Harriet Klausner's Review Archive
The Feds take over the operation citing national security reasons and before the hostage situation ends the woman and her accomplice is dead. The Feds confiscate the notes and all evidence related to the two dead people. The last thing that the woman says to Jane is “Mila knows”. The woman is traced back to a house where five women were murdered, four of whom w were kept against their will in a white slavery ring. Even though Jane just gave birth she is determined to find Mila and expose the people running the ring who erase all traces of their existence when things get too hot.
The Jane Doe was found in the morgue by Medical Examiner Maura Isles. The woman was declared dead when she was fished out of the ocean but revived when she warmed up. She is determined to make her story known to the American people even though people highly placed in law enforcement and government won’t be stopped until she is dead. Jane is determined to find out her motivation because during the takedown of the hostages, actions were taken that didn’t make sense.
Tess Gerritsen writes another exciting and mesmerizing crime thriller that is frightening because it is based on fact. VANISH is the type of novel that is written only rarely, one that appeals to reads who like plenty of action and realistic characters in their novels material. The love between Jane and her husband Gabriel, an FBI agent is so strong that it adds heart and soul to a work that would otherwise have too much tension for the plot to sustain.
Harriet Klausner
Perfect Marne Davis Kellogg St Martin’s, August 2005, $24.95, 321 pp. ISBN 0312337329
After retiring as the highly publicized Shamrock Burglar, Kick Keswick, with her husband former Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Thomas Curtis, who moonlighted as the Samaritan Burglar, retired to their farmhouse in Provence. With the money and jewels they saved from their various heists, they have enough money to live in the most luxurious lifestyle imaginable if they so choose. Thomas gets called up from Scotland Yard occasionally to work on a tough case and Kick helps him in her own manner and style.
Now the Queen Elizabeth has asked personally for Thomas’s help because some of the crown jewels were stolen by her trusted footman Bradford who helped her pack them for the royal tour she is going on. Thomas learns that Bradford changed his name to Sebastian Tremaine and is the business manager and companion for opera singer Constantin. Thomas has a plan to get Kick in position to get close to Sebastion and Constantin but she has her own methods of doing things and escapes his scrutiny the first change she gets. She tries and succeeds in meeting one of the world’s richest men George Naxos and his beautiful wheelchair bound wife Alma. Kick maneuvers them into letting her visit his large isolated estate (more like at a small hamlet) in Switzerland where the rich and famous stay including Constantin and Sebastion. She concocts a daring plan to steal the jewels back from Sebastion but in this garden of Eden there lies a serpent waiting to strike at her and stop her plan from succeeding even if it means killing her.
Kick Keswick is very different than the usual heroine. She is self confident, comfortable in her own skin (even if she is twenty-five pounds overweight) and believes there isn’t a jewel she can’t rob given enough time. The way she maneuvers people to get them to do what she wants is a talent few people possess and the way she does it seems so reasonable at the time that readers find themselves believing she is an average person . This enjoyable crime caper is delightful and charming.
Harriet Klausner
Blonde Lightning Terrill Lee Lankford Ballantine, Aug 2005, $24.95, 304 pp. ISBN: 0345467795
Hollywood studio executive Mark Hayes is angry with his neighbor screenwriter Clyde McCoy for ignoring his grief at the death of his last conquest. However, Clyde apologizes insisting he does not do death well even as his girlfriend black belt Emily Woolrich blames Mark for Clyde drinking.
Clyde tells Mark he has a great script that has backing. Mark is interested because he read Blonde Lightning and thought this had good possibilities. As they begin production on the film, accidents occur that Mark thinks is deliberate; Emily believes it is her former “agent” Mace Thornburg a nasty person feeling she jobbed him out of a fee. Not willing to sit idly by as his movie is being ruined; Mark investigates the incidents that have escalated into murder and sent Clyde into hiding.
Terrill Lee Lankford cleverly uses the opening reels to set the stage for the key players in such a manner that the audience knows how they tick and understands the relationships between them; this comes in handy later in the tale. Once the movie starts shooting, the action takes over and goes non stop as Mark tries to save his film from ruin. Fans of Hollywood amateur sleuth tales will want to read the breezy BLONDE LIGHTNING.