plot spoiler. Toward the end, we find out that a character had his throat cut, but managed to call and leave a message on someones answering machine. Hm, I don’t think so. When you’re throat is cut, so are your vocal cords and you cannot speak. However, I let that pass because of the overall excellence of the book.

“Blood Thirsty” is only one is a serious of Biggs & Lomax mysteries by Marshall Karp. You can bet I’ll be looking for all the others to read.

Be sure to check out my latest published book, “Mysterious Gift” an erotic paranormal romantic suspense novella from Cobblestone Press.

There were so many plot holes in the movie it’s hard to know where to begin. The film starts in the beautiful French countryside during the Nazi occupation of WWII. The Nazis come to the farmhouse looking for hidden Jews. This is supposed to be a dairy farm. There is not ONE cow anywhere. There is no barn. Hmm, I’m guessing Quintin didn’t have enough money in the budget for bovines. There’s more dumb stuff in that scene, but I won’t spoil it if you haven’t seen the movie and want to – but really, don’t waste your time.

Then we see Brad Pitt as Aldo Rain (I think – I never could understand much of what he said) the leader of a group of young Jewish men he’s going to train to go to Europe and not only kill, but also scalp Nazis. There are several bloody scenes showing this – and more. Hey, it Tarantino.  The group Aldo’s Indians, is killing and scalping, left and right, the Nazis can’t find them but….where are they hiding? Who’s supporting them? Questions abound.

The movie is very choppy, jumping from one scene to another, never making much sense. I could go on and on, but I already wasted two and a half hours of my life on this dumb movie. If  ”Inglorious Bastards” gets any awards on March 7th, you’ll probably hear me screaming. Trust me on this one – it’s a really, really bad movie.

I thought it was good! It very much reminded me of the original with Lon Chaney. Very dark, moody and, well, depressing. Benecio Del Toro does a super job as Lawrence Talbot and I loved Anthony Hopkins as his father. What an actor he is. The movie starts with a man walking the English moors looking for someone….or something.  Next thing you know, ZAP, he’s attacked and torn to shreds. Cool. Turns out the dead guy was Ben Talbot, Lawrence’s brother. Ben’s fiancee, Gwen, writes to tell Lawrence, so he comes home to try and find out what happened to his brother. There are gypsies, lots of mean locals and of course, the wolfman himself. I loved the scenes of Talbot hall, a huge brooding wreck of a mansion where Talbot senior/Hopkins lives with his dogs and his faithful East Indian servant. The mansion is wonderfully eerie, with lots of dead exotic animal head on the walls, spiderwebs everywhere and of course dark shadows caused by the candlelight.

The movie takes has a twist on the original but I won’t spoil the surprise. I will warn you, however, that it’s very bloody and gory in parts. The special affects are great – just seeing the wolfman’s hands is super creepy and fun. So, yes, I’d recommend seeing “The Wolfman.” Just suspend all belief and have fun!

“Mysterious Gift” will be out in five days – watch for it!!!!!

Man sick.

The telepathic words shot through Veterinarian Brody McAlister’s mind so strong they rocked her back in her seat. Pain sliced into her head, searing and hot. She took a deep calming breath, slid out of her Explorer, and slammed the door. The noise reverberated through the quiet neighborhoodlike a pistol shot. With shaking hands, Brody hoisted her medical case, rotated her head to ease the tension in her neck, and started toward the house. Her stomach roiled and she clenched her chattering teeth.

Ordinarily she’d be home by now, sipping a glass of wine, thinking about which frozen TV dinner to nuke, but her client, Mr. Wiser, had called and asked to stop by on her way home. He was a nice old guy, always paid in cash, and treated her like a long-lost granddaughter, so here she was. Brody had only gone a few steps when she tripped over a garden hose snaking across her path. She stumbled to a stop and froze. Dim shadows washed over the uneven concrete walk. A hot blast of desert air shot through the trees, bringing with it the scent of night blooming jasmine and something else, a strong chemical odor from near by. Brody stood still, waiting. She nibbled at her lower lip, while her eyes probed the gloom, debating the wisdom of going on instead of returning to the safety of her Explorer. She squared her shoulders, kicked the hose out of her way, and kept going. Hertongue slipped out to moisten her dry lips.

Darkness wrapped around the front of the residence, which was unusual. Mr. Wiser’s fading eyesight must have made walking around the house a chore even in daylight. The minute the sun sank below Mission Bay, he switched on every light in the house. Now, even the porch was inky and filledwith silhouettes. Brody started up the first step when she heard a snuffling noise in front of her and stopped abruptly. Man sick. Fix? A chill rippled down her spine. It sounded like the same animal she’d heard in her SUV. Nausea burbled in her gut. She set her medical case on the wooden step and fumbled in the pocket of her smock for the tiny flashlight she always carried. The metal tube was cold in her sweaty palm. She clicked it on. When she pointed the pale shaft of light toward the house, a dog shambled out of the shadows.

Relief washed over her body at the sight of the familiar animal. “Hey, Boomer, what’s the problem, Buddy?” The,pudgy Beagle ducked his head and moved forward a few steps. Once again his mind echo pierced her senses: Man broken—help? He waddled closer to her, hesitated, then turned and disappeared into the gloom. The dog’s agitation was coming across loud and clear, and it scared the hell out of her.

Aware the front porch needed repairs, Brody focused the light in front of her. The cone of illumination slithered along the wooden floor until the beam bathed the dog. He cowered near the wall of the house, his head turned away.

“Come to Brody, Boomer. I won’t hurt you,” Brody said in a quiet, even tone of voice.

He refused to come toward her; instead he pointed his muzzle at the sky and howled. Hair stood out all over Brody’s icy trembling body. Alarm bells clanked in her mind. This wasn’t at all like the dog. The ten-year-old had always been friendly and eager to please when she’d treated him in the past.

Brody moved forward, crouched down, fumbled for a dog cookie in her pocket, and held it out to coax the animal to her. “Come here, Boomer. Where’s your daddy? Is he okay? Are you?”

Boomer shuffled a few steps in her direction, the lure of the treat too tempting to resist. When Boomer slithered near enough he grabbed the

cookie, chomped twice, and swallowed. His mournful eyes never left her face. Smelly boy hurt. Fix! The mind echo screamed into her brain. This time when he disappeared into the gloom, Brody followed.

Boomer sat next to his master’s body, one paw on the man’s still chest. Blood drenched the front of Mr. Wiser’s

shirt, spilled out on the porch, and formed a halo around his head. A knife still protruded from his belly.

Fix? Boomer’s mind echo splashed into her brain.

MIND ECHOES is available for purchase at: www.whiskeycreekpress.com

One of the problems with all of Grafton’s books is that she over describes – EVERYTHING!  For instance, “She left her office, drove three block down Main Street and tuned left on Parker. She got lucky, there was a parking spot a half a block from her apartment. She turned off the car, grabbed her purse and locked the car. She walked up the street….” I’m not kidding! The book is full of that stuff. Instead she should have written, “Kinsey left her office and went home.” This book needed editing – badly. So much of it was filler and I’m not sure why.

A lot of Grafton’s information was just plain wrong. At one point there’s a cadaver dog that Kinsey refers to as a “Golden Lab.” There is no such breed. Labs come in three colors: yellow, black and chocolate. Granted the yellows can be anything from white to brown, they are still referred to as yellow. Unless Grafton meant the dog was a Golden Retriever/Labrador Retriever mix- she didn’t know what she was talking….or writing about. At the end of the book, Kinsey, who never speaks of practicing at the gun range, shoots a gun out of the bad guys hand and says….it’s easy! Really? I’ve shot pistols in competition for a long time and I don’t that that would be easy at all.

So, once again we have an author who made her name with a few, good, innovative books, and has been resting on her laurels since. Why not – they sell. We readers should rise up and say, NO MORE! We’re not buying shoddily edited books with poor confusing plots anymore! There are so many talented writers out there who never get a chance because all the NY publishers are content to put out bad books. STOP PAYING FOR THEM. Check out e-books – cheaper, better, faster and most of those authors are wonderful. That’s my rant for the day – what do you think?

The novel starts with a prologue. Eight-year-old Molly Ridge stayed home from school because of a sore throat. As the day wears on, she’s feeling better and in the midst of playing hide-and-seek with her mother, when the doorbell rings. Molly, hiding  under her mother’s bed, witnesses the tail end of her mother’s stabbing death. Her mom lives long enough to caution poor Molly to be quiet and not make a sound.

Chapter One starts with the main protagonist, Haley Lambert getting the news that her only sister has been murdered. Haley quits her job, let’s her apartment go and flies to her hometown to try and cope with the loss of her sibling. Not only that, she now has to take care of her niece and … her niece has gone selectively mute.

Before long, another attractive blonde, is stabbed to death. The police try to find a common tie between the two women but come up empty. Their only hope is to get information from Molly, but Molly’s not talking. I have to confess, I figured out who the killer was, but it wasn’t easy. In the end, all the desperate clues come together with a very satisfying conclusion. My one picky has to be the attraction Haley feels for police consultant, Dr. Gray Bane. She meets him in the police station the first day she hits town and is immediately attracted to the hunky man. I know, I know – it’s romantic suspense but….Her only sister has been murdered and she’s hot for a new man? Well, I guess anything is possible.

Cassidy is a good writer who kept me guessing almost until the end of the book. I will definitely look for other novel’s by this author because – she’s good!