When I think about classic crime stories, And Then There Were None is at the top of my list; a book originally published in 1940 and still truly a masterpiece of crime fiction. It has been renamed several times (see the wiki link below the poem) made into movies and inspired several other writers in their works as well.

And Then There Were None loosely follows the rhyme of Ten Little Soldier Boys,  in which a group of people all join together on an island, invited there through mysterious letters. Upon arrival they are all introduced to each other and eventually it’s explained to them why they are really there. When they learn that each person is somehow connected to the death of a person, either intentionally or not, they begin slowly to become paranoid. When the first murder takes place, they  want to do everything they can to get off the island. Several different reasons arise on why the boat cannot leave due to weather and the murders continue, one by one.

As they are alone on the island, they begin to start accusing each other outright and forming alliances between each other and who they think they can trust. It is the epitome of what a who-dunnit novel should encompass, and for which Agatha Christie is famous. The precision in which the story unravels and the minimal revelations that the reader gets at each poignant moment will keep the reader fully engaged and in most cases on the edge of your seat. Agatha Christie has perfected the intention of the whodunit mystery, and engages the reader just enough with each clue to have us play along and guess at who the culprit is before the characters do.

Most of her novels range between 200-300 pages which makes them perfect for those looking for a quicker read but each still has a colorful and entertaining mystery. In my opinion you can never go wrong with Agatha Christie.

The currently published, not the original version, of the rhyme goes:

Ten little Soldier boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were nine.

Nine little Soldier boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were eight.

Eight little Soldier Boys travelling in Devon;
One said he’d stay there and then there were seven.

Seven little Soldier Boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.

Six little Soldier Boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.

Five little Soldier Boys going in for law;
One got in Chancery and then there were four.

Four little Soldier Boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.

Three little Soldier Boys walking in the zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

Two Little Soldier Boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up and then there was one.

One little Soldier Boy left all alone;
He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None

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Reviewed by Krista Mckeeth

Then Hurricane Katrina hammers New Orleans’ fragile levees, unleashing more than just dangerous flood waters. While winds howled and Lake Pontchartrain surged, the borders between the modern city and the Otherworld crumbled. Now, the undead and the restless are roaming the Big Easy, and a serial killer with ties to voodoo is murdering the soldiers sent to help the city recover.

To make it worse, Gerry has gone missing, the wizards’ Elders have assigned a grenade-toting assassin as DJ’s new partner, and undead pirate Jean Lafitte wants to make her walk his plank. The search for Gerry and for the serial killer turns personal when DJ learns the hard way that loyalty requires sacrifice, allies come from the unlikeliest places, and duty mixed with love creates one bitter gumbo.

Royal Street (Sentinels of New Orleans #1)

Paperback, 336 pages Expected publication: April 10th 2012 by Tor Books ISBN 0765327791 (ISBN13: 9780765327796)

I love the fact that this story had everything I was looking for in it. From the description and the cover I knew what to expect and it lived up to every bit of the hype. The author does a great job informing the readers about the events that occurred during Hurricane Katrina, and the characters have to work around this catastrophe to solve their own mystery. Hurricane Katrina and the resulting events could be considered a character in itself. A well-handled  way of introducing a real-life event into a great urban fantasy storyline.

After our MC Drusilla has left the New Orleans area because of the hurricane warning, she finds out that her boss and father figure Gerry has gone missing. She is asked by the Elders to return to the area and investigate, upon her return she discovers that the Hurricane has not only opened the levees around the city, flooding the city, but the doors to the otherworld have also opened and released the preternatural beings that have been banished there. As DJ is just getting started in her investigation and trying yet again to get out of the groping hands of the 200  year old undead pirate Jean Lafitte, her newly appointed partner shows up. A partner she had no idea was coming, or felt she needed.
Their investigation takes them around the city finding clues that may lead to what happened to Gerry. A combination of entertaining and dangerous characters that reveal clues that this could be a mystery beyond finding Gerry, but some of the beings that were released just may be planning something bigger.

With a combination of otherworldly characters (like famous ghosts finding their way back home) to the soldiers and the every day people trying to clean up after the storm. To the run-in with some very powerful voodoo magic. I’m not sure what else I could have asked for, humor, with light romance and a mystery that goes beyond just a missing persons case with entertaining and humorous situations and a twist ending.

I love stories that involve a combination of different characters and possibilities of which direction the story can go. This opens up the series to have a variety of directions it can go in the future in both the magical world and the mundane. DJ is just touching on some of her magical powers and has a potential in becoming a beloved heroine in today’s  Urban Fantasy world. She is strong, determined, and loyal.

Royal Street is a must read debut novel, it can only get better from here.

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We love this review from the Australian Bookshelf for Sharp Turn:

I loved the chemistry between these two in Sharp Shooter as the author managed to convince me that Nick and Tara would make a better couple than Nick and his drug addicted wife. The tension continues in this sequel, but Tara is very much inexperienced in dealing with emotional issues and so chooses to deal with them via avoidance. This suits her impulsive personality perfectly, as she is always jumping from one thing to another and winding up in situations that are impossible to escape from. I liked that Cass, the unruly teenager who turns up on Tara’s doorstep had a much bigger role in the sequel. Tara, Cass and her bizarre bodyguard Wal make a hilarious team.

The Tara Sharp series is exciting, funny and slightly outrageous at times but completely engrossing and a lot of fun!

For humour crime genre fans- this series is a must!

Read the full review here.

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Reviewed by Krista Mckeeth

EXPERIENCE THE ULTIMATE IN VIRTUAL REALITY. The Demi-Monde is the most advanced computer simulation ever devised. Created to prepare soldiers for the nightmarish reality of urban warfare, it is a virtual world locked in eternal civil war. Its thirty million digital inhabitants are ruled by duplicates of some of history’s cruelest tyrants: Reinhard Heydrich, the architect of the Holocaust; Beria, Stalin’s arch executioner; Torquemada, the pitiless Inquisitor General; Robespierre, the face of the Reign of Terror. But something has gone badly wrong inside the Demi-Monde, and the US President’s daughter has become trapped in this terrible world. It falls to eighteen-year-old Ella Thomas to rescue her, yet once Ella has entered the Demi-Monde she finds that everything is not as it seems, that its cyber-walls are struggling to contain the evil within and that the Real World is in more danger than anyone realizes.

“The Demi-Monde: Winter” is the first installment in a gripping, brilliantly imagined series about a virtual world dominated by history’s most terrifying villains, and the one young woman who will risk everything to stop them.

Hardcover, 517 pages Published December 27th 2011 by William Morrow (first published January 1st 2011)

I was intrigued by this novel as it was described as several different genres put into a single story: Science Fiction, Steampunk, Fantasy, Dystopian, Thriller. At 517 pages the book is a hefty read, but not only does it include all of the above, it’s an incredibly dense read involving heavy politics, military, 19th century history, computer technology and Vampires? Yes, but not the supernatural ones we are used to reading about today.

The book is set in the year 2018 and the writing is different style than I have ever read. The reader spends most of the novel inside the Demi Monde which is a computer virtual reality game loosely based of the late Victorian age of the 19th century that harbours some of the most dangerous psychopaths in history as players in the game. Inside the game there is no electricity, engines, or weapons (like nukes) that we would use in our wars today. The language is also a combination of wordplay as well as the mixture we get from the villains that are pulled from history; Nazi’s, America’s Civil War.  Here are some words from the glossary for example: HimPerialism, Suffer-O-Gettism, HerEticalism, ImPuritanism, UnFunDaMentalism, LessBien.

The twist to the story is that if you die inside the Demi-Monde you also die in real life. The characters begin taking on a life of their own and trying to adapt to their new world as well – it’s above and beyond just a game. It’s a world that contains some of our world’s most dangerous people from history in one very small space, programmed to help our troops training for war. Quite possibly a more dangerous world than just sending our troops to the real battle field with our more advanced technology. But when the President’s daughter is taken hostage by one of these characters, there is no choice but to rescue her or let her die at his hands. Although when I found Norma’s rescuer was to be a 18 year old Jazz singer, I was a bit confused at the choice honestly. But overall I found Ella to be my favourite character. She is funny, smart, fast thinking and overall the most entertaining character in a war-driven world.

If you’re looking to dive into a completely new, interesting and unique world of politics, war and psychopaths, you may want to give this one a try. But be aware this book is dense. It has several different concepts, and the wording and world building is detailed and dense as well. Also, there are more books to come, so beware of the cliff-hanger to this highly imaginative and crazy story.

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Reviewed by Krista Mckeeth

LAPD lieutenant detective Decker and his wife, Rina, have willingly welcomed fifteen-year-old Gabriel Whitman, the son of a troubled former friend, into their home. While the enigmatic teen seems to be adapting easily, Decker knows only too well the secrets adolescents keep—witnessed by the tragic suicide of another teen, Gregory Hesse, a student at Bell and Wakefield, one of the city’s most exclusive prep schools.

Gregory’s mother, Wendy, refuses to believe her son shot himself and convinces Decker to look deeper. What he finds disturbs him. The gun used in the tragedy was stolen—evidence that propels him to launch a full investigation with his trusted team, Sergeant Marge Dunn and Detective Scott Oliver. But the case becomes darkly complicated by the suicide of another Bell and Wakefield student—a death that leads them to uncover an especially nasty group of rich and privileged students with a predilection for guns and violence. Decker thought he understood kids, yet the closer he and his team get to the truth, the clearer it becomes that he knows very little about them, including his own charge, Gabe. The son of a gangster and an absent parent, the boy has had a life filled with too much free time, too many unexplained absences, and too little adult supervision.

Before it’s over, the case and all its terrifying ramifications will take Decker and his detectives down a dark alley of twisted allegiances and unholy alliances, culminating at a heart-stopping point of no return

This story is evenly divided between the perspectives of Lieutenant Decker and fifteen year old Gabe, both personalities come off as pretty relaxed and easy going, until a problem hits. Then they are on their toes and fast thinkers.

I enjoyed the fact that even at the age of fifteen, Gabe was a very intelligent boy, but like most teenage boys the thought of sex drives most of his storyline. I believe that the relationship that slowly builds between Yasmine (14) and Gabe (15) was incredibly romantic. Although in the more mature scenes between them, I had a hard time picturing her as visually looking “10-12″ years old (as she is described by the author). The connection they had together from their love of music, piano, opera was a nice pace of story to break up the intense detective work that the lieutenant was going through.

The Lieutenant and his staff are working to figure out how the boy that committed suicide got the gun. This detective work, along with the additional suicide of a girl that attended the same school, starts to trigger more questions. As the deceased teenagers property starts to turn up missing the school and it’s students are getting inspected further and further as they try to connect the missing links.

There is very clearly a gang of students that stand out and the only question is why is there a “mafia” group at a prestigious high school, and what is their involvement with guns and drugs.

The story raps up with some very dangerous Gun Games. With a combination of sex, drugs, gangs and guns this story reads like a gangster movie.

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; First Edition first Printing edition (January 3, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062064320
• ISBN-13: 978-0062064325

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