Force of Nature by Jane Harper (2018) Pan MacMillan Australia 

Five women go on a team building hike in the Australian bush - only four return.

Federal Police Agent, Aaron Falk wants to find her because she is the whistleblower on a case he is building against the company where she works.

The story's tension is built through the landscape and the discordant personalities of the women.

Will searchers find the woman?  Did one of her coworkers do something to her?  Did she really leave on her own?

The story is dark in a dreary environment.  Like Harper's book, The Dry, Falk has his own demons to deal with while he methodically goes about solving the case.

Burn Bright by Patricia Briggs (2018) Penguin Random House 

Bran Cornick, the Marrok, or leader of the North American werewolves, is out of town and unreachable.  Charles, his son, has been left in charge and Anna, his wife, an Omega whose presence can calm the wolf inside someone who is having trouble with control, are given an emergency that threatens not only wildings, but the entire pack.Someone has captured one of the wildings, one who is married to a high elf and living in seclusion in the mountains in Montana.  When Charles and Anna go to see what is wrong, they find their captured werewolf in a cage and are ambushed by other werewolves with a witch gun and rifles.  Rather than let their captive escape, they kill her.  The elf’s response is to cause earthquakes as he takes his own life.

There is a traitor in the pack.

Leah, Bran’s mate, makes assignments to check on the other wildings and pairs Charles with another wolf, Sage, and pairs Anna with Asil, the Moor.  Each of these have their own history.  This is part of what makes the series interesting to read.  There are no flat or cardboard characters in the world of the story.

Every book in the series is a page turner and I watch for more stories by this excellent storyteller.

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (2000) A Corgi Book

Robert Langdon is at it again.  The professor is called early in the morning and invited to Cern in Switzerland.  There is an extraordinary jet waiting for him that gets him to Cern in an hour out of Boston.  There he is asked to look at a dead man because of what happened to him.  He was murdered and branded with a Illuminati done as an ambigram; it can be read upside down or right-side up.As usual there is a beautiful, vulnerable, and strong woman at his side throughout the story.  In this case, she is the victim’s daughter.  There is also a memorable directory of CERN, and the key players in Rome as they prepare to elect a new Pope.

Brown certainly leads the story with almost constant rising action, never letting Langdon have a moment to relax.

The Dead Town by Dean Koontz (2011) Bantam Books

The fifth and final book in Koontz’s Frankenstein series.  Like the rest of the series, the story is set in our timeline.  Victor Frankenstein is still alive and wants to take over the world.  Deucalion, Frankenstein’s creature, plans to stop his creator.

Over 200 years have passed since lightning infused Deucalion with life.  Now he must face his creator in a showdown that will either destroy the world or save it.

Dean shows us that people can have faith in each other in the darkest of times.  They can choose to give in to fear, or they can stand-up for each other, their family, and their community.  Even at the ultimate cost of doing what is right.

The writing never drags.  All five of the volumes keep you turning the page.  Reading this book will reveal how and why Frankenstein and Deucalion have survived.  It also reveals how imperfection sometimes is only a mask over a good heart.

I’m hoping Mr. Koontz continues to write such engaging characters in his future titles

Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire (2009) DAW Books

October Daye is a changeling, her Mother is a Daoine Sidhe and her father is human.  She was a licensed private investigator in San Francisco, then she was hit with a curse and spent 14 years as a fish in a pond.  Eventually the curse wore off and she returned.  But she was declared dead and her former partner and her daughter won’t see her, and she lost her license.  She thinks everyone is mad at her and refuses to see anyone else or answer her phone.  But when she does check her messages, a powerful Sidhe has left another curse on her and she must find the fae’s murderer and bring them to justice or die herself.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jamisin (2010) Orbit Books

Yeine is the ennu, the leader of her tribal region of Darr.  They are considered barbarians.  Her mother, though, was the heir of the man who rules the world.  But they were estranged, and her mother has died.  Yeine is called to her grandfather’s city where he informs her that she is to be named one of three heirs to his seat.  She does not like the Sky city or the people of that land, though she is a half-blood of the same people.  These people, the Aerimeri rule with the weapons they made of gods when the gods were enslaved to them.  Yeine discovers that she has been named an heir so that she can be sacrificed in the succession ritual.  But she also befriends the enslaved gods and discovers that one of the original three gods was killed, but a part of her soul was left behind.  In a bargain to save her father, her mother agreed to let them put the last remnants of the goddess’s soul into her baby, Yeine.

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

A good example of how it's hard to write a sequel.  Half the book covers how the main character pushed further development of a headset that the founder of the game world designed but did not manufacture, how his income is unimaginable, his money spending is out of control and how he finds a new quest, which one of the founders tells him not to pursue and then he pays someone a million dollars to find the first clue.  This takes place over a decade.  The second half of the book takes place of eight hours.  In that half, a simulation of the one of the founders comes back to 'life', steals the Robes of Anorak back and infects the firmware of millions of players so they cannot log out and risk brain damage or death if the quest he puts forth to the hero is not completed within the time limit so the simulation can be reunited with a simulation of the girl he was never able to woo.  In the end, it turns out that both Anorak and his unrequited love are full uploads of the consciousness of those people.  To defeat Anorak, the founder who warned against the quest, Og, gives up his own life and our hero 'resurrects' him and he 'lives' with his love happily ever after in a computer sent to the stars.  Footnote: there is an element of embryo here that is not explored but could lead to a third book.

Razor Girl by Carl Hiaasen 

She likes to rear-end cars for hire and when the angry driver comes back to yell at her they are confronted with seeing her, skirt hiked-up, panties around her ankles and a razor in her hand, apologizing for shaving while driving on her way to a hot date.  She asks for a ride, then gets the driver to pull over in an out-of-the-way location.  This allows whoever hired her to grab the guy for whatever purpose they had in mind; extorsion, punishment, etc.  Then there’s Yancy, an ex-detective on Key West, trying to get his badge back, working as a health inspector, who’s girlfriend, a medical examiner in Miami is tired of the daily dead and goes to Norway.  Somehow, Yancy and the Razor Girl, Merry Mansfield, so she says, end up together.  Meanwhile there is a duck-dynasty look-alike show, whose main character is booked for a stand-up at a bar on Duval Street.  Merry rear-ended the wrong guy, the actor’s agent, and without proper coaching, the actor tells inappropriate jokes for the area.  He is chased out, only one of his chasers is his biggest fan, ala Misery.  And it gets funnier from there.