The Wolf in Winter by John Connolly

The Wolf in Winter by John Connolly is the twelfth book in the lethal private detective Charlie Parker series, and comes after a long wait of more than two years since the release of the last book, The Wrath of Angels. The Charlie Parker series has come a long way since the publication in 1999 of Every Dead Thing, the first book in the series. Both lyrical and terrifying, the series follows Charlie Parker, a former detective with the New York Police Department, now a private eye, as he is on the trail of a serial killer known as ‘The Collector’ who is responsible for the brutal murders of his wife and young daughter. Though it is a cold case, Parker is determined to track down the killer and bring him to justice.

In The Wolf in Winter, John Connolly who is an extremely gifted author crafted a compelling plot that revolves around the death of a homeless man who is keen to find his missing daughter. As Jude was found hanged, the local police termed it as suicide but a close friend is far from convinced. He tracked down Parker and persuaded him to investigate. The trail of the dead homeless man led Parker to the small, closed and secretive town of Prosperous in Maine where he stumbled upon secrets that the townsfolk have zealously guarded for long. Can Parker uncover the whole truth or pay the ultimate price for his misadventure?

Author John Connolly’s characterization and compelling plot aided by his masterful writing allows the reader to embark on an epic journey of suspense, mystery and crime with elements of the supernatural which borders on the edge of horror. It is a mishmash of fantasy and thriller, a real page-turner that will delight long-time fans of the series. Unlike many other long-running series, the Charlie Parker series is showing no sign of is meandering and continues to be as sharp as ever. Absolutely mesmerizing and suspenseful, The Wolf in Winter is destined to be a bestseller.

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Flesh and Blood by Patricia Cornwell

It's Thursday, June 12, 2014 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr Kay Scarpetta is physically still at home though her mind has already left for the Florida vacation she had planned along with her FBI profiler husband, Benton Wesley. She's in a celebratory mood as it's her birthday and didn't quickly notice the bright copper coins that flashes like shards of aventurine glass on top of the old brick wall behind their house. Dr Scarpetta feels a chill at the edge of her thoughts. Is it someone merely playing a game with pennies or is there more intent to it than meets the eye? Why would someone leave seven shiny Lincoln pennies, all heads up and all dated 1981? Instantly, she realizes that her birthday plans are about to go off beam.

When a deranged sniper is on the loose, Detective Pete Marino of the Cambridge Police insists Scarpetta to examine the scene of a shooting close to her home, not willing to settle for any of her medical examiners or her deputy chief Luke Zenner. The sniper's victim is identified as a high school music teacher, Jamal Nari, who recently shot into the limelight when he was inadvertently placed on a terrorist watch list.

What is baffling about Jamal's death is the tweet announcing it. It came about 45 minutes before he was actually shot. To add to this weirdness is the admission made by one student to the crime, though no one is willing to believe it. Did Leo Grantz really kill Jamal? What is the motive? As Scarpetta and Marino delved deeper into the case they unearthed startling evidences that established connection between a series of deaths in New Jersey and the killing of Jamal Nari in Cambridge. And it is up to Scarpetta and Marino to find out the killer and bring the case to its logical conclusion.

Flesh and Blood by Patricia Cornwell is the twenty-second book in the long-running Kay Scarpetta series. This installment is a notch better than the twenty-first book, Dust (A Scarpetta Novel), though it is nowhere near the readability of the earlier books in the series. While the plot in itself is engaging and the author's fine writing style keeps one going, there are a lot of unnecessary details forcing me to skip pages and paragraphs at regular intervals. If Flesh and Blood were trimmed down to about three hundred pages or less instead of its present staggering 384, I honestly believe that it would have been one of the best Kay Scarpetta novels Patricia Cornwell has written. Sadly, in her bid to write a heavy tome of a book she has added details that are annoying and frustrating for a reader like me.

The Burning Room by Michael Connelly

The maverick Los Angeles Police Department homicide Detective Harry Bosch has come a long way since he first made his appearance in the 1992 detective mystery thriller, The Black Echo. In that premier book of the series a man found in the drainpipe at Mulholland Dam was just another statistic for the police department. But when Harry Bosch stepped in it became personal because the murdered man was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat" who had fought side by side with him in a hellish underground war.

Twenty-two years later in his nineteenth avatar in Edgar-winner Michael Connelly’s superbly crafted The Burning Room, Harry Bosch and his new partner, rookie Detective Lucia Soto, are tasked with an unenviable job of solving a very old case with a lot of twists and impediments. It concerns a case which begins almost ten years earlier with the drive-by shooting of Orlando Merced as he played with his band in Los Angeles's Mariachi Plaza. The bullet that struck him in the spine caused grievous damage leaving him paralyzed.

When Bosch and Lucy get to work they are confronted with lack of evidence which make the investigation all the more difficult. They got a vital lead when an anonymous tipster informed Detective Lucia Soto that the shooting of Orlando Merced is connected to the 1993 devastating fire which took place at the Bonnie Brae apartments that killed nine victims, mostly children. Incidentally, Soto could have been one of the children consumed by that raging fire twenty years ago but survived while some of his friends didn’t. The mariachi musician was a victim of a conspiracy to bury the truth behind the arson as he was believed to have known the people involved. Bosch and Lucy also unearthed connections between the two incidents with the robbery of an EZ Bank.

With powerful people coming into the picture, master storyteller Michael Connelly skillfully maneuvered this compelling police procedural with a lot of unexpected twists and turns. Juggling between suspense, crime and mystery, there is no dull moment as Harry Bosch just simply refused to fade into oblivion and reinvented himself through the deft handling of his character by Connelly. Beautifully written and wonderfully paced, The Burning Room is not only for die-hard fans of the series but also for new readers who want to explore the world of Harry Bosch.