A Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson (occult horror)

In memory of author Richard Matheson, I recommend this, one of my favorite books of his. This is another terrific thriller from Richard Matheson. When the film version of A Stir of Echoes came out years ago, it was instantly dismissed as a rip-off of The Sixth Sense — a difficult feat considering that the novel that was the source of the film was written over forty years prior.

As a fan of the film (it is highly underrated and will definitely provide entertainment for fans of the genre) and of Matheson's work, I felt I owed it to myself to check out the original. (For some reason, a definite article is good enough for The Sixth Sense, but an indefinite article not good enough for Stir of Echoes. I'm sure someone was paid well for making that decision.)

When Tom Wallace is hypnotized at a party by his brother-in-law, he turns out to be a surprisingly good subject. Afterward, he is told how malleable he was, and a good laugh is had at his expense when he unwittingly performs a post-hypnotic suggestion.

But then things aren't the same for Tom: he begins having dreams that a woman in black is in his house, and then realizes that he is able to read people's minds. This comes in handy on more than one occasion, but generally appears to be a nuisance, especially to Tom's wife, Anne, who wants him to see a doctor.

Given what I had read of Matheson's, I wasn't surprised by the level of quality presented in the story. What did surprise me, however, was that A Stir of Echoes, although first published in 1958, is not at all dated; it could have just as easily been written today, Matheson's story and characters are so "modern" and timeless. This is particularly true given the modern atmosphere of being more accepting to the idea of spirits "crossing over" from another plane.

As the story progresses, the tension ratchets higher and higher. Matheson hardly lets up, steadily adding more complications to the plot until the surprise revelation. This is one of the reasons that I like Matheson's work so much: the knowledge that I am always in for a ride.

(Fans of the movie please note: the plot of A Stir of Echoes differs from the film in many details. The base story is, of course, the same, but the identities of the participants — the alleged ghost, the alleged killer — are different, which allows for a new experience in reading a book you think you're already familiar with.)

The Quickie by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (unabridged audio book read by Mary Stuart Masterson)

On her way to give her husband Paul a sexy surprise for lunch, Lauren Stillwell instead see him leaving his office building with a corn-fed blonde on his arm. She follows them to a hotel, and this discovery — and Paul's lying about it when confronted — turns her into a woman bent on evening the score, literally.

It was just supposed to be a quickie, but Lauren's retaliatory assignation ("Paul and I had once had a sweet sex life.... But being with Scott was life-threatening") quickly turns to murder when one of her lovers kills the other as she watches through the window into the dark, rainy night. The killer loads the victim into his car and drives off.

Once Lauren realizes he's not at any of the local hospitals, she checks out a crime scene she overhears on a cop's radio. And that's where authors James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge drop the first major surprise of The Quickie. Many more follow in this novel whose agenda is announced early on: "This is what happens when you cheat. This is what you get." But Patterson and Ledwidge have housed it in a slick thriller that is practically guaranteed to please Patterson's legion of fans.

Actress Mary Stuart Masterson (Fried Green Tomatoes, Benny & Joon) remains invisible throughout her reading of the audiobook of The Quickie, letting the characters, especially narrator Lauren, shine fully. Her portrayals are insightful and completely naturalistic with unexpected emphasis placed (in retrospect) where a real person would put it.

The Quickie is completely absorbing even as it stretches the bounds of plausibility. The final disc is a roller-coaster ride as all questions are answered and all threads tied up neatly, leaving the listener with a smile.

I Can See You by Karen Rose (unabridged audio book read by Elisabeth S. Rodgers)

I tested the romantic suspense waters previously with Catherine Coulter's The Maze, so when author Karen Rose's novel crossed my path, I wasn't immediately repelled in the way I would once have been. And the plot of I Can See You , involving the dangers of online predation, was very intriguing -- so much so that I entered into this 16-disc behemoth with little trepidation, despite the fact that I had just finished one nearly as long, Andrew Davidson's terrific genre-blender The Gargoyle.

Eve Wilson returns in Rose's tenth thriller. Scarred by a horrific assault in Don't Tell, Eve was also featured in Nothing to Fear. Now she's pulling her life together, bartending and studying for her M.A. in Counseling, just in time to get involved in a murder mystery.

"The hooker had awakened ... thinking she was being strangled. Then, she really was. He did love it when fantasy met reality with such perfection."

A killer with 30 years of experience at his chosen craft -- and 30 years of trophies (the victims' shoes) and a well-used lime pit to show for it -- is targeting users of an online role-playing game called Shadowland: a Second Life-like game where users pretend to be other selves.

And the list of victims of this series of half a dozen murders staged to look like suicides, with their eyes glued open, closely matches the list of participants in Eve's master's thesis experiment: studying the effects of online role-playing on real-world self-esteem. Now she must break the confidentiality of her subjects to save their lives.

Enter Minneapolis/St. Paul's famed "Hat Squad" (they wear fedoras to "dress the part" as detectives), headed by Noah Webster, coming down off a local magazine's feature article that focused on Webster's partner, handsome lothario Phelps, due to his Paul Newman looks. (Webster looks more like a film noir thug.) Never mind the fact that Webster must continually take up Phelps's slack.

Like The Maze, the weakest portions of I Can See You are those devoted to the expected romance — though these lovebirds are so sickeningly adolescent and self-defeating in the beginning that it's a wonder they get out of bed in the morning, let alone know how to pursue a mature relationship. Eve's trauma and Webster's recovering alcoholism are such obvious parts of their personalities that it seems they could agree to simply meet each other on equally flawed terms.

But Rose keeps the suspense high in I Can See You — the bulk of the story takes place during a single week — and audiobook reader Elisabeth S. Rodgers enhances the text with her immersion into the characters. Most of Rose's books tie together in some fashion due to her repeating of characters, so readers who like this one will undoubtedly want to seek out more of the author's work.

Guest Blogger: Paul Levine, author of the Jake Lassiter and Solomon vs. Lord series

Today, I have the honor of welcoming author Paul Levine to the pages of Somebody Dies. He has written over a dozen novels, primarily in the legal-thriller genre, including the popular Jake Lassiter and Solomon vs. Lord series. His latest venture is the 20th-anniversary edition of his first novel, To Speak for the Dead, now available for the Amazon Kindle.

Levine tells about the experience — and what's special about this new edition:

JAKE LASSITER IS BACK: 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION NOW AN E-BOOK

“When is Jake Lassiter coming back?”

I get the question at bookstores and Bouchercon, at Thrillerfest and Sleuthfest, at Left Coast Crime, and even my dentist’s office. I might be promoting one of the Solomon vs. Lord books, or Illegal, but the questions always come back to this: “Where the heck is Jake?”

I wrote seven Lassiter novels between 1990 and 1997. Since then, I’ve written two stand-alone thrillers, a four-book series, and a bunch of episodes for two CBS-TV dramas. But what everyone wants to talk about is that linebacker-turned-lawyer, a tough guy with a tender heart.

“Jake’s not in jail, is he?”

I don’t think so, but given his conduct in court, maybe he should be.

Truth is, Jake Lassiter lives!

In Fall 2011, Lassiter will be out in hardcover from Bantam as Jake searches for a missing woman from his past and becomes entangled in the intertwined worlds of politics and porn. But wait, there’s more:

Jake Lassiter is back in print now!

Or rather, in bytes.

Online.

Just a click away.

I’m talking about e-books. You can start reading the 20th Anniversary edition of To Speak for the Dead in about 90 seconds.  An international bestseller, the first Lassiter novel was named one of the best mysteries of the year by the Los Angeles Times and became an NBC World Premiere Movie.

For a limited time, e-book sellers are offering To Speak for the Dead at the astonishing price of $2.99. Right, less than your double mocha latte, which by the way, Jake Lassiter would never drink. (That price may surprise the collector who e-mailed recently that he paid $325.00 for a signed first edition of To Speak for the Dead. Wow. I have a couple cartons in the garage if he wants more).

Now, here’s the best part: all author royalties — 100 percent — will go to the Four Diamonds Fund, which supports cancer research and treatment at Hershey Children’s Hospital. It’s a cause dear to my heart.

The facility, part of Penn State’s College of Medicine, is one of the premier institutions of its kind. Thanks to the Fund, children whose families lack the financial wherewithal receive top-notch medical care.

There’s even more news about Jake. The second book of the Lassiter series, Night Vision, is also available as an e-book, as is 9 Scorpions, a stand-alone legal thriller set at the Supreme Court.

In the next several months, all seven Lassiter books will be on Amazon Kindle and the other e-bookselling platforms. So, even if you’re new to the series, there’s time to catch up before the new one hits the stores next year. If you’ve already read the books in the dead-trees format, try them again on your e-reader or right on your desktop or laptop. Here’s a quick look at what’s available now.

To Speak for the Dead — Defending a surgeon in a malpractice case, Jake begins to suspect that his client is innocent of negligence...but guilty of murder. A sexy widow, a robbed grave, and another murder follow. “Move over Scott Turow. To Speak for the Dead is courtroom drama at its very best.” —Larry King, USA Today

Night Vision — Jake is appointed a special prosecutor when a serial killer begins stalking women on a sexually oriented Internet chat site. Enlisting a brilliant woman psychiatrist, Jake wades into a maze of lies and corruption to uncover the murderer. “Sparkles with wit and subtlety.” —Toronto Star

9 Scorpions — Sam Truitt, the newest and youngest justice on the Supreme Court, hires a brilliant and stunning female law clerk, unaware she has a personal stake in a huge case before the court. It’s a story of passion and violence, justice and revenge, in and out of court. “A relentlessly entertaining summer read.” —New York Daily News

For more info and to purchase, please visit http://www.paul-levine.com/content/jake-lassiter.asp.

Genre Fiction Sale! 36 "Summer Reads" for $2.00 from Dorchester Publications through July 30th.

               

Feed by Seanan McGuire writing as Mira Grant (zombie thriller, Newsflesh trilogy)

This review originally appeared in somewhat different form on The Green Man Review. Copyright 2010. Reprinted with permission.

In 2014, the Kellis-Amberlee virus — the one that cured cancer and the common cold, then combined and mutated and now turns its dead infected into zombies — spread quickly throughout Santa Cruz, California, along with the rest of the world, killing 32% of the population the first summer and resulting in the "Rising" of shuffling undead that have dominated for the last 25 years. Now in 2039, inseparable sibling duo Georgia and Shaun Mason spend their days tooling around the area in a "traveling blog center," a former news van outfitted with state of the art electronics (camera feeds, wireless tower, backup storage).

They operate After the End Times, one of the most popular news and entertainment sites — traditional media proved to be unreliable during the Rising, so people turned to blogs for their news — and keep an eye out for signs of viral amplification. ("Amplification" because everyone is infected but most are still dormant or of a lesser grade, like Georgia's own retinal Kellis-Amberlee, which results in always-dilated pupils, necessitating her wearing sunglasses all the time, and guaranteeing that any retinal scan comes up positive for viral amplification.)

The bloggers are divided into five camps: the Newsies, who report the unvarnished truth; the [Jon] Stewarts, who are more commentators than reporters; the [Steve] Irwins, who court danger for vicarious thrills; the Aunties, responsible for soothing recipes, remembrances, etc; and the Fictionals, who provide a steady diet of escapism. The Masons' immediate crew (not counting their associates in other areas) is equipped with three of these: Georgia is a Newsie, Shaun is an Irwin, and their tech manager, Georgiette "Buffy" Meissonier ("I'm cute, blonde, and living in a world full of zombies. What do you think I should call myself?"), is a Fictional.

(The reasoning behind Georgia and Buffy's similar given names is purely due to George Romero's becoming a figure of hero worship after the "rules" given in his movies turned out to be incredibly useful in a real-life world of zombies. I assume Shaun is just named after this one.)

Things get very interesting when Georgia, Shaun, and Buffy are tapped to cover the presidential campaign of Senator Peter Ryman first-hand, accompanying him as part of his personal press corps. When some zombies get past the security at a rally of Ryman supporters, and later when the senator's ranch is terrorized and family members die, signs point to sabotage and then conspiracy. Some unexpected people are behind it all, and Georgia spearheads the investigation in spite of the potential danger of doing so.

Author Mira Grant (the open pseudonym of writer/musician Seanan McGuire, author of the October Daye urban fantasy series of novels) starts Feed (the first novel in the her Newsflesh trilogy) off in just the right way for a novel based in action: with a chase that culminates in an airborne motorcycle and the driver's realization that dying on impact would be one of the better case scenarios.

Grant ends every chapter with blog posts from the various characters (primarily Georgia's Images May Disturb You and Shaun's Hail to the King), showing the different sides of the characters in a way that is more effective than simply adding information into the narrative, forwarding the story at the same time.

Considering its primarily subject matter, Feed is surprisingly low on grue, at least early on. Grant focuses more on the imminent danger to her characters, and a certain level of tension pervades throughout the proceedings; you never know when the next attack is going to take place. The author folds in the futuristic aspects of the story seamlessly, blending the sci-fi, horror, and mystery with real skill, and Feed manages to be a satire of news organizations, the government, and the human race in general — with pithy dark humor laced throughout and unforgettable characters.

Feed is one of those rare books that has a little something for everyone. Even people who've never read a zombie novel — even who think they wouldn't like zombie novels in general — will find something to like here. There's political machinations, good character development, well-drawn relationships, behind-the-scenes conspiracy, action, murder, love, technology, suspense, and some very surprising choices for a genre novel, not to mention the all-too-rare focus on modern methods of communication — something that has still not really been absorbed by most current fiction.

Newsie Georgia is the ideal choice for narrator; she is grounded, focused on the facts, but sensitive enough to ensure that the emotions resonate. Irwin Shaun or Fictional Buffy would be more likely to taint the tale with opinion or digression (as we find out during the couple of chapters Shaun narrates). Similarly, the narrators of the audiobook of Feed suit their characters, with Paula Christensen performing Georgia and the other characters in her chapters with skill and sympathy. Conversely, Jesse Bernstein, who sounds a bit too much like David Sedaris to be in this book, doesn't seem up to the demands of his roles and actually detracts from the text instead of enhancing it.

So learning that Shaun in fact does preside over the sequel (once Blackout, now Deadline) was a disappointment to say the least. But that's judging a book unread. Lastly, I must give kudos to Orbit cover designer Lauren Panepinto for capturing the novel's concept and feel excellently, including the pun in the title. (For those who don't get it, "feed" refers to both zombies and blogs.) Feed is terrific entertainment, likely to be remembered as the one that put zombies over for the previously uninitiated.

Dance of Death by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (book two of the Diogenes Pendergast trilogy)

Professor Hamilton's class sits paralyzed with horror as he stops in the middle of his lecture on T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land to begin clawing at his face, drawing blood, and screaming, "Get them off me." Elsewhere, Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta is making dinner for Captain Laura Hayward when he is summoned by Constance Greene to her home. Her guardian, Special Agent Aloysius X.L. Pendergast, has not been heard from since the events of Brimstone six weeks prior.

Assuming Pendergast dead, Constance gives D'Agosta a note Pendergast left for him. It passes on the responsibility of stopping his brother Diogenes from committing the "perfect crime" by January 28, a week away. D'Agosta's first task is to visit Pendergast's great aunt Cornelia (definitely one of the more interesting supporting characters in the series) to get info on Diogenes and the family, including a few intimate tidbits about Pendergast himself (reminding us that he is the "normal" one in his family only by comparison).

Information comes from a most unexpected source that Diogenes plans to kill everyone who was close to Aloysius — and that could easily include D'Agosta himself. But D'Agosta discovers that Diogenes has something even worse in mind, when he goes to a meeting with Hayward.

Meanwhile, newlyweds Nora Kelly and Bill Smithback (just back from the honeymoon that took place during Brimstone) are returning to work conflicts. Smithback's beat is being slowly abdicated by his fellow New York Times reporter, up and comer Bryce Harriman. And at the New York Museum of History, Nora's opinion (on whether to return a religious artifact to the tribe that sold it to the museum 130 years ago) differs from that of another returning employee, Margo Green, new editor of the museum's newsletter, Museology. Neither has any idea what's really in store for them.

In Brimstone, authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child briefly introduced readers to Agent Pendergast's brother Diogenes, who features largely in Dance of Death. We are not surprised to learn that Diogenes is criminally insane (since we learned in The Cabinet of Curiosities that insanity runs rampant throughout the Pendergast lineage, sometimes beneficially but usually not). So, if Pendergast is Sherlock Holmes, then Diogenes is both Mycroft and Moriarty. (Even his name is a reference to the gentlemen's club Mycroft frequents in the Conan Doyle stories.)

Making the crime personal this time around gives Dance of Death a greater emotional resonance and gets the reader more deeply involved. This makes the book more fully entertaining than the events in its predecessor (not least due to the absence of the labyrinthine plot that made Brimstone hard to follow). I would even say that readers interested mostly in the character of Diogenes could feel free to skip Brimstone and move right on to Dance of Death, since all the information needed to proceed is reintroduced.

Dance of Death does not suffer from the usual problems of the middle book of a trilogy. It stands alone, and in fact it improves on its predecessor by focusing on character over plot. We learn about Diogenes as an individual and not just his machinations (as the authors did with Count Fosco in Brimstone). And those who get caught up in the story will be glad to know that it concludes masterfully in the third book, The Book of the Dead.

After the end of the story, the Dance of Death audiobook also includes a short interview given by Preston and Child with Agent Pendergast (given prior to the events of the book, they are careful to say). In it, the subject (voiced by audiobook reader Rene Auberjonois) proves to be very Holmesian indeed in his responses to the authors' "vapid queries," including a comment accusing the authors of having "sensationalized" his cases.

Brimstone by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (book one of the Diogenes Pendergast trilogy)

"Criticism is a profession which allows one a certain license to be vicious outside the bounds of normal civilized behavior. One would never tell a person in private that his painting was a revolting piece of trash, but the critic thinks nothing of making the same pronouncement to the world as if he were performing a high moral duty. There is no profession more ignoble than that of the critic—except perhaps that of the physician presiding at an execution." — Father Cappi in Brimstone by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Agnes Torres enters the home of her employer, art critic Jeremy Grove, to find his eyes charred, his body apparently burned from the inside out. The cloven hoofprint on the floor suggests that the Devil had finally come for the town's most notorious resident. The following morning, the crime scene reunites a certain Aloysius Pendergast with Sergeant Vincent D'Agosta. (D'Agosta had left NYPD homicide as a lieutenant to write books, couldn't make a go of it, and subsequently had to get a lower-paying job with the Southampton PD.)

But D'Agosta's politically ambitious pain-in-the-kiester boss, Lieutenant Braskie breaks up the reunion, seeing Pendergast only as a trespasser. When Pendergast later IDs himself as a special agent of the FBI, Braskie reluctantly welcomes him aboard.

The medical examiner has trouble determining Grove's time of death when the corpse's temperature still measures 108°F, and "good Old Testament brimstone" is found. Braskie doesn't want the lowly sergeant involved in such a high-profile case, but when Pendergast has D'Agosta named FBI liaison, the duo are officially working together again.

The next victim is Nigel Cutforth, dead it seems of a similar form of spontaneous human combustion, as described in Doctor Faustus and other tales of soul-selling ("the fire within" of the medievals), merely lending more evidence of the Devil's seeming involvement. Captain Laura Hayward takes command and demands that all be by the book, with regular meetings for updates and all paperwork cleared through her office. (For regular readers who may be wondering, regular series characters Bill Smithback and Nora Kelly are off on their honeymoon and do not appear in this book.)

While Preston and Child's characters are always interesting, a particular highlight of Brimstone is one Count Fosco — seemingly lifted part and parcel from Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White — whose pet mice here are robotic and who emerges from the book as one of the series' great villains. Other literary referents include Stephen King's The Shining and Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," which lends itself nicely to a cliffhanger ending.

Brimstone briefly introduces readers to Pendergast's brother Diogenes, who we're not surprised to learn is criminally insane (since we learned in The Cabinet of Curiosities that insanity runs rampant throughout the Pendergast lineage, sometimes beneficially but usually not). If Pendergast is Sherlock Holmes, then Diogenes is both Mycroft and Moriarty. (Even his name is a reference to the gentlemen's club Mycroft frequents in the Conan Doyle stories.)

As the group works hard to solve the current case, a letter arrives for Pendergast from Diogenes; it's a challenge, and Pendergast works to complete this solution so he can focus his energies on his brother. Though Brimstone is the first of the authors' "Diogenes trilogy," his part is very small here; he will play a much larger role in the following two books, Dance of Death and The Book of the Dead.

Brimstone makes fine use of Preston's experience living in Italy (during which time he became involved in the Monster of Florence case) to paint authentic atmosphere in the second half, when the case takes Pendergast and D'Agosta to Cremona in search of a the Stradivarius violin nicknamed "Stormcloud." This violin was long thought lost because the virtuoso who had it last did not have it on his person upon his death. (As a fan of violin music, especially that of Sibelius, I found this part especially interesting and educational as the authors, in the person of Count Fosco, expound on the violin's history and what makes Stradivarius violins so special.) This results in a dead monk and unearths a information that lends more evidence to the Devil theory.

This historical section, along with discussions of the golden ratio and how it pertains to the end of the world, cement the authors' reputation as the premier writers of intellectual thrillers. But they don't stint on the romantic angle, although they make an unexpected choice for D'Agosta and Hayward's first "date" (I'll say this for D'Agosta: he sure knows how to get his paperwork pushed through).

It's probably because the producers attempted to distill (with the assistance of Andrew Loschert) the essence of a 700-page novel into six hours of listening, but the abridged audiobook of Brimstone seems to jump around a lot. I actually had trouble sometimes keeping up with what was happening, the scene would change so quickly. There's simply too much story for a successful abridgment. Strangely enough, this inhibited the pleasure of the experience only a little due to the power of the writing and the solidity of the characters, and I leapt right into Dance of Death with eagerness.

The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi (unabridged audio book read by Dennis Boutsikaris)

In 2000, author Douglas Preston (best known for his Agent Pendergast thrillers written in collaboration with Lincoln Child), moved his family to Florence, Italy. He intended to write a murder mystery set during the great Florence flood, so he began researching police procedures. This put him in contact with Mario Spezi, a crime reporter for over 20 years. ("'He knows more about the police than the police themselves,' I was told.")

During their first conversation, Preston learned something extraordinary. Right outside his apartment was a local landmark where one of a series of horrific murders took place by The Monster of Florence (locally, "Il Mostro"). It seems that Florence — the birthplace of the Renaissance (which practically created our idea of the modern world), which was funded in large part by the famous Medicis — had its own Jack the Ripper, a serial killer who has yet to be caught.

With this, Preston's pursuit of a fictional book was largely forgotten (though he would use a lot of Italy's atmosphere in the next Pendergast novel, Brimstone), and he focused his efforts on learning all he could about the Monster of Florence. He and Spezi became friends, and they decided to collaborate on a book about the case.

Little did they know how personally it would affect them, especially when Spezi was investigated as a suspect, with Preston accused of being an accessory. (The writer was heavily suggested to leave the country and never return, in essence becoming part of his own story.)

Thus, The Monster of Florence is part crime study, part memoir. The first portion brings the reader up to date and focuses on Spezi and his coverage of the original string of murders during the early to mid-1980s, with the main suspects first coming from a well-known group of local Peeping Toms called Indiani.

Given the nature of the mutilations of the victims, it was suspected (like in the Jack the Ripper case) that the killer was well educated and skilled, perhaps even a surgeon. Spezi, a young reporter, took advantage of the great amount and breadth of material connected with the Monster (he coined the name himself) and produced a wealth of varied and well-received articles that made his reputation as the city's expert on "Monstrology."

A later investigation centers on a doorstop, collected in lieu of any other evidence 20 years before. Other avenues include a possible Satanic sect involving "picnicking friends," and the so-called Sardinian Trail: the search for the owner of a Beretta 9mm used in every crime — including an apparent crime of passion from 1968. Preston and Spezi do not solve the case, but they do lead the reader down the most logical road of possibilities.

The Spezi portion of The Monster of Florence lays out all the facts of the case up to 2000, when Preston came onto the scene. It's a little dry at times, but the information is needed to understand the rest of the book, and it paints Spezi with the necessary "heroic" colors for us to disbelieve his accused guilt later on. The second part focuses on the entry of Preston into the case, their collaboration on their first Monster of Florence book together (an Italian-language edition and the catalyst that brought the government down on their heads), and the aftermath.

It is reported that author Thomas Harris based Hannibal Lecter in part on the Monster. He was seen at several of the trials, taking copious notes, and he set Hannibal in Florence itself, using as its antagonist a fictional member of the famed Pazzi family as a police inspector who solved the Monster case. In fact, there are so many mentions of Hannibal and Harris in The Monster of Florence that I was surprised to discover that they don't share a publisher.

The Monster of Florence illustrates the danger of running afoul of a foreign government when you're barely fluent in the language. It is also an interesting portrait of a seemingly incompetent police force, whose members would rather pursue a line of inquiry involving possible Satanists than search for any plausible evidence.

Audiobook reader Dennis Boutsikaris (whose Russian inflections were highlights of his readings of Tom Rob Smith's novels Child 44 and The Secret Speech) once again uses his skill with accents (this time Italian) to add realism and authenticity to the telling of this horrific tale. (The unabridged audiobook of The Monster of Florence also contains an interview with Douglas Preston.)

The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith (unabridged audio book read by Dennis Boutsikaris)

Author Tom Rob Smith's The Secret Speech opens in 1949 with the destruction of a war-damaged Russian Orthodox church — stained glass exploding outward and lacerating the expectant crowd gathered to watch the spectacle.

It's the beginning of a series of events that will lead to new MGB agent Leo Stebanovich Demidov's first arrest. This is an excellent way to remind readers of Child 44 how Leo was before he underwent a sea change due to the events four years later, as chronicled in that novel (which you should probably read before this one).

Smith breaks the tension with a humorous segue into 1956 (the year The Secret Speech takes place) about a bookbinder with a famously bad reputation, that quickly turns tragic when his murder is investigated by the relatively new homicide squad begun by Leo in the years intervening between the two novels: a murder disguised as a suicide disguised as a murder.

It's 1956. Stalin is dead, and his tyrannous reign is at an end. His replacement, Nikita Krushchev, has had a typewritten "secret speech" delivered to every household in a box stamped "NOT FOR PRESS" giving the news that the new regime is going to be different. And the previously state-supported villains (read: government agents like Leo used to be) are to be publicly identified. The Soviet Union is under new management, so to speak.

Where the government was previously thought to be just, right, and infallible, Krushchev's speech states that things got way out of hand under Stalin. This causes a lot of inner turmoil in those who trusted and believed — and, like Leo's wife Raisa, taught the newer generation to do the same.

Meanwhile, an "untouchable" gang leader offers Leo an opportunity: "Free my husband, or I will murder your daughter." So Leo uses his contacts to get himself sent to Gulag 57 to break the man out. But the gulag is not a place where plans are easily carried out, and things begin to go awry by increasing orders of magnitude.

In some ways, The Secret Speech proves to be more viscerally entertaining than its predecessor, as Smith shows himself to be fairly adept at action scenes. Especially during the sea journey to the gulag, where a rough storm occurs at the same time as a prisoner uprising, with Leo's partner Timur Nesterov left to battle both.

But Smith doesn't skimp on the emotional turmoil that drove Child 44, either, with the Demidovs' adopted daughter Zoya (now 14) having a dramatic breakdown as she learns to deal with the fact that Leo was indirectly responsible for the death of her parents. (This shows an interesting flip in focus from the previous book's child murderer to this book's murderous child.) Also, Raisa is forced to choose between two people she loves.

Actor Dennis Boutsikaris continues with the skill and comfort with Russian accents that he displayed so well in Child 44. He reads with deftness and confidence, and his voice is smooth and flows easily into the ear. Boutsikaris is also given a chance to display his range in The Secret Speech, with a wider array of characters from a troubled teenager to a female gang leader to a world-weary investigator, and exhibits a surprising facility with them all.

Though The Secret Speech is not as fully gripping as its predecessor, especially toward the end where it eases into a conclusion, it's still worth a listen, particularly for those with interest in the repercussions of an important event in Russian history.

Dead Men Kill by L. Ron Hubbard (unabridged zombie thriller audio book)

L. Ron Hubbard is probably best known as the founder of Scientology and creator of Dianetics. These days, his name is largely connected with the antics of the some of the more "outspoken" members of the religion, overshadowing the fact that the man really knew how to tell an entertaining story. All 150 of the stories Hubbard wrote for the pulp magazines of the 1930s and '40s are being rereleased in paperback and audio under the evocative title Stories from the Golden Age.

The recordings I've tried so far are just terrific. They are a professionally produced combination of traditional narrated audiobooks (with narration deftly handled by R.F. Daley) and old-time radio, with skilled actors playing the characters (often multiple roles) and genre-specific music and sound effects rounding out the experience.

"I have come to kill you, Gordon."

So says a voice reminiscent of the grave, as its fingers wrap around Gordon's throat and slowly take his life. Detective Sergeant Terry Lane arrives on the scene and notes the similarity with another recent murder. All the evidence points to a no-longer-assailant, and Lane's fears are confirmed when he uncovers the suspect's empty coffin and has to fight off a trio of expressionless figures with only his fists.

For a while, Lane has only questions, like how do a letter from "Loup-Garou," a Haitian pharmacy bill, and the mysterious Dr. Leroux tie in to the murders? The primary targets seem to be rich and influential businessmen, but if Lane doesn't find out who's responsible and stop the culprit, the next zombie will be him.

Matt Scott turns in a solid performance as the ultranoble Lane, and John Mariano plays the mad scientist with relish (complete with a selection of diabolical laughs). But the real star of the Dead Men Kill audiobook is narrator R.F. Daley.

Author L. Ron Hubbard's prose is heavy on description, and Daley is more than up to the task. His voice is perfect for pulp fiction, and he adds just the right touch of emphasis (along with the occasional wink where appropriate) without drawing attention away from the story.

Dead Men Kill is the only zombie horror story Hubbard wrote, and the author succeeds by presenting this questionable subject in a realistic manner. He doesn't try to overexplain, but simply focuses on keeping up the story's quick pace (so we don't think about it too much). Its focus on the Haitian voodoo aspects should appeal to fans of more recent takes on the same subject, such as Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's novel Cemetery Dance.

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (unabridged audio book read by Dennis Boutsikaris)

In 1933, a time when hunger is rampant, two young Russian brothers chase down a cat, and one of them disappears. Twenty years later in 1953, another of a different pair of brothers meets a mysterious end, and MGB agent Leo Demidov follows the official line that it was an "accident."

For, in the Stalinist Soviet Union, crime officially does not exist. This is an era when bad driving can get you sent to the gulag for twenty years. But some growing doubts Leo has about the government's interrogation methods (like the popular practice of torturing until a confession is made) come to a head when he is asked to investigate his own wife, Raisa.

Meanwhile, a serial killer runs free, eventually amassing over 50 victims — a killer with an astonishing motive. But this "killer" officially does not exist in a time and place where paranoia is a survival tactic under a dictatorship that believes even sadness to be a punishable protest against the government's policies.

Author Tom Rob Smith crafts his debut with care, though Child 44 does require some patience. Smith introduces the murders, then spends a great deal of time developing the character of Leo and his surroundings before returning to the violence some time later. Though I predicted the "revelation" early on (it could not have going any other way and still have been fair to the truly attentive reader), that did not lessen the novel's effect, due to the author's admirable skill.

Actor Dennis Boutsikaris reads Child 44 with deftness and confidence. He exhibits a level of comfort with the complex prose (not to mention the ubiquitous Russian accents) that one suspects would exceed even that of the author himself.

In addition, his voice is smooth and flows easily into the ear, reminiscent of Kevin Spacey (himself an audiobook reader at one time), with an undercurrent of menace that matches well to a story wherein one wrong word can mean instant death — and where even a slow death may be preferable to government sanctioned "justice." (Where even a government agent's reputation can rise and fall as often as the barometric pressure.)

The first sequel in this projected trilogy of novels, The Secret Speech, is already available. It is also read by Boutsikaris, who won a 2009 Audie Award in the Thriller/Suspense category for his work on Child 44.

The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (audio book read by Rene Auberjonois)

During work at a Catherine Street construction site in lower Manhattan, a charnel of bones is discovered: 36 bodies, all told, buried around 100 years before. FBI Special Agent Pendergast takes one skull to archeologist Nora Kelly, who places that victim's age at 13. When Pendergast gets Kelly access to the site, she learns that the victims were nearly all teens, primarily boys, and that they all appear to have had similar injuries to the lumbar spine.

While Nora gets in trouble for her work with Pendergast, her on-and-off boyfriend, reporter William Smithback, Jr., of The New York Times is working so hard to get a scoop that he's ruining his relationship with Nora. Later, Smithback gets himself into hot water when he discovers an address before Pendergast and Nora do and goes to check out the location.

The discovery of a sheaf of letters leads to the identity of the perpetrator of the century-old murders — a scientist searching for the secret of longer life — but that turns out to be only the beginning of the mystery when the body of a 27-year-old woman is found with the same portion of the spinal cord (the cauda equina, or horse's tail) removed. This grotesque surgery was likely done while the woman was alive, and was thus the cause of death.

Is a copycat killer at large, or did the scientist actually find what he was looking for and has chosen to recommence his spree? Or is something even more sinister and mysterious going on? Pendergast is sure that "The solution to the new murders lies in the old." One thing is for sure: with authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, it will be something other than the mundane and will be somehow connected to "the Cabinet of Curiosities."

In this first Preston/Child collaboration to feature Pendergast as the protagonist, we learn that a streak of insanity runs in his family when he asks advice of his great-aunt Cordelia about other family members. An odd duck anyway, Pendergast see an attack on him as a "positive development" since it means he's getting close to a solution.

The Cabinet of Curiosities is altogether a fascinating read, commingling old and new science with the tropes of horror fiction. Preston and Child don't shy away from the horror of having a deranged surgeon perform his signature surgery without anesthesia (and fully awake) on a major character.

One particular highlight was highly unexpected. From his hospital bed (following the aforementioned "positive development") — in a supernatural twist on The Daughter of Time — Pendergast travels through time and puts himself back into late-19th-century New York (on a fact-finding expedition) using only his mind.

For a novel so otherwise grounded in reality, however strange and obscure that reality may sometimes be, it takes a definite leap of faith to follow Pendergast along on his flight of fancy. But it is simultaneously a very rewarding trip into the period and takes The Cabinet of Curiosities another notch above the fray.

Other authors would have simply had their characters find old documents or the like. This choice, though unorthodox, is an imaginative improvement, especially since the authors work hard to make it believable. (Though Pendergast is inscrutable enough to make it plausible that he would spend his time developing this skill.)

Actor René Auberjonois — probably best known for his television work on Benson (for which he was Emmy-nominated), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Boston Legal, as well as in the film version of M*A*S*H — shows off his impressive vocal range in the audiobook of The Cabinet of Curiosities. Auberjonois makes each character different while retaining a familiar thread throughout (though he doesn't quite achieve the "mellifluous" tone frequently attributed to Pendergast).

The Cabinet of Curiosities has a wonderful sense of atmosphere that will particularly delight fans of the novels of Robert Bloch. (Enoch Leng is an especially Blochian character.) The authors' highly descriptive style immerses the reader in a richly drawn, though unfamiliar, world. And their intelligent approach appeals to more literate readers while their plot operates solidly within the confines of the genre.

The Midnight Room by Ed Gorman (dark suspense)

Detective Steve Scanlon's life is out of control. Married with kids, he also has an expensive mistress — or thinks he does. Actually, ever since Nicole found out he was married, she'd rather he left her alone, that he's stop buying her expensive gifts in a desperate attempt to re-win her affections.

Steve doesn't give up easily, but he needs more money. He's been neglecting his family, his wife and kids, his brother Michael (also a cop), and their father in the nursing home, leaving Michael to continually make up stories to cover for him more than Michael wants or their father believes.

But Steve had a solution to all his problems. He originally meant only to rob Dr. Peter Olson, but now he knows what the doctor has been up to: kidnapping local girls and torturing them to death in his basement dungeon. Steve found in Olson's safe the DVDs the doctor made of his last two captives, and Olson will pay to keep them secret. It is therefore in Scanlon's best interest that Dr. Olson is not discovered for his latest victim — a recently missing girl named Cindy Baines.

The police have stepped up the investigation since the last victim's skull arrived in her mother's mailbox. Luckily, Scanlon is the investigating officer on the case along with his partner, Kim Edwards — who, not coincidentally, Dr. Olson has just begun dating. And that's just the beginning of author Ed Gorman's The Midnight Room, a dark ride that isn't even over when the main story has played out. There's more to come, and it's even more shocking.

Ed Gorman is one of the great dark suspense novelists working today, and The Midnight Room is his best work yet. Its pieces are assembled bit by bit, and it takes a while for the reader to figure out what exactly is going on. (The strangely misleading blurb on the back cover — which seems to be advertising the book as a horror novel — goes a long way toward clouding the waters.) But Gorman always plays fair and is only keeping back some information for greater effect in later pages.

The Midnight Room is a wholly modern novel, but its roots lie in the Gold Medal novels of the 1950s and '60s. Gorman's influences are right there on the page. His skill at plotting is highly reminiscent of John D. MacDonald's standalone (that is, non–Travis McGee) novels. But his deft control of a multitude of major characters shows the marked influence of John Farris, particularly the author's intriguingly complex Harrison High. (Though Farris also wrote a handful of Gold Medals himself under the name Steve Brackeen.)

Gorman himself has called The Midnight Room his own "Gold Medal novel" and dedicates it to four "old friends who were masters of the form": Peter Rabe, Stephen Marlowe, William Campbell Gault, and Robert Colby. I think they would be proud to be connected to this book. It is the culmination of a life-long love of hardboiled crime novels and is a worthy addition to their ranks.

Cemetery Dance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (unabridged audio book read by Rene Auberjonois)

Respected New York Times journalist William Smithback Jr., best known for his exposés, has been murdered. His wife Nora Kelly, archeologist with the Museum of Natural History, was brutally attacked as the killer left. But this is an open and shut case. The perpetrator, the couple's neighbor Colin Fearing, was identified by five witnesses and was captured clearly on security cameras. There's only one problem: Colin Fearing's death certificate was signed ten days ago.

When voodoo artifacts are found at the scene, the press cries "Zombie!" And when DNA testing confirms that the killer was indeed Fearing, things start to get really strange. Is there really some form of zombi voodoo involved, or is the solution as simple as a local multimillionaire paying for a hit on Smithback, the reporter who smeared his name? And what does a well-hidden Manhattan commune (connected by Smithback in the press to animal sacrifices) have to do with it all?

Both angles are thoroughly investigated by FBI Special Agent Aloysius X.L. Pendergast and New York police lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta (the heroes of several of authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's previous novels), with the added incentive that Smithback was a friend of theirs and accompanied them on previous cases. But you can be sure that the authors will not let us off with an easy answer.

Cemetery Dance is my first of the Preston/Child collaborations. I had previously enjoyed Preston's solo novel The Codex (one of the best books I read in 2008), and it's great to learn that he and Child work together equally well. Readers interested in voodoo and other similar practices will find a lot of good information here, as Pendergast's mentor arrives and acts as a veritable encyclopedia on the various forms, specifically obeah.

But Cemetery Dance is not all talk. There is plenty of action, and no character is ever truly safe. One particular highlight is a chase through a large museum storage room housing dozens of plastic-covered whale skeletons. And Preston and Child manage to leaven the intensity inherent in a murder being investigated by the friends of the deceased by including some slower scenes delving into D'Agosta's other personal struggles, particularly his relationship with fellow cop Laura Hayward. In the process, this makes him much more fully developed than the sometimes chimerical Pendergast. (A Sherlock Holmes type, Pendergast is prone to unconventional methods of investigation, often leaving D'Agosta to clean up the mess, and D'Agosta is getting a little tired of this role.)

The authors' highly descriptive style immerses the reader in a richly drawn, though unfamiliar, world. And their intelligent approach appeals to more literate readers while their plot operates solidly within the confines of the thriller genre. This includes, of course, a number of cliches that must be expected, if not necessarily welcomed, such as how, no matter what information is needed, Pendergast magically seems to have access to it. (Perhaps Cemetery Dance will boost sales of the works of Wade Davis, whom Pendergast references by name.)

In addition to D'Agosta and the fascinating Pendergast (though flawed, surely one of fiction's great idiosyncratic investigators), Cemetery Dance is peopled with other terrific characters — people like Bill Smithback, Nora Kelly, and Laura Hayward — who I am eager to encounter again. Luckily, most or all of them are featured in the many previous Preston and Child novels, like The Cabinet of Curiosities (the one I'm most likely to try next).

Actor René Auberjonois — probably best known for his television work on Benson (for which he was Emmy-nominated), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Boston Legal, as well as in the film version of M*A*S*H — shows off his impressive vocal range in the unabridged reading of Cemetery Dance. Auberjonois makes each character different while retaining a familiar thread throughout (though he doesn't quite achieve the "mellifluous" tone frequently attributed to Pendergast).

Delving into their world for the first time, I did not expect something so akin to a horror novel coming from this duo. But I'm not complaining. Preston and Child walk the line of mainstream thriller and zombie horror deftly in Cemetery Dance, and it makes me wonder if perhaps the zombie subgenre is not as over and done with as it would seem, if such a literate and intelligent plot can be gleaned from it. Maybe more authors need to go back to the original roots of the phenomenon.