29
Jan 2011

Written in Blood by Sheila Lowe

By 2 Comments

A Hollywood forensic handwriting expert, Claudia Rose, finds herself unwillingly entangled in the private life of her client, the young and beautiful Paige Sorensen. Paige’s much older husband, Torg, has died of a stroke, leaving her his entire estate and the Sorensen Academy, a school for girls with ‘special emotional needs’.

Paige’s stepchildren, who are older than her, are furious about their father’s will and have accused her of forging his signature. Bert Falkenberg, Paige’s assistant at the school, however, claimed to be present when the ailing Torg signed it. Now it is up to Claudia to determine the genuineness of the signature on the will.

After meticulous examination, Claudia affirms that the signature on the will is indeed Torg’s, which means that Paige won the case and she gets to keep her inheritance. The children are even more furious and sent one too many a threat to both Claudia and Paige.

Claudia also becomes extremely concerned with a student from the academy, Annabelle Lee, a rebellious young girl who once attempted suicide. She learns that Annabelle’s mother died when she was younger and her film producer father who only cares about reputation and making the next big hit.

Throughout the novel, more revelations dawn upon Claudia, so much more than she can handle. When Paige and Annabelle go missing, Claudia goes all out to find them, concerned with their safety, especially Annabelle’s. Deciding that she’s on her own, Claudia also brushes off all warnings from her detective boyfriend, Jovanic, who claims that Annabelle is only using her.

Written In Blood is a forensic handwriting mystery that will keep you turning the pages fast to find out what’s next. I’ve not read any kind of handwriting mystery before but I can say this was an enjoyable and enlightening book. There is so much to be learned from a person’s handwriting.

The title may be a put-off for some people who might think that it’s a thriller with gory and bloody scenes. Before reading the book’s summary, I thought that way too. Well, there is one such scene but I’m sure most readers can handle it.

The author, Sheila Lowe, is also a court-qualified handwriting expert. She has three other mystery books featuring Claudia Rose – Poison Pen, Last Writes and Dead Write.

***Thanks to Sheila Lowe for sending me this book for review.

Popularity: 12%

Categories: Authors L, Genre - Mystery, Titles W
10
Jun 2010

Collision of Evil by John J. Le Beau

By 9 Comments

An American tourist is murdered while hiking in the woods in Germany. It was his luck as he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The tourist, Charles Hirter had seeked shelter in a cave only to find some mysterious crates stored there. Before he could emerge out of the woods, he was savagely murdered by the person who’s been guarding the hidden crates in the cave.

Highly unfortunate for the murderer, Charles’ brother, Robert Hirter happens to be a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. He is determined to solve his brother’s murder case, together with German detective Kommissar Franz Waldbaer who is in charge of the case.

As they work hard in their investigations, they make a lot of discoveries which lead to more questions. Desperate for more clues, Robert accepted the invitation to meet up with a mysterious stranger who wished to tell him a story which can be a background for the murder situation. The stranger turned out to be a veteran soldier of the Third Reich and he tells Robert about how his and other soldiers’ final mission where they had to transport some crates with unknown contents.

It’s been awhile since I read a mystery novel or a thriller. I was hoping for this to be action-packed or at least be a quick read where I’ll be flipping through the pages to know what’s next. However, it was quite slow in the beginning and slower in the middle. The process of Robert unraveling the mystery of the murder case seemed never-ending. Only towards the end of the story did the real action begin.

Mysteries and thrillers usually have some romance going on between the main character, if male, and the leading female character. Well, there’s not much romantic relationships in the story but there is a hint of romance between Robert and a fellow CIA officer, Caroline, though they’ve only met a couple of times and mainly communicated via phone during the course of the investigation. He’s in Germany while she’s in the United States.

Judging from the cover of the book, one can guess what the story’s about. There’s the Swastika or the Hakenkreuz logo as used by Nazi Germany and an image of some Islamic writing. I guessed earlier that it has to be connected to Nazi Germany and terrorism. The title of the novel has been cleverly thought of too, since it’s about the idea of an evil past threatening to intersect with the evil present. Thus, it’s a collision of evil.

And oh my, there is a very gruesome murder scene in the novel, carried out by the villain. I have to applaud Mr Le Beau for describing it so well that I cringed when I read it. Actually, there is a lot of description in the novel which is why it is relatively wordy.

It’s a good story though only if it were written in a faster-paced manner. Collision of Evil is John J. Le Beau’s first novel, by the way. He served as a clandestine operations officer in the CIA for over 25 years.

***Thanks to Maryglenn McCombs for sending me an ARC of this novel to review.

Other reviews: Bookjourney, Secret Dreamworld of a Bookaholic

Popularity: 3%

Categories: Authors L, Genre - Thriller, Titles C
12
Oct 2008

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

By 17 Comments

Margaret Murry or Meg as she’s called, is quite an awkward young girl who’s not popular in school. She wears glasses and has braces, the typical description for girls who are unpopular. Nobody understands her in school, not even her teachers. She also doesn’t do well in lessons but in reality, she’s extremely brilliant at Math! It’s because she finds the teaching methods in school too different from what her father used to teach her.

Her father has been missing for quite a long time. People gossiped that he’s probably run away with another woman. He used to write to the family but stopped after a while. Meg’s mother still continues to write letters to him but they go unanswered and this has caused more unkind stories to be spread about the Murry family.

Meg has 3 younger brothers, 10-year-old Sandy and Dennys are twins while five-year-old Charles Wallace is the youngest. Meg is closest to Charles Wallace and usually turns to him for comfort after having a bad day. He also seems to know what she’s thinking, making Meg feel that he can actually read her mind. Besides Meg, Charles Wallace also always knows what their mother is thinking and feeling.

One day, Charles gets Meg to go with him to a supposedly haunted house to meet three strange women with strange names: Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which. They reveal that they are there to help Meg and Charles find their father who is in grave danger. Another boy, Calvin joins them too. He is considered to be of the same kind as Charles Wallace so he’s accepted by the three women to take part in their journey.

After that, they travel to another planet that’s very, very, very far away from Earth and they discover something sinister called IT. IT has captured their father and they have to save him. IT is evil. IT wants everybody to act like robots and unable to think for themselves. IT is in favour of uniformity. IT is also just a brain. I have no idea why IT was represented in the form of a brain though. The only way to handle IT is to try to resist what IT wants them to do.

One of my favourite parts in this book is Meg’s and Charles’ encounter with Calvin where Charles interrogated Calvin and Calvin being surprised that Charles wasn’t as dumb as everyone else thought he was. It shows that you can’t truly judge a person unless you got to know them! Actually I find Charles Wallace an absolutely interesting character. Such bombastic words and ideas from a mere five-year-old!

I decided to read A Wrinkle in Time because a lot of other people have already read and loved it. It’s also a banned book so I wanted to find out what could contribute to it being such a book. This story reminds me of something out of a Diana Wynne Jones book. I can’t say that I really liked this book. It wasn’t thoroughly enthralling but still something that we need to read. There are some scientific terms in it and they are explained in simple ways so even science-phobic readers can easily understand how science plays a part in the story.

Other Bloggers’ Reviews: Nymeth, Natasha, Book Dads, Trin, Penny

Popularity: 3%

Categories: Authors L, Genre - YA Classics, Titles A
28
Mar 2008

Astro Socks by Leigh M. Le Creux

By 4 Comments

Astro Socks is a brilliantly written book about a young boy who wants to make a pair of socks for his baby sister. Chris is 10 years old and his younger sister is Rachel. One of Rachel’s socks can’t seem to stay on her feet for long. When she’s in her Jolly Jumper and she kicks hard, a sock will fall off. That’s why Chris is determined to find out how to make the perfect pair of socks for her.

Chris is smart as well as inquisitive. He likes to find out how things worked and his parents are proud to have a son like him. They are caring, considerate, and they encourage him to not give up on things easily. Oh, Chris would like to be an inventor one day too.

So, Chris starts his research on how to make socks that’ll stay put on his sister’s feet. He looks up for information on the Internet and finally sends a simple e-mail to a company that makes space suits for astronauts. Little did he know that that e-mail will help make his dream come true, that is becoming an inventor.

This book would be a very good read for children. I like the cover (simple and light) and there are also some cute drawings scattered throughout the book. The drawings were drawn by Leigh’s son and his classmates! This makes the book quite different from the others.

With the book’s simple language, I believe it could help children with their language and vocabulary. Children and adults alike would certainly enjoy reading about Chris and how he tries to solve the sock problem, as Chris appears to be an average and likeable kid. The sock crisis is a new one too. I was eager to find out Chris’ solution to the problem.

Astro Socks is Leigh Le Creux’s first novel. She’s working on her second one too, so open up your eyes and ears for more news!

***I’d like to thank Leigh M. Le Creux for sending me a copy of this book to review!

Popularity: 3%

Categories: Authors L, Genre - Children's Books, Titles A
08
Nov 2007

The Best Little Girl in the World by Steven Levenkron

By 9 Comments

Fat and Skinny had a race
All around the pillow case
Fat fell down and broke her face
Skinny said, ‘Ha-ha, I won the race.’

The Best Little Girl in the World sounds like a really simple title, doesn’t it? Well, this story is much more than simple actually. My sister recommended this book for me to read. I wondered why she never recommended it earlier!

The ‘little girl’, Francesca Louise Dietrich, a normal teenager who loves ballet and goes for ballet lessons. At the beginning of the story, Francesca has already begun to hate her ‘fat body’. Then, I think her ballet teacher made matters worse by telling her to be slim and firm herself up. But I guess her teacher meant for her to diet in a healthy way.

Anyway, Francesca created a new name for herself: Kessa. In her mind, Kessa is thin and perfect whereas Francesca is fat and ugly. So that’s how her obsession of becoming thin started. She drifted away from her family and friends and also from food altogether.

I was quite annoyed with her mother, Grace and also her father, Harold. Kessa must have become terribly thin already and always made up excuses not to eat her food but her parents did not entirely force her to eat. They let her do anything she wants initially. When she complained about the food, they merely scolded her but didn’t make her eat.

After some time, her father could not take it anymore and stood over her and made her eat up her food. However, they did not know that she would throw up all the food she ate in the toilet. And yet they wonder why she’s still so thin. Finally, Kessa’s pediatrician advised her parents to let Kessa see a psychiatrist, a Dr Smith.

Things did not really go well with Dr Smith and Kessa stopped seeing him. Then, her parents took her to another psychiatrist, Sandy Sherman. Well, at least Sherman sounds better than Smith, Kessa’s father thought. Yeah, he’s better too because he made Kessa trust him and confide in him.

Kessa’s condition did not improve, as she still won’t eat and finally landed in the hospital. I like her roommate, Lila, who’s very straightforward and full of common sense. She tells Kessa it’s silly to NOT want to eat when they have food right in front of them. Then what about poor people who don’t have food? Poor people don’t simply starve themselves to become thinner. It’s logical, isn’t it?

I think this is the first book about anorexia nervosa that I’ve read. So far, I’ve only watched a movie, Hunger Point, which is also about an anorexic girl. The Best Little Girl in the World has been an insightful book but at some parts where Kessa was examining herself and when she was counting the number of ribs she has, I felt sort of uncomfortable for her. If one could count the number of ribs one has, then that person ought to feel extremely hungry! I know I will.

This book has its good and bad sides. The good part is that it’ll give us an idea of how an anorexic thinks. The bad part is it may help people become anorexics, which is just bad, bad, bad. Therefore, I recommend that you only READ it for information but NOT to copy what Kessa did. It sounds logical, isn’t it?

In short, when you are hungry, EAT! Your body will thank you for it.

Popularity: 59%

Categories: Authors L, Genre - YA Fiction, Titles B