Neptune

Neptune is a graphic novel with a theme of revenge and redemption. It was published in September 2024. The main character is Corey Harrison who has just been released from prison after serving 17 years for a violent crime. Now, Corey is seeking the truth surrounding the recent and mysterious death of his brother, only to discover a vast darkness surrounding his legacy. Corey's friends tell him there are job openings at Neptune and that he should apply. He is hired to work as a supervisor in a chicken factory, the same position that his brother held. On his first day Corey sees alot of young people working under him who work long hours and don't get paid much. They are human trafficking victims. His boss tells him that using traffickees was his brother’s idea. It made the business a success. 

There was a tremendous amount of foul language so I wouldn't recommend the book for children. The characters came from a rough part of town and their dialogue reflected this. It was depressing to read how people live like this. I know that there are lots of folks who have no choice but to live this lifestyle and I am not criticizing them. I just didn't like reading about it. That said, the author presented a realistic portrait about ex-offenders and their difficulty with obtaining employment and adjusting to life outside prison.

3 out of 5 stars.

She's Running on Fumes

She's Running on Fumes is a 2024 Comixology Original comic book. The book I read contained all 6 releases of the comic. The story takes place in Deepwater, Missouri in 1984. Note that this is a book for adults only as there is a ton of foul language, violence and dialogue about sex.

The publisher's summary is short:

When I was 3-years-old, my mother started a chop shop with a junkyarder named Corn Dog. My criminal father’s brain was damaged in a wreck that almost killed him. With hospital bills piling, us kids to feed and fifty-thousand dollars of biker cocaine gone missing, grand theft auto was Mom’s best shot at survival.

While the comic has an extensive plot that is well-written, I did not like how the characters spoke to each other. They were rude and crude with each other which created a stressful atmosphere. While I am aware that there is a segment of society that behaves this way, I wouldn't want to socialize with this group. That said, the author wrote a realistic portrait of this particular fringe group of hoodlums. The narrator was the son of Jody and Jeanne. Jody is the character whose brain was damaged in a car wreck. I feel that Jeanne should have left Jody long before she ended up with two rowdy kids. She is stuck accepting lousy, small paying jobs for the foreseeable future. I would have never put myself in this situation. 

The story was inspired by the author’s family history. Dennis Hopeless stated in an online interview with IGN:

“When I was 3-years-old my mother started a chop shop with a half-wit junkyarder named Corn Dog,” said Hopeless in a statement. “Dad was the criminal. Mom had never broken a law in her life, but with him brain-damaged, fifty-thousand dollars of cocaine gone missing and hospital bills piling up, grand theft auto was our only hope.”

Hopeless continued, “She’s Running on Fumes is based on the true story of how my mom lied, cheated and stole her way through dad’s tire fire and the freedom she found out the other side. The story is based on family stories and my father’s near-fatal accident from when I was a toddler. As I grew older, details were added that made it clear my father was a criminal and many of the events of my childhood were driven by his criminal dealings. The seeds of the idea came from asking my mother about these old stories as an adult and getting the real dirt.”

The illustrations were drawn by Tyler Jenkins with watercolor art painted by Hilary Jenkins. The letters were written by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.  The drawings looked sketchy to me but I believe that they matched the type of story that was told. 

4 out of 5 stars.

Girl Forgotten

Girl, Forgotten is one heck of a page turner.  I read it in one sitting and it kept me up into the early hours this morning until I finished reading it. The story is told in alternating time periods. During the present time, new U. S. Marshal Andrea Oliver arrived in Longbill Beach, Maryland on her first assignment: to protect a judge receiving death threats. In reality, Andrea is there to find justice for Emily Vaughn. Emily is the Judge's daughter who was murdered forty years ago. The killer is still out there and it could be Andrea's biological father. No one knows that part of Andrea's history though. A few  years after Emily’s murder, Andrea's mother agreed to go into protective custody because she feared her ex-husband. Her unborn daughter, Andrea, has had to live this way her entire life.

The initial plot takes place in Longbill Beach in 1982. Emily Vaughn gets ready for the prom. For an athlete, who is smart, pretty and well-liked, this night should be the highlight of her high school career.  However, Emily has been ostracised by her former friends and expelled from high school due to her pregnancy, but she refuses to just disappear. Her only emotional support is her grandmother who unfortunately suffers from dementia. Emily has a secret though and by the end of the evening, that secret will be silenced forever. The present day plot takes place forty years later. Emily’s murder remains a mystery. Her tight-knit group of friends closed ranks. Her respected, wealthy family retreated inwards and the small town moved on from her grisly attack. Andrea needed to be able to bring closure to Emily’s family and finally get Emily’s so-called friends to talk about that night.

I LOVED this book. Girl, Forgotten the first book of Karin Slaughter's that I have read and I will definitely read more from her in the coming months.  The two subplots were told in alternating chapters and each of those chapters ended with a bang. The twists were unique and kept coming.

The characters were quite interesting. Andrea's sidekick, Leonard "Catfish" Bible, is funny guy who was always spouting amusing sayings every time he opened his mouth.  With many years of experience as a Marshal, he gives the plot alot of twists by knowing exactly what should be done in order to advance their investigation. Emily’s friends continued to stick together even though they now hated each other. Something awful seemed to have happened the night of that 1982 party that had to be covered up. They all had toxic personalities and as these personality traits were exposed in the present day plot, it revealed what they were really like all along. One of Emily’s teachers, Dean Wexler, was a sympathetic character in the 1982 plot. However, he became a cult leader later in life and was abusive to everyone in Landbill.

Girl, Forgotten is a fantastic read and I highly recommend it. 5 out of 5 stars.

One Girl Missing

One Girl Missing is the 11th Detective Gina Harte crime thriller from Carla Kovach but the first that I have read. I must say that I have been missing out on alot of good reading. One Girl Missing was a fantastic read. The series takes place in Britain during the present era and this installment of the series was published on March 4, 2022.

The publisher's summary:  

Five-year-old Cally waits in her pretty pink bedroom for the sound of the front door opening and her mother’s sweet voice in the hall. But when the doorbell finally rings, and Cally creeps out of bed to peer through the banister, a large man in uniform is all she sees. Her mother is missing...

Teacher Annabel Braddock was last seen drinking at the local pub with her best friend, Jennifer. Witnesses saw tears running down her cheeks, and friends say she was having problems with a colleague at work, and that her marriage had broken down.

But as the two women hugged goodbye, neither noticed the car speeding towards them. As the dust settled, Jennifer lay unconscious on the ground and Annabel was nowhere to be seen. She’d never abandon her little girl, so did someone snatch her?

As family crowd around Jennifer’s hospital bed, hoping she’ll wake up, police visit Annabel’s home and her inconsolable daughter, Cally, tells them she had seen a man outside staring into her room as she climbed into bed that evening. Was it her childish imagination, or had someone been watching Annabel’s home?

When Jennifer finally opens her eyes and tells the police what happened that night, it’s clear there are plenty of people with a reason to harm Annabel. With an unpredictable husband, a colleague who denies harassing her and a neighbour who seems to know her every move, could she be in imminent danger? As the hours turn to days, will little Cally ever see her precious mother again? Or will she be next?

This book is unputdownable. I read it in one sitting and it seemed that it took no time to read it, thanks to the super fast pace. The investigation into the hit and run had many layers. While there was alot happening in the story, it was not difficult to follow. There were numerous twists, turns, and red herrings that kept me wanting to keep reading.

The setting was not stated but with all of the British slang words and the division of job titles in the police department, I knew that it had to be in Britain. Some of the slang I couldn't figure out but the meanings were somewhat obvious from the context. The main character is, of course, Gina Harte, and her co-workers are the secondary characters. It's odd, but the two female victims were not discussed much as characters. They figured in the investigation but that is about all we read about them. 

If you like crime thrillers or police procedurals, you will want to read this novel.  5 out of 5 stars.

The Girl in the Ground

The Girl in the Ground is the 4th Nikki Hunt Mystery and I couldn't read it fast enough.  It is an edge of your seat crime thriller that captured my full attention in the first pages. Nikki is an FBI special agent working in her home town of Stillwater, Minnesota. The story opens with construction workers unearthing the skeleton of a girl in Stillwater. Nikki's boyfriend Rory Todd is working at the site and calls her when the bones are found. While Nikki knows instantly that the girl was murdered, she is shocked when Rory tells her that he knows who the girl is. The dead girl is his childhood girlfriend Becky, and he was the last person to see her alive before she went missing twenty four years earlier.  Rory, of course, becomes a suspect and Nikki is told to step away from the investigation. Soon it becomes clear that Becky was pregnant and that Rory was the father of her baby. However, Nikki still believes that he is innocent and investigates that case anyway. When Nikki finds a potential link to two pregnant girls who were found murdered years before, she believes that she may solved the mystery of all of the murdered girls.

The character Rory seemed somewhat different from his appearance in earlier novels in the series. He is incredibly untrusting of the police despite that fact that his girlfriend is one of them. While it is normal to fear law enforcement when you are a suspect in a murder, he even began lying to Nikki over mundane matters. I think if I was a suspect, I would take some comfort from knowing that my girlfriend could help me. Rory acts differently.  

 

The mystery concerning the pregnant girls being murdered was well thought out. The main missing woman is a surrogate for a wealthy couple who are unable to have kids. When she disappears they think that something sinister must have happened to her because she was not the type of person who would just disappear. Nikki is a close friend of the couple and decides to help them out and look for the girl. Her main investigation, though, is to figure out how Becky died and why. Nikki believes that the missing surrogate is connected to all of the other missing girls as all of them were pregnant. She has alot of cases to look into in order to solve the crimes.  

This latest installment of the series was a fun read. 4 out of 5 stars.

The Perfect Daughter

The Perfect Daughter is the perfect thriller.  It is a murder, medical and legal mystery with a psychiatric twist. It begins with sixteen-year-old Penny Francone being arrested for the murder of her biological mother. She was found by the police at the crime scene covered in the victim's blood and holding the murder weapon, a knife. To the police, this is an open and shut case and a jury only has to decide whether Penny will spend the rest of her life in prison or in a mental hospital. As Penny awaits trial in the Massachusetts state mental hospital, she is being treated by Dr. Mitchell McHugh, a psychiatrist battling demons of his own concerning his son's drug addiction. McHugh is not sure that Penny really has dissociative identity disorder, a/k/a multiple personality disorder. His testimony concerning her illness will either make or break Penny's defense. Her attorney plans on defending her with a not guilty by reason of insanity defense. Penny's adoptive mother, Grace Francone, believes her daughter is innocent. One of Penny's identities is Eve, a cold woman who she believes is capable of murder.  Penny is a quiet, polite teen. Her other identities include Ruby, a British girl, and Chloe.

We learn alot about dissociative identity disorder (DID). It was quite interesting to read how Penny's doctor planned on figuring out whether Penny had DID or was fooling everyone. His approach was revealing. Before reading the book I did not know how psychiatrists made this diagnosis. Another big part of the novel was Penny's legal defense. The reader learns the requirements of the law in an insanity defense, particularly with a defendant with DID. Penny's lawyer knows what he has to prove and much of the evidence he needs will come from Dr. McHugh. Penny, herself, is not sure whether she committed the crime. The novel is also a classic murder mystery. When Penny's adoptive mother, physician and attorney delve into her past before she was adopted, the reader is treated to an intricate plot that assumes, falsely, Penny had a good reason to kill her biological mother. Without reading the book, you won't know why or how this could have happened. I don't want to be a spoiler so I won't go any further here. However, I will say that there is a surprising ending.

I highly recommend The Perfect Daughter to mystery lovers.  5 out of 5 stars. 

The Girls in the Snow

The Girls in the Snow is the first book in a new detective series featuring FBI agent Nikki Hunt as the detective.  The second book in the series will be published next month and I am looking forward to getting a copy of it as this novel was fantastic.  This tight psychological thriller begins in 1995 with Nikki coming home from a high school party and finding her murdered parents in their Stillwater, MN home. Fast forward 20 years and Nikki is a FBI agent who has been dispatched back to Stillwater to investigate the deaths of two girls.  There are two mysteries to be solved in the book. The first one is who killed the girls. The second mystery deals with whether the right person was convicted and jailed for killing Nikki's parents.

The Nikki Hunt character is mysterious and makes a great protagonist for a series. Her job as a detective in the FBI's Behavior Analysis Unit will make a great backdrop to the investigations that she will be involved with in the future.  In addition, being familiar with violent crime in her personal life is always going to be an issue for her. I expect that this family history is going to be a part of all the investigations that she heads in future books. 

The weather is the main setting in the novel. The ice cold temperatures in Minnesota during winter works well with finding two dead girls whose bodies were staged by the killer frozen in the snow. Winter is what comes to people's minds when they think of Minnesota so this was a bonus for the setting. 

Nikki's reunions with friends and neighbors help move the plot along.  For example, her former boyfriend John is a local police officer who is supposedly assisting her but there is a hint that he is hiding something. It seems that everyone in Stillwater is hiding something, which only adds to the suspense.

The advertisement for the book says that it is unputdownable. I agree with that assessment. I read it in one sitting. One Perfect Grave is the next book in the series. It will be published on February 25, 2021 and I have already pre-ordered a copy. 

5 out of 5 stars.

The Cipher

 

FBI agent Nina Guerrera escaped a serial killer's trap when she was sixteen-years-old.  Eleven years later when she is jumped in a Virginia park, a video of the attack goes viral. Thousands of new Nina fans are not the only ones impressed with her fighting skills. The man who abducted her eleven years ago was watching also. Determined to reclaim his lost prize, he commits a grisly murder designed to pull her into the investigation. However, he also uses the Internet to invite the public to play along. The killer's coded riddles have made him a social media star dubbed "the cipher." In Nina's eyes he is a monster who preys on vulnerable women. Partnered with the FBI's most prominent mind hunter, Jeffrey Wade, Nina tracks the killer across the country. Nina follows each clue as she races to stop the killer while the world watches online.  

The Cipher is a by-the-seat-of-your-pants crime thriller. It's frequent plot twists keep you reading from the first to the final page. It is a great start for a new series featuring Nina Guerrera as the heroine. While being repeatedly assaulted throughout the book, she quickly bounces back and continues her fight to save other women from the killer. I particularly enjoyed reading about all the different forensic analyses done by the FBI as well as trying to figure out all of the killer's riddles.  

It's about time we had a serial killer mystery that involves social media. It makes the genre more contemporary and believable.  We all know that in today's society social media plays a role both in resolving crimes but also in committing them. Writing social media into novels is a must for the twenty first century author.

I loved this crime thriller. 5 out of 5 stars!

Little Girls Tell Tales

 

Wow!  Rachel Bennett's second novel is an engrossing murder mystery. I read this in one sitting. It strung me along from the first page until its satisfying conclusion. I loved it!

The story opens in 2004 with Rosalie walking with her brother Dallin in the isolated wetlands on the Isle of Man. After losing step with her brother she stumbles across the dead body of a girl who is lying partially in a pond.  Rosalie becomes scared and quickly walks away. She then gets lost in the wooded curraghs of the island and isn't found until her mother asks the other residents to help her find Rosalie.  When Rosalie tells the authorities what she saw, no one believes her. 

Fast forward to the present day with Rosalie still living in her mother's home following the death of her wife Beth. She is shocked into helping Dallin's girlfriend Cora, who is searching for her long lost sister Simone.  Simone disappeared around the same time that Rosalie saw a dead body and Cora wants Rosalie to return to the area with her to search. Rosalie is reluctant because she had been ridiculed all her life for telling the "story" about seeing a dead body. However, she likes Cora and agrees to help her look for her sister.

The book had a quick pace that was led by many twists and turns in the plot. The characters were OK but not memorable enough for a series.  While there were plenty of twists, I wouldn't call the book a thriller as it is advertised. A lack of tight suspense makes it a murder mystery, albeit a fine one. 

4 out of 5 stars.