BOOK REVIEW: Robert Crais doesn’t seem to follow the same book-a-year schedule as most authors, so when he puts a new book out, it’s cause for celebration and high expectations … and The Promise delivers. This book brings not only Elvis Cole and Joe Pike back together, but also unites them with other characters from his non-Cole/Pike books. The plot–which concerns terrorism and explosives–moves along at a whirlwind pace … except when Crais feels the need to interject chapters written from the bomb-sniffing dog Maggie’s perspective. Hey…if I want to read a book from a dog’s perspective, I’ll read The Art of Racing in the Rain. I found myself skipping those chapters, and enjoying the book a whole hell of a lot more as a result. Four Stars if you skip the Maggie chapters. Three Stars if you read them.

BOOK REVIEW: The Crossing is the latest Harry Bosch novel by Michael Connelly, and it’s another solid book. (How he keeps it up, I have no idea…) It’s got a plot that will grip you from the get-go: Bosch’s half-brother, the Lincoln Lawyer Mickey Haller, needs him to look into a murder that will help him clear his client of the crime. Doing it will mean that Bosch has to cross the aisle to the defense side of things, and perhaps burn bridges with the police department in the process. The only annoying thing about the book was that Connelly seemed to try to work different meanings of “The Crossing” into every facet of the book, and I found myself getting distracted each time he did it. Read the book and you’ll see what I mean. Four Stars.

BOOK REVIEW: Ever read a book that you thought was great, but you had this feeling that you’d be disappointed by the end? That’s what I felt about Trust No One by New Zealand author Paul Cleave. What a great premise: a crime writer with Alzheimer’s starts having bodies pile up around him .. and all signs point to him as the murderer. The title comes from the fact that everybody around him seems to be lying to him and manipulating him … and it’s almost a certainty that one of them is involved in the murders, if not the murderer him or herself. But around page 100, I was pretty sure who the culprit was, and by the end, I realized I’d been right. And with the exception of a small twist after the climax, that was enough of a letdown for me to put this book squarely in the mediocre category. Three Stars.