The Printed Page

Title: Six Suspects

Author/website: Vikas Swarup

Publisher: Minotaur

Publication date & page count: August ’10 & 470 pages

All deaths are not equal… There’s a caste system even in murder. Seven years ago, Vivek ‘Vicky’ Rai, the playboy son of the Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh, murdered Ruby Gill at a trendy restaurant in New Delhi simply because she refused to serve him a drink. Now Vicky Rai is dead, killed at his farmhouse at a party he had thrown to celebrate his acquittal. The police cordon off the venue and search each and every guest. Six of them are discovered with guns in their possession and are taken in for questioning. Who are these six suspects? And what were they doing in the farmhouse that night? In this elaborate mystery we join Arun Advani, India’s best-known investigative journalist, as the lives of these six suspects unravel before our eyes : a corrupt bureaucrat who claims to have become Mahatma Gandhi overnight; an American tourist infatuated with an Indian actress; a stone-age tribesman on a quest to recover a sacred stone; a Bollywood sex-symbol with a guilty secret; a mobile-phone thief who dreams big; and an ambitious politician prepared to stoop low. Each is equally likely to have pulled the trigger.

• My rating: DNF @ pg. 69
• New-to-me author: No
• Would I read more from this author: Maybe; I’m 1 for 2 with the author.

Title: The Pindar Diamond

Author/website: Katie Hickman

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA

Publication date & page count: August ’10 & 277 pages

When rumours of a spectacularly rare and priceless diamond begin to circulate amongst the gamblers and courtesans of the Venetian demi-monde, the Levant Company merchant, Paul Pindar, becomes convinced that the jewel is somehow linked to the fate of his former love, Celia Lamprey. As his obsession with the mysterious stone grows it becomes clear that there are other, more sinister forces at play. Is the diamond real, or is it just a trick to lure him to his ruin? ‘The Pindar Diamond’ moves from the canals of Venice to the coasts of Dalmatia, from a famed physic garden in the Venentian lagoon to the secret corridors of a convent – a tale of lust, love, greed, wealth and danger set among the Levant traders in the early years of the seventeenth century.

• My rating: Excellent (As reader I found this story engrossing reading into the wee hours of the morning. If I were a parent I would find this story terrifying.)
• New-to-me author: Yes and she went straight to my auto-buy list
• Would I read more from this author: Definitely. Right before writing this post I went to Amazon and purchased her other books.

Title: Pretty Little Things

Author/website: Jilliane Hoffman / Pretty Little Things

Publisher: Vanguard Press

Publication date & page count: September ’10 & 358 pages

Thirteen-year-old Lainey Emerson is the middle child in a household that police are already familiar with: her mother works too much and her step-father favors his own blood over another man’s problems—namely, Lainey and her wild older sister, Liza. So when Lainey does not come home from a Friday night out with her friends, it is dismissed by the Coral Springs Police Department as just another disillusioned South Florida teen running away from suburban drama and an unhappy home life. But Special Agent Bobby Dees, who has headed up the department’s di4cult Crimes Against Children (CAC) Squad in Miami for more than a decade, is not quite so sure. Nicknamed “The Shepherd” by colleagues, he has an uncanny ability to find the missing and bring them back home—dead or alive. Haunted by the still unsolved disappearance of his own daughter, Bobby recognizes the all too familiar up-swell inside him, the gut feeling that Lainey Emerson is no runaway. A search of Lainey’s computer and a talk with her best friend reveal Lainey was involved in a secret Internet relationship, spawned over a chat room, and nurtured through untraceable instant messages. Bobby fears she may be the victim of an on-line predator, and he fears she may not be the only one.

Title: The Night Season

Author/website: Chelsea Cain

Publisher: Minotaur

Publication date & page count: March 1, 2011 & 336 pages

Chelsea Cain launches the next stage of her bestselling series as Archie Sheridan works to regain his life and Susan Ward steps in to share the spotlight in this electric thriller from one of today’s most talented suspense writers.

With Beauty Killer Gretchen Lowell locked away behind bars once again, Portland detective Archie Sheridan can finally rest. Meanwhile, the city of Portland is in crisis. Several people have drowned in heavy rains that have flooded the Willamette River. But the medical examiner discovers that in fact the latest victim was poisoned before she went into the water–she didn’t drown. A little detective work shows that so far three of those previously thought to be accidental drownings have actually been murdered. Portland has a new serial killer on its hands, and Archie and his task force have a new case. Meanwhile reporter Susan Ward is following up on an entirely separate mystery: the dramatic flooding has unearthed a skeleton, a man who might have died during catastrophic flooding more than sixty years ago that washed away an entire neighborhood and killed at least 15 people.

As Archie follows the bizarre trail of evidence and evil deeds to catch his killer, he has to battle the rising waters of the Willamette first.

Book cover links to story synopsis

Book cover links to story synopsis