Judas Kiss

A Taylor Jackson novel by J. T. Ellison
© 2009, Published by MIRA Books
395 pp.

From the book cover: “SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE. It was a murder made for TV: a trail of tiny bloody footprints. An innocent toddler playing beside her mother’s bludgeoned body. Pretty young Corinne Wolff, seven months pregnant, brutally murdered in her own home.

Cameras and questions don’t usually faze Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson, but the media frenzy surrounding the Wolff case is particularly nasty….and thorough. When the seemingly model mommy is linked to an amateur porn Web site with underage actresses and unwitting players, the sharks begin to circle.

The shock is magnified when an old adversary uses the sexy secret footage to implicate Taylor in a murder – an accusation that threatens her career, her reputation and her relationship.

Both cases hinge on the evidence – real or manufactured – of crimes that go beyond passion, into the realm of obsessive vengeance and shocking betrayal. Just what the networks love.”

Lieutenant Taylor Jackson finds her hands full with the murder of a young, pregnant mother. Who beat the woman to death and then left her baby daughter alone with the body for 2 days? The husband/father was supposed to be working out of town but his alibi doesn’t add up. A secret room is discovered in the basement where home movies have been made – but not the ones you would show your friends and family. And to top it off, secretly filmed sex videos of the Lieutenant and an ex-lover show up on the internet. Someone is out to destroy her. How is she supposed to do her job if she’s suspended? She’s also being stalked by an international assassin who wants to kill her in order to hurt her boyfriend. She’d better keep looking over her shoulder!

Great story that kept me guessing until right close to the end of the book. Jackson was a likeable person who just tried to do her job the best she could despite all the obstacles thrown at her. She has a great team working with her and they do a good job solving the murder. The deeper they dig, the more involved the crime becomes. Well-written, good dialog and interesting characters.

The story continues in the next Ellison book, Edge of Black.

I bought this book at a garage sale.



Divine Justice

David Baldacci

©2008 by Columbus Rose, Ltd., Hachette Book Group
523 pp.

From the book: “Known by his alias, “Oliver Stone,” John Carr is the most wanted man in American. With two pulls of the trigger, the men who destroyed Stone’s life and kept him in the shadows were finally silenced.

But his freedom comes at a steep price. The assassinations he carried out prompt the highest levels of the U. S. government to unleash a massive manhunt. Yet behind the scenes, master spy Macklin Hayes is playing a very personal game of cat and mouse. With their friend and unofficial leader in hiding, the members of the Camel Club risk everything to save him. Now as the hunters close in, Stone’s flight from the demons of his past will take him from the power corridors of Washington, D. C., to the coal-mining town of Divine, Virginia – and into a world every bit as bloody and lethal as the one he left behind.”

This book is a sequel to previously written books about Oliver Stone and the Camel Club which I didn’t know when I picked it up. Mr. Baldacci evidently expected his readers to have read the previous books because parts of this plot weren’t clear until quite far into the book. I did enjoy the story and the characters who reminded me of a good TV drama or movie. Lots of action, different story lines, and interesting characters. A little too much violence for my taste but that goes along with this type of story, I guess.

Oliver Stone, AKA John Carr, is a heroic Vietnam vet later drafted by the government for undercover work, mainly carrying out assassinations. When he gets married and has a child, he wants out but finds out it’s not that easy….he knows too much. His wife is killed and his young daughter disappears. He goes into hiding but finally seeks revenge. This is where the book starts and it continues as he goes further into hiding and ends up in a little town in Virginia. Things go downhill from there for Oliver.

I picked up this book at a garage sale.

Books I've read this week - The Night Gardener

The Night Gardener ©2006 by George Pelecanos; Reading Group guide edition © 2009
I won this book from Bev at Merry Weather Book Blog. Thanks again Bev!

About the book: “When the body of a local teenager is found in a community garden, detective Gus Ramone relives intense memories of a twenty-year-old case. Back when he was a rookie, Ramone and his partner “Doc” Holliday assisted legendary detective T. C. Cook in the investigation of a series of murders involving young victims. The killer, dubbed “the Night Gardener,” was never caught.

The fierce sense of anger, regret, and purpose that once burned among these three men comes rushing back as they race to vanquish the monster who has stalked their dreams. For Cook, now retired, it means solving one of the few cases that eluded him. For Holiday, whose career as a cop was derailed, it’s one last chance to redeem himself. For Ramone, catching the killer means not only doing his job but knowing that his own teenage son, who was a friend of the dead boy, won’t be the next victim.”

This is the first Pelecanos book I have read and I liked it very much. If you are a fan of television’s Law and Order, you will like this book. Gus Ramone is Italian and married to a black woman so his family knows first-hand about discrimination. He’s a good cop who goes by the book. “Doc” Holiday turns to the bottle and/or picks up strange women all too often to cover his feelings of resentment and frustration over losing his police job and he blames Ramone. T. C. Cook just wants to catch the ‘one who got away’ before he dies. All these men come together to try and solve the latest murder and just maybe, put some of the past behind them.

Pelecanos does a good job portraying the stressful lives of Washington, D. C. cops in their fight against racism, drugs, discrimination, and prostitution while also getting into the minds of the criminals. He shows how hard it is growing up in a poor, rough area and the reasons so few are able to rise above it. There was great dialog and character development. I highly recommend this book if you like crime stories.