Spotlight Archives
A Delicate Truth
By John le Carré
Reviewed by OFW editor:
Carlos J Cortes
Publish Date: June 17, 2013
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Any novel of LeCarré, but in particular his later works, should be a master class for any writer. For readers is a different matter; some consider his prose extraordinary while others find it too convolute.
If a writer approaches his novels like he would a text in narrative structure, I’m sure he will find awe inspiring LeCarre’s flashback mechanics. We’re often warned about flashbacks not because they’re wrong, but on account of their difficulty. With shifting POV’s and narrative tenses, flashbacks are the hardest techniques to master....more
Dead Ever After: The Final Sookie Stackhouse Novel
By Charlaine Harris
Reviewed by OFW editor:
Renée Miller
Publish Date: June 10, 2013
There are secrets in the town of Bon Temps, ones that threaten those closest to Sookie—and could destroy her heart...
Sookie Stackhouse finds it easy to turn down the request of former barmaid Arlene when she wants her job back at Merlotte’s. After all, Arlene tried to have Sookie killed. But her relationship with Eric Northman is not so clearcut. He and his vampires are keeping their distance…and a cold silence. And when Sookie learns the reason why, she is devastated.
Then a shocking murder rocks Bon Temps, and Sookie is arrested for the crime....more
There are secrets in the town of Bon Temps, ones that threaten those closest to Sookie—and could destroy her heart...
Sookie Stackhouse finds it easy to turn down the request of former barmaid Arlene when she wants her job back at Merlotte’s. After all, Arlene tried to have Sookie killed. But her relationship with Eric Northman is not so clearcut. He and his vampires are keeping their distance…and a cold silence. And when Sookie learns the reason why, she is devastated.
Then a shocking murder rocks Bon Temps, and Sookie is arrested for the crime....more
Inferno
By Dan Brown
Reviewed by OFW editor:
Andrew Geary
Publish Date: June 03, 2013
In the latest Robert Langdon adventure, the story kicks off in a hospital where our hero discovers a few unsettling facts: he’s in Florence, Italy; he has endured a murder attempt by a person or persons unknown and he suffers amnesia.
How does he know all that if he’s amnesic? Easy: a pretty and a young female doctor named Sienna is at hand to lift the fog off Langdon’s brain. After a few more pages, an assassin looking remarkably like Lisbeth Salander of The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo series; thin, black spiky hair, clad in leather, riding a motorbike and wielding a gun, shoots herself into the hospital. At once, Langdon and the gorgeous blonde physician he’s met only a few minutes earlier, are on the run....more
In the latest Robert Langdon adventure, the story kicks off in a hospital where our hero discovers a few unsettling facts: he’s in Florence, Italy; he has endured a murder attempt by a person or persons unknown and he suffers amnesia.
How does he know all that if he’s amnesic? Easy: a pretty and a young female doctor named Sienna is at hand to lift the fog off Langdon’s brain. After a few more pages, an assassin looking remarkably like Lisbeth Salander of The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo series; thin, black spiky hair, clad in leather, riding a motorbike and wielding a gun, shoots herself into the hospital. At once, Langdon and the gorgeous blonde physician he’s met only a few minutes earlier, are on the run....more
A Plague of Zombies: An Outlander Novella
By Diana Gabaldon
Reviewed by OFW editor:
Renée Miller
Publish Date: May 27, 2013
Lord John Grey, a lieutenant-colonel in His Majesty’s army, arrives in Jamaica with orders to quash a slave rebellion brewing in the mountains. But a much deadlier threat lies close at hand. The governor of the island is being menaced by zombies, according to a servant. Lord John has no idea what a zombie is, but it doesn’t sound good. It sounds even worse when hands smelling of grave dirt come out of the darkness to take him by the throat. Between murder in the governor’s mansion and plantations burning in the mountains, Lord John will need the wisdom of serpents and the luck of the devil to keep the island from exploding....more
Lord John Grey, a lieutenant-colonel in His Majesty’s army, arrives in Jamaica with orders to quash a slave rebellion brewing in the mountains. But a much deadlier threat lies close at hand. The governor of the island is being menaced by zombies, according to a servant. Lord John has no idea what a zombie is, but it doesn’t sound good. It sounds even worse when hands smelling of grave dirt come out of the darkness to take him by the throat. Between murder in the governor’s mansion and plantations burning in the mountains, Lord John will need the wisdom of serpents and the luck of the devil to keep the island from exploding....more
Live by Night
By Dennis Lehane
Reviewed by OFW editor:
Carlos J Cortes
Publish Date: May 20, 2013
From the front flap.
Boston, 1926. The ‘20s are roaring. Liquor is flowing, bullets are flying, and one man sets out to make his mark on the world.
Prohibition has given rise to an endless network of underground distilleries, speakeasies, gangsters and corrupt cops. Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent Boston police captain, has long turned his back on his strict and proper upbringing. Now having graduated from a childhood of petty theft to a career in the pay of the city’s most fearsome mobsters, Joe enjoys the spoils, thrills, and notoriety of being an outlaw....more
The Bitch
By Les Edgerton
Reviewed by OFW editor:
Renée Miller
Publish Date: May 13, 2013
The Bitch explores the dark choices that Jake, as a two-time offender faces to save both his life and his soul—life imprisonment if caught for the third time under the federal ha-bitch-ual criminal law—known to outlaws as "The Bitch." Choices that may cost him everything and everyone he loves. What are the limits of loyalty? What is the spiritual process by which a savvy hair designer deteriorates into a mass murderer? A work in the cold existentialist tradition of Sartre and Camus, and the transgressive fiction of Celine, The Bitch struggles for answers and, on finding them, a way out....more
The Bitch explores the dark choices that Jake, as a two-time offender faces to save both his life and his soul—life imprisonment if caught for the third time under the federal ha-bitch-ual criminal law—known to outlaws as "The Bitch." Choices that may cost him everything and everyone he loves. What are the limits of loyalty? What is the spiritual process by which a savvy hair designer deteriorates into a mass murderer? A work in the cold existentialist tradition of Sartre and Camus, and the transgressive fiction of Celine, The Bitch struggles for answers and, on finding them, a way out....more
Our Kind of Traitor
By John le Carré
Reviewed by OFW editor:
Carlos J Cortes
Publish Date: May 06, 2013
The plot of Our Kind of Traitor, John le Carré’s thriller, has the vintage spy novel structure convoluted in the style of Alfred Hitchcock; a couple of innocent civilians caught in a high-stakes espionage intrigue. If you add the British Secret Services, the Russian Mafiya, exotic surrounds and a dash of Cold War atmosphere, you have the ingredients for this edge-of-the-seat thriller where the baddies are international bankers, organized crime, and money launderers, not the K.G.B....more
The Wives of Henry Oades
By Johanna Moran
Reviewed by OFW editor:
Renée Miller
Publish Date: April 29, 2013
When Henry Oades accepts an accountancy post in New Zealand, his wife, Margaret, and their children follow him to exotic Wellington. But while Henry is an adventurer, Margaret is not. Their new home is rougher and more rustic than they expected—and a single night of tragedy shatters the family when the native Maori stage an uprising, kidnapping Margaret and her children....more
When Henry Oades accepts an accountancy post in New Zealand, his wife, Margaret, and their children follow him to exotic Wellington. But while Henry is an adventurer, Margaret is not. Their new home is rougher and more rustic than they expected—and a single night of tragedy shatters the family when the native Maori stage an uprising, kidnapping Margaret and her children....more
The Rapist
By Les Edgerton
Reviewed by OFW editor:
Renée Miller
Publish Date: April 22, 2013
The Rapist introduces us to Truman Ferris Pinter, an amoral man occupying a prison cell for a heinous crime committed years earlier. Master storyteller Les Edgerton guides us on a haunting journey inside the criminal mind to show that no matter how depraved a person appears to be, there might still exist a spark of humanity.
It is these lines (Well, after the startling title and image that made me read the back cover.) which tempted me into buying “The Rapist.” The quiet dare that hides inside “…no matter how depraved a person appears to be, there might still exist a spark of humanity.”...more
The Rapist introduces us to Truman Ferris Pinter, an amoral man occupying a prison cell for a heinous crime committed years earlier. Master storyteller Les Edgerton guides us on a haunting journey inside the criminal mind to show that no matter how depraved a person appears to be, there might still exist a spark of humanity.
It is these lines (Well, after the startling title and image that made me read the back cover.) which tempted me into buying “The Rapist.” The quiet dare that hides inside “…no matter how depraved a person appears to be, there might still exist a spark of humanity.”...more
I Am Not a Serial Killer
By Dan Wells
Reviewed by OFW editor:
Katrina Monroe
Publish Date: April 15, 2013
I Am Not a Serial Killer is the first novel in a trilogy that follows the fifteen year old protagonist, John, as he discovers the presence of a real serial killer in his small home town. The reader has to decide who is the more frightening presence – the serial killer or John. Diagnosed as having “antisocial personality disorder,” John easily identifies with the actions of the serial killer and becomes elated at each new kill. ...more
I Am Not a Serial Killer is the first novel in a trilogy that follows the fifteen year old protagonist, John, as he discovers the presence of a real serial killer in his small home town. The reader has to decide who is the more frightening presence – the serial killer or John. Diagnosed as having “antisocial personality disorder,” John easily identifies with the actions of the serial killer and becomes elated at each new kill. ...more
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