Book Review - Long After Midnight

Moved her father’s terminal illness, scientist Kate Denby is young, but has already dedicated years of her life to the development of anti-rejection formulas. Knowing she is on the verge of a breakthrough, Noah Smith – CEO of a pharmaceutical firm – implores Kate to help him make his new drug ‘RU2’ rejection-proof, so it can be brought to market. Not wanting to leave home and uproot her young son Joshua, Kate refuses Noah’s pleas time and time again…until her ex-husband is blown up in front of her eyes.

Kate is in terrible danger; the attack that killed her ex-husband was intended for her! It transpires that RU2 could cure a great many people of the illnesses that keep rival pharmaceutical company, Ogden, in business. Hence, Ogden are trying to destroy RU2 and anybody who could aid the project, including Kate, Joshua and Kate’s mother-in-law Phyliss. The pharmaceutical giant have a variety of tactics up their sleeve to get the job done, including blowing up Noah’s facilities, arranging protests against genetic research and, most terrifyingly, the use of Ishmaru; a Native American motivated to kill Kate in order to achieve the ‘coup’ of taking the life of a worthy victim.

To protect Kate and her family while they work on RU2, Noah calls on his friend Seth Drakin; a mercenary who will go to extraordinary lengths to protect his charges. So the story unfolds; the race to bring RU2 to market creating an almost tangible feeling of suspense that makes an intriguing backdrop for the developing relationships between Kate, Noah and Seth, as well as the emotional turmoil of young Joshua, who saw his father killed and now knows his mother is in danger as well.

Book Review - Natural Suspect By William Bernhardt

Them Crooked Vultures are a supergroup; a band made up of musicians who are already famous for their work, either individually or as part of other famous bands. With Natural Suspect, William Bernhardt has assembled himself a supergroup of mystery-writers, including Gini Hartzmark, Phillip Margolin and Laurence Shames, to name but a few.

The Story:

Rich owner of Hightower Oil, Arthur Hightower, has had enough of his cheating wife and deadbeat children and announces his intentions to disinherit the lot of them. Next thing we know, he’s been clubbed to death and shoved in the family freezer, where he is found clutching his wife’s pearl necklace. Being an alcoholic prone to blackouts, Julia Hightower finds herself without an alibi and, when police find Arthur’s blood on her blouse, she is immediately arrested and charged with cold-blooded murder.

Little-known lawyer Devin McGee steps in at this point, to defend Julia Hightower and, in the process, uncovers a staggering number of skeletons in an equally staggering number of closets!

Despite being a single story line, Natural Suspect is divided into chapters, each written by a different famous mystery writer! What’s more, with the exception of the first chapter, written by Bernhardt, there is no indication of who wrote which of the other chapters – giving the reader their own personal mystery to solve while the characters go about solving theirs.

Book Review - One Scream Away

AshBooks Review for One Scream Away by Kate Brady

A tale of domestic violence that has gone horribly wrong. A pyschopath released from prison, hell bent on finding his former wife, Beth, and the FBI agent roped in to protect her, and..-  you guessed it, they fall in love.

User Submitted Reviews:

One Scream Away was one of those books that you stay up late reading and that you can’t put down, and that you yell at whoever interrupts you because it was so addicting good

Book Review - 9 Dragons

AshBooks Review for Nine Dragons (Audio) by Michael Connelly, read by Len Cariou

A fast paced, gripping and dark novel about an LAPD detective immersed in the underworld to find the killer of a shopkeeper in his neighborhood. A world of triads, crime rings and illegal immigration carried out  by chinese gangs…

User Submitted Reviews:

“A good crime thriller, the plot keeps you guessing this is not a title to be missed.” – review by Haley

Book Review - Better Part of Darkness

AshBooks Review for The Better Part of Darkness by Kelly Gay:

Set in the not so distant future, where aliens live together with people who sometimes have supernatural power has been discovered that a drug that has been leaving everyone in comas and it is now up to two cops, Charlie and her partner, to get on the case. A sci-fi storyline meets detective thriller. Lots of sexual tension.

User Submitted Reviews:

Charlie was my kind of girl—totally kick-butt in every way, shape, and form. She was tough as nails, rock-hard, dedicated to her job, but she had her soft spots for those that she held closest to her.

Whilst responding to a call, newbie policewoman Amanda Sachs (who has never worked on a crime scene before) discovers a hand sticking out of some railway tracks! In her efforts to secure the scene, she manages to attract the attention of ex-head of NYPD forensics Lincoln Rhyme, who was forced to retire after being made quadriplegic during work on a scene. By combining Lincoln’s criminologist mind with Amanda’s body, the pair set out to gather as much evidence as possible about the crime. However, even as they work on this new scene, they discover another and, before long, they are tailing a brutal serial killer who manages to stay one-step ahead throughout, all the time luring the duo along behind him.

This tale is masterfully put together; the story of a physically disabled master-criminologist, striving to catch a vicious killer by making use of an inexperienced but dedicated new cop. By the time the end comes draws near, the terror becomes almost overwhelming as the physically helpless Lincoln finds himself a target of the sadistic Bone Collector. Widely considered Jeffery Deaver’s finest work and one of the greatest horror books of all time, The Bone Collector is clearly a masterpiece of the modern genre.

And here it is: the top 25 must have books by Chrismas this year! We cover everything from paperbacks to hardbacks, fantasy stories, biographies, suspense, thrillers, fiction, non-fiction, chicklit: you name it and its here.

	The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown’The Lost Symbol’ is the follow-up to Dan Brown’s bestselling ‘The Da Vinci Code’. Once again Robert Langdon finds himself in mysterious chambers, tunnels, temples and Masonic secrets. (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest by Steig LarssonSalander is plotting her revenge against the man who tried to kill her and against the government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life. After taking a bullet to the head, Salander is under close supervision in intensive care and is set to face trial for three murders. Can she prove her innocence? (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	Grow Your Own Drugs by James WongYou’ve got Boots the chemist growing in your back garden but you just don’t know it yet. This book features fantastically easy recipes for natural remedies and beauty treats. (image courtesy of Priceminister)(image courtesy of Priceminister)
	Assegai by Wilbur Smith1913. Leon Courtney is in British East Africa guiding rich and powerful men from America and Europe on safaris in the Masai tribe territories. One of his clients has a company which builds aircraft and vehicles for the Kaiser’s army. He hadn’t bargained on falling in love with Eva, the Count’s mistress.(image courtesy of Priceminister)
	D-Day by Antony BeevorMaking use of overlooked and new material from over 30 archives in half a dozen countries, ‘D-Day’ is a vivid and well-researched account yet of the battle of Normandy. (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	The Greatest Show on Earth by Rciahrd DawkinIn ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ Richard Dawkins takes on creationists, including followers of Intelligent Design and all those who question the fact of evolution through natural selection. (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	Audacity of Hope by Barack ObamaSenator Obama has written a book of transforming power. Only by returning to the principles that gave birth to the Constitution, he says, can Americans repair a political process that is broken, and restore to working order a government that has fallen dangerously out of touch with millions of ordinary Americans. (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	Pride And Prejudice And Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith and Jane AustinFeatures the text of Jane Austen’s novel, “Pride and Prejudice” with scenes of bone crunching zombie action (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	Jade: Forever in My Heart by Jade GoodyCovering the final heart-breaking months in the life of TV celebrity Jade Goody, this book describes her brave fight against a terminal disease, her determination to provide for her sons and her desire to leave a legacy which might prevent other young women being torn from their families in the prime of life. (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	Twenties Girl by Sophie KinsellaLara has always had an overactive imagination. Now she wonders if she is losing her mind. Normal twenty-something girls just don’t get visited by ghosts! But inexplicably, the spirit of Lara’s great aunt Sadie in the form of a bold, demanding Charleston-dancing girl has appeared to make one last request. (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	True Blood Omnibus by Charlaine HarrisSookie is an unassuming cocktail waitress in an (outwardly) unremarkable town. Attractive as she is, her hidden ‘talents’ send men running – her mindreading skills are just a bit threatening. When the unreadable Bill appears, he seems to be the man of her dreams. Except he’s not technically human. (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	4 Ingredients by Kim McCoskerThis cookbook features over 340 quick, easy and very delicious recipes you can easily whip up to wow your friends and family, and all fith only four or fewer ingredients. (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	Tea Time For The Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall SmithMma Ramotswe is widely known for many things. Everybody knows about her kindness&her taste for redbush tea&cake. Everybody is familiar, too, with her tiny white van, which is beginning to feel its age. Are its difficulties to be terminal, or will Charlie, the feckless garage apprentice, be able to save the day? (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	Rumour Has It by Jill Mansell(image courtesy of Priceminister)
	The Hairy Bikers’ Food Tour of Britain by Si King and Dave MyersBetter known as The Hairy Bikers – travel the length and breadth of Britain to discover our finest traditional foods. Touring the country on their trusty Harleys, Si and Dave celebrate local recipes and chefs from the villages and towns they explore (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	206 Bones by Kathy ReichsA routine case turns sinister when Dr Temperance Brennan is accused of mishandling the autopsy of a missing heiress. Someone has made an incriminating accusation and before Tempe can get to the one man with information he turns up dead. (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly(image courtesy of Priceminister)
	Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey NiffeneggerThis is a 21st century ghost story about Niffenegger’s familiar themes of love, loss and identity. It is certain to cement her standing as one of the most singular and remarkable novelists of our time. (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	Time of My Life by Patrick SwayzeIn the public eye for much of the 1980s, Patrick Swayze made his name in movies such as Dirty Dancing and Ghost. This book chronicles Patrick’s career, as well as dealing with his fight against pancreatic cancer. (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	Caribbean Food Made Easy with Levi Roots by Levi RootsIn the BBC2 programme, ‘Caribbean Food Made Easy’, Levi Roots travels around the UK and the Caribbean and reveals how delicious Caribbean food can be prepared at home with easy-to-prepare, mouth-watering recipes using fresh, healthy and readily-available ingredients. (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	Saturday Night Peter by Peter Kay’Saturday Night Peter’ charts the hilarious journey as Peter Kay developed and honed his comedy skills by taking to the road and trying out his stand up material in pubs and clubs across the country. (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	High Voltage Tattoo by Kate Von DKat Von D is an up and coming name in the world of tattooing and popular culture in general. Star of LA Ink and Miami Ink she has quickly made a name and style for herself. The book will include her story, what inspires her, information about her show and her shop, her sketches, and her personal tattoos (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	A Vintage Affair by Isobel WolffPhoebe Sanders runs her own vintage dress shop. But while she stitches and repairs couture suits and glorious dresses, there is something in Phoebe’s own past that she cannot restore, and which is stopping her searching for love. (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	The Cloud Collectors’ Handbook by Gavin Pretor-PinneyThis handbook fits into the pocket, allowing cloudspotters to identify cloud formations anytime and anywhere. All the common cloud types are represented, as are many of the rare ones, each are fully described and illustrated with a range of photographs. (image courtesy of Priceminister)
	Crystal by Katie PriceCrystal is beautiful, talented and ambitious. All her life she has dreamed of making it as a singer and her chance finally comes when her girl band enters a TV reality show contest. But Crystal has a secret; she’s fallen for the wrong man and this one mistake could cost her everything. (image courtesy of Priceminister)

Former shipping-heir Dickie Greenleaf has moved to Italy to live with his fiancée – something his parents are not very happy about. When they mistake Tom Ripley for an old friend of Dickie’s, they offer to pay Tom to go to Italy and convince their son to come home. Since his life is going nowhere and he is wanted by the law, Tom takes them up on the offer and flees America for Europe – so begins a classic tale.

When he arrives in Italy, Tom is struck by his idyllic surroundings and even successfully meets and befriends Dickie, as well as his fiancée, Marge. Quickly he decides this is the life for him and settles into his new surroundings with pleasure. Before long, however, things take a turn for the worse; Dickie’s parents realise Tom isn’t going to bring their son back and cease his payments. What’s more, Dickie and Marge declare that they are going on holiday and don’t want him to be there when they get back! Realising his new life is under threat, Tom takes drastic measure; taking Dickie out on boatride, he clubs him to death, sinks his body and steals his identity!

Fleeing again, this time to Rome, Tom Ripley (or Dickie Greenleaf, as he is now known) starts living a new life on dead-Dickie’s stipend cheques. Dickie’s friends, however, have noticed his disappearance and, as the banks start growing suspicious of Tom’s forged signatures, things get tricky for the Talented Mr. Ripley in one of my the most famous and classic books of all time.

Starting out of 1035, Valhalla Rising tells of a tribe of Vikings’ struggle to find a new place to settle in America. Shooting forward to 1894, we read of a sea monsters causing havoc for the local shipping in the Caribbean Sea. Finally, the tale settles in 2003, when the cruise ship Emerald Dolphin suddenly bursts into flames on its maiden voyage from Sidney to Tahiti. As the flames spread unnaturally fast, it looks like the all 2500 people aboard the ship are doomed.

Cue Dirk Pitt; National Underwater and Marine Agency engineer, who spots the burning ship and rushes to the rescue aboard Deep Encounter, an oceanographic survey vessel. Miraculously arriving in time to save thousands of lives, but not in time to stop Emerald Dolphin sinking into the depths, Dirk Pitt launches an investigation into what caused the disaster. What Dirk doesn’t realise is that sea monsters that now have him in their sights are both human and mechanical, both ancient and modern – Dirk is in deep this time.

Valhalla Rising is a kraken of a thriller than will grip your from beginning to end in the many tentacles of Clive Cussler’s imagination.

By now, most people are aware of the basic plot of this book: young man foolishly wishes that, upon seeing his current beateous youth captured forever in a picture, he could remain in that moment of youth forever, and the picture age in his stead. Not only that, but the picture becomes twisted and cruel as a result of the callous hedonistic behaviour perpetrated by Gray in his perpetual youth. At first, Gray is horrified, but then finds himself submitting to it…

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a fantastic novel, so fantastic that it made me sad that the eminently quoteable Wilde has only written the one. At one point, a bad-influencing friend of Dorian’s lends him a novel that Gray is charmed by, a novel that tells of a man who lives a hedonistic lifestyle, with care only for pleasure and enjoyment, and it’s this novel that kick-starts Gray’s eventual downfall as it affects Gray’s behaviour, leading him to eventually describe it as dangerous. Wilde’s novel is possibly one of these books: it’s seductive discussions on hedonism, pleasure, and the real joys of life almost make one want to throw mores out the window and life such a life oneself, or at least wish intensely for a period that one has or could. Henry Wotton, Gray’s witty, philosophical influence is a raconeteur, a man of life, who knows its pleasures and derides it’s follies, chosing simply to ignore them. It’s his discourses that are particularly charming and fascinating. There’s obviously a temperance to his message (in terms of the whole arc of the novel), but that’s almost neither here nor there. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a superb book, fascinating, witty, supremely intelligent and philosophical, romantic and gothic and chilling also. It’s one of those books that might lay a bomb under your life, and it deserves its classic status.

‘A heady late-Victorian tale of double-living’ – Sarah Waters
This edition of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’(1890)is better than other editions as it appears to be the most recent and up to date (Vintage Classics 2007). The introduction by novelist Irvine Welsh is a helpful insight into the novel’s structure and offers literary criticism. Both Welsh’s introduction and the epigraph before this provide basic and helpful information regarding the novel’s origin and Oscar Wilde’s life. From here, we are able to read the novel with a clearer view of the intertextuality, censorship and idea it created.
Such examples of intertextuality include ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’, ‘Frankenstein’ and the works of Shakespeare and theatre. These postmodern traits become more obviously identified once having read the introductions.
This edition is perfect for study or reading for pleasure.

A Dark Delicious Classic
Though The Picture of Dorian Gray is a short book it has hidden depths and very dark undertones. We first meet the image of Dorian Gray in a painting which Lord Henry Wotton sees at his artist friend’s house, Basil Hallward and falls in love with the painting as he thinks the person depicted may be one of the most beautiful and alluring people he has scene. When Dorian then arrives Henry sees in the flesh he is even more so. Soon the two people Bail is closest too and never wanted to meet have struck up an unlikely friendship and under Henry’s influence Dorian comes to believe youth and beauty are the only thing that matter. He then makes a fateful wish as he wants never to grow like the painting of him. He soon notices that indeed the picture does begin to age and as it does so it gets crueller looking as if the painting is the true Dorian himself.

Now if the plot wasn’t enough the book is also very much about society and which on a first read years ago I didn’t care for I completely and utterly loved. Looking at the upper classes who have endless money to burn and too much time on their hands other than to `chase the dragon’ or embark on affairs the thing they go very well is gossip and discuss. I could easily write endless wonderful quotes from the book as to what they say “he is sure to be furious and I couldn’t have a scene in this bonnet. It is far too fragile” and also how they are described “she was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked like they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest” in fact so many quotes it would probably make up 98% of the book.