The Last Cop Out

The Last Cop out by Mickey Spillane, my first one by him, is an edge of the seat thriller of gangster wars gone wrong. Nobody knows who is killing the mobsters off one by one in clinical fashion. Gillian Burke is a knocked off ex-cop with a grudge against the underworld. He gets to come back to the police force to find out the goings on, because ostensibly he is the one who knows more about these gangsters. Frank Verdun is a Frenchman with a penchant for killing and Mark Shelby is eyeing the top spot after everybody is wiped out. Papa Menes is an old wizened hat at these matters. Couple of female characters as well, love as well as lust interest. Few oddball characters as well in the story. Goodreads 5/5

Just a Matter of Time

“Just a matter of time” by james Hadley chase is a book i picked up from the flea stall near churchgate station for rupees 20/- and i am a big fan of james Hadley chase. It is a short book of 190 pages which typically is the average size of chase books. Chase does not disappoint again. He is unarguably the best story teller with fast paced stories which typically involves crime, intrigue, suspense, blackmail, sex and he typically writes about the under dregs of society. Mrs. Morely Johnson is an almost blind widower with loads of money, jewellery, paintings, investments and only one heir, a nephew who is a good for nothing fella, so she disowns him in the will, most of which goes to charity a few to the investment banker who takes care of her investments. Assorted characters descend on the plot in the form of driver, nurse one of whom is a master forger and the other a sex bomb. The plot moves inextricably fast from one scheme gone good to another gone awry into an interesting climax. I would rate it 5/5 and chase fans don’t need a second recommendation at all – if they are like me, they would devour all of james Hadley chase books. 

Bear Island

Just finished reading “Bear Island” by Alistair Maclean my favourite author.  Dr. Marlowe is a doctor on board a fishing trawler Morning Rose which is headed towards Bear Island in Barents Sea for some film shooting of which nobody knows what the script is about. Enroute, the film crew start getting murdered one after another in mysterious circumstances. The plot gets murkier when the crew lands on the inhospitable and alien Bear Island and the murders continue. Written in first person narrative, Maclean gradually lets the suspense out one after another taking the story to some connection in post war Europe. A gripping enthralling book, a typically pot boiler by Alistair Maclean. Rating 5/5 – Highly Recommended

The Sleeping Doll

I like Jeffery Deaver books because he provides so much of twists, double twists, re-twist, reverse twists to the plot that you actually wonder where it is leading to. His Lincoln Rhyme the master criminologist series were all good books. This one featured Kathryn Dance, interrogator and kinesics expert - a kind of study of body language. Daniel Pell has been incarcerated in Capitola jail for mass murders of a wealthy family, the Croytons of whom he left only little girl behind, who was hiding behind dolls, and hence the name of the book. From the book cover, you may think it is a horror book, but thankfully it is not. Pell manages to get  himself to another facility for interrogation by Dance but in the process he escapes and thereafter the plot starts getting interesting. The cat and mouse game being played between Pell and Dance is intense. To his favour Deaver has kept the interest intact but as expected in his genre, he has sprung many surprises. Dance keeps going back to her basics which is kinesics to break down the real story. Even after the plot ostensibly ended, Deaver has kept going on for a couple of chapters more, thereby intensifying the suspense. For one twists to many, I give Goodreads 4/5 

The Blood-Dimmed Tide

John Madden has retired as a detective from Scotland Yard and settled in his rural home happy with his surroundings. One day he and his wife Dr. Helen Madden were returning back to his house, when he chanced upon the body of a little girl, hidden, with a badly mutilated face and apparently raped also. His detective instincts kick in, despite protests from his wife, he gets involved in the case. Then another body is discovered in similar fashion but that disappearance was reported almost three years back. And another body in similar fashion. Case goes out of local police hands into Scotland Yard and slowly bits by pieces they stitch together a series of crimes being committed by a psychopath, all of young girls and all in similar fashion - rape and then post mortem mutilation and sometimes even post mortem rape. The gap of three years in the murders forces them to surmise that it could have been somebody who has been out of the country during that period. The murders are set in 1926 to 1929 period when Europe was in turmoil due to rising Nazism of that era. The case develops international ramifications but thankfully Rennie has not diverted too much attention to that part of the case. Rennie Airth's narrative is quite good and keeps the suspense intact. Goodreads 4/5  

Dangerous Curves

Picked up a book called "Dangerous Curves" by Peter Cheyney on a seconds books sale somewhere in Bombay, either because it was way too cheap or the it looked sorta good to read. Got down to reading it last week and was pleasantly surprised to read it - a riveting fast moving fiction with mystery suspense thrown in galore. Then I researched Peter Cheyney on the internet because i have never heard of this guy, was surprised to learn that he belonged to another era altogether, having been born in 1896 and died in 1951, relatively young just like Raymond Chandler another of my favorite. In the first few pages itself I discovered another of my favorite author James Hadley Chase in his writing. Chase who wrote many potboilers and wrote about the underdogs of the society has beautiful flowing narrative to his writing. This book is a Slim Callaghan mystery - that is the name of the investigator who is given the job of investigating the wayward stepson of a vivacious Thorla Riverton who is 30 years younger to her husband and whose husband is dying of complications from old age. Slim Callaghan has obviously a very disruptive style of operating which is not appreciated by Thorla Riverton and sparks fly between the two, she being attractive. Slim Callaghan being the quintessential fictional detective is able to comprehend the hidden facts as well as portend the future shape of things to come. One thing i did not like about Slim Callaghan is his excessive smoking and drinking, but what the hell, this book was written in 1939 when there were more worldly matters to be concerned than the post modern James Bondish type of fit action heroes. From this Wikipeadia entry here it seems Peter Cheyney lived the life of his fictional protagonists and died young having penned 35 novels and 150 short stories. This book is "out of print" and therefore a rare copy. Books such as these are rare to come by. Highly recommended reading for fiction fans. Goodreads 5/5

61 Hours

61 Hours is a Jack Reacher story by Lee Child. A few of these Jack Reacher stories have been converted into movies starring Tom Cruise. Jack Reacher is a kind of ex-military but now wandering aimlessly with minimal possession, and wherever he lands he finds some trouble in which his expertise is required. This time he lands in a town called Bolton in South Dakota in a bus of elderly tourists. It has been snowing, the roads are skidding and the bus falls into a gorge, luckily no major injuries, but Jack is stranded in the town for a couple of days, enough for him to find out something amiss there. There is a gang of bikers and some unused depot where strange things are going on. One old lady who has witnessed some horrific crime and is under threat by a gang operating out of Mexico. All that happens fast paced in a reverse countdown basis, so that keeps the reader engaged. It is no doubt a fast paced thriller. Jack talks to his ex-boss in Washington to get a lot of info on the Mexican gang. Goodreads 5/5