Book Notices | The Nowhere Man by Gregg Hurwitz / White Lies by Jeremy Bates / Killman Creek by Rachel Caine / The Heist by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg

Gregg Hurwitz, The Nowhere Man

Amazon   Evan Smoak is back in this follow-up to Orphan X. Evan is a government-trained black ops guy who uses his formidable skills to help the helpless, one job at a time. His life is necessarily secretive because he’s made a lot of enemies over the years. When Evan is captured in this outing by a freakish Bond villain type, many of his foes will have an opportunity to extract their revenge. The Nowhere Man is as exciting as Orphan X was, and it also furthers the story of Evan’s personal life. A great read, and the good news is that book three in the series is due out later this month.

Jeremy Bates, White Lies

Amazon   Katrina Burton picks up a hitchhiker one night while driving through a storm to her new home in small-town Washington state. This sounds like a really bad idea, of course, and things do go horribly wrong, but not in the way we might expect. To get the creepy guy she's picked up out of her passenger seat and off her scent—the scene in her car is realistically scary—she lies about where she lives. Pretty soon, her white lie spirals horribly out of control. Katrina is caught up in a series of ever worsening crises, making perhaps flawed but not unreasonable decisions—like lying to the hitchhiker—at each step. Eventually, things escalate very quickly, maybe too quickly to be quite believable. The ending is a little over the top and probably not necessary, but White Lies is nonetheless a quick nail-biter and a fun read.

Rachel Caine, Killman Creek

Amazon   The second book in Rachel Caine’s Stillhouse Lake series picks up where the first left off (see my review). Gwen Proctor is the ex-wife of a serial killer who mutilated women in the family’s garage without her knowledge. Now that he’s escaped from prison, Gwen goes on the offensive, desperately trying to protect her children from their father and the crazed minions who support him and copycat his crimes. The book is sometimes reminiscent of the TV series The Following, in which Kevin Bacon plays an FBI agent who’s after a serial killer: that killer is likewise charismatic enough to attract sick acolytes, and the show also features the killer’s ex-wife, although the focus is primarily on Kevin Bacon’s character. At any rate, Killman Creek is absorbing and exciting, definitely a good read. I thought I’d seen somewhere that there would be three books in this series, but I suspect that’s wrong: the story seems to be well tied up by the end of book two.

Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg, The Heist

Amazon   Kate O'Hare is an FBI agent who's married to her job, and Nick Fox is her nemesis turned partner in this fun series by two very practiced authors. I'm more familiar with Lee Goldberg's books than his co-author's, and this story seems to me very much in his style: a fun mix of light comedy and crime and likeable protagonists. It's the literary equivalent of watching a feel-good TV crime show. Remington Steele, maybe. In this outing, the alliance between Nick and a not quite willing Kate is formed, and the two put together an unlikely team to bring down a con man who's absconded with half a billion dollars. My only complaint about the book—and I don't really know how to phrase what I'm thinking—is that the action somehow seems too removed, too distant. The reader isn't allowed to see the nitty gritty of the preparation that goes on behind the action: getaway transports are simply available; elaborate plans are laid and put into action across the globe without anyone breaking a sweat. I definitely wouldn't want the story to be bogged down by too much detail, but I would like some. Otherwise it's as if you're reading the story through gauze. (I told you I didn't know how to express my thoughtsn here.) Apart from that, I really enjoyed this first book in the series and will certainly read more.