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It is a fact that in 1976 there was a daring bank robbery staged in Beirut, Lebanon. A huge amount of gold bullion was removed and neither the perpetrators nor the gold has ever been found. Damien Lewis uses this as the backdrop to his fictional account not only of how the heist was performed, but also the aftermath of the events as they unfold years later in his new blockbuster Cobra Gold.

Damien is no novice to the authoring world, and has been hugely successful in the UK marketplace, his writing style is accomplished, and the plot and character development masterful. This is a high octane story that propels the reader at breakneck speed through a world of intrigue, greed, and terrorism. I suspect that Cobra Gold may be his well deserved big break into the North American book market, I’ll be watching the New York Times bestseller list for this one. Continue reading »

Grady Harp is an Amazon Top 10 Reviewer

IMPOSTERS
James Knoblauch , photographer and writer,  Shawna Kenney , commentary

IMPOSTERS is a collection of photographs with commentary taken from life on Hollywood Boulevard, in Hollywood. For years all manner of people have, for various reasons not the least of which is the money in tips they enjoy, dressed as famous stars or characters from the movies, parading up and down Hollywood Boulevard, preening for the tourists, and acting out fantasies of their own.

Photographer James Knoblauch has captured 36 of these ‘imposters’, people of all types who daily don the garb of famous figures and walk the Boulevard in a particular type of performance art!  Not only is the experience of viewing this book entertainingly funny, but it is also touching.  It is very Hollywood in every sense of the connotation. Continue reading »

Ricochet
by P.M. Terrell

This book had me hooked from the very first sentence.

P.M. Terrell is a master storyteller. In “Ricochet” the author uses her real-life experience in computers and software to weave a diabolical story including terrorism, murder, espionage and illegal immigration. It is fast moving from the very beginning to the end.

The story begins when Sheila Carpenter is in the wrong place at the wrong time. She and her “shopaholic” best friend, Margaret, decide to go the mall the day before Sheila is due to start the FBI academy.

While they are waiting for food, Sheila notices a person acting and dressing strangely right before everything goes black in a huge explosion. When Sheila comes to, she finds she is buried in the rubble and having trouble breathing due to the fire. Continue reading »

Harriet Klausner is Amazon’s #1 Reviewer

The Age of the Conglomerates: A Novel of the Future
Thomas Nevins

In 2048, the Conglomerates political party led by the mythical “Chairman” runs the country based on one commandment: strict enforcement of economic law using force.

The country has been divided into zones of sorts; the octogenarian “Coots” live in Cootsland enforced retirement camps in the southwest out of sight and not draining society while out of control young runaway “Dyscards” live in the New York City subways.

New York Medical Center, director of genetic contouring Dr. Christine Salter feels strongly that she and her team provide an important public service when they assist people in trouble by recreating them or their children using genetic manipulation. However, her perfectly balanced world collapses starting with her top aide Gabriel Cruz vanishing after being accused of seditious crimes against the state. Continue reading »

Grady Harp is an Amazon Top 10 Reviewer. 

HUNTING THE KING
by Peter Clenott

One of the joys of reading ‘first novels’ is the pleasure of discovering a mature writer who is able to construct a book with a strong idea, a solid cast of varied and wholly credible characters, and the ability to pull it all together with elegant writing.

Peter Clenott seems to have the qualities that define a writer of class - a rich imagination, a commitment to research, a facile way with words, a sense of the arc of a story line that is as smooth throughout the curve, and a style that manages to make a complex story very easy to follow. Continue reading »

Harriet Klausner is Amazon’s #1 Reviewer

George Bailey felt he lived “A Wonderful Life” until the dot.com collapse wiped out his wealth; worried about the impact on his family, he thinks back to his youth when his grandfather seemed contented whether he was wealthy or broke.

Needing inspiration to get past his gloom and doom, George goes to the place of his nineteenth century roots, Abbeville, Illinois.

This is where his grandfather Karl Schumpeter began working at as a clerk at his uncle’s logging company before going to Chicago during the 1893 Exposition to trade in grain futures. After getting married, Karl returns to Abbeville where he thrives as a banker. In his late thirties Karl goes to France as part of the ambulance corps as WWI ignites Europe. Continue reading »

It’s war on the Finnish front for Porta, Tiny, Barcelona and The Legionnaire - and it’s hellish, with ice, blood, cold and wolves (in addition to the enemy)! At this point in the war, it hardly matters who wins - as long as you survive.

But even survival can be dangerous in this army where Hitler’s fanatics are running wild. To endure the Russian tanks, the machine guns and flame throwers could mean getting shipped to the infamous and brutal Torgau Prison where conditions are even more savage than the battlefield.

To stay alive now means arrest, court martial, and in the end - - a cold grey day facing the execution squad!

NY Times best-selling author, Steve Alten, famous for his thrillers that include MEG and The LOCH, wrote his latest novel, The Shell Game as a cautionary tale because he felt compelled to warn the American people to start getting the facts regarding oil, specifically what lies ahead when world reserves finally run out.

Have you ever really thought about what would happen if we do run out of oil? According to Alten, through his extensive contacts and research, the end will begin with higher gasoline prices, fuel shortages at the pump, power failures… but things will get worse… a lot worse.

Alten warns, “Without oil, we simply can’t feed the six billion of us that inh abit this planet and there presently is no substitute for oil. Oil is used in pesticides, fertilizers, industrial farming equipment…transporting goods to market. Without oil, vast numbers of our population will starve. We’re looking at martial law…anarchy…a massive die-off. Continue reading »

Grady Harp is an Amazon Top 10 Reviewer

The title of this first novel by Aseem K. Giri, IMPOSTERS AT THE GATE: A NOVEL ABOUT PRIVATE EQUITY, can be daunting to readers who are not comfortable with the vocabulary and workings of high finance. Being one of those uninformed money market folks, this reader had a tough time getting into this novel.

Not that the style of writing is stilted or obscure - it actually flows well and the author has a great flair for written conversation and character painting - but the topic is like a foreign language, something that takes some work to follow. Continue reading »

Grady Harp is an Amazon Top 10 Reviewer

Jeff Vande Zande writes beautifully. His style is one of concentrated poetic prose that seizes on fragmentary moments of observed nature in the wild and nature in the very rough state of human vulnerability and confusion and disrepair, forming from these puzzle pieces a tale that is at once solid in structure and challenging in content.

Two days in the life of an antihero occupy the pages of  Into the Desperate Country, and while the pace of the book in unrelentingly brisk, the author finds time to raise questions concerning goals and lack of same, approach/avoidance conflicts of relationships, the isolation of contemporary man longing for life to make sense, the panic of coping with society’s expectations instead of following personal dreams, death, and many other breathless issues.

It is a book that entertains as fast as a flash on the river of life and yet pushes the envelope of reader participation just when it seems that ‘thinking’ is least needed. Continue reading »