Eaters of the Dead, by Michael Crichton
Filed under: book review, Michael Crichton, technothriller, Thriller
This book by Michael Crichton was filmed in 1999 with Antonino Banderas: The 13th Warrior
Eaters of the Dead is set in the 10th century. The Caliph of Baghdad sends his 
Eaters of the Dead is narrated as a scientific commentary on an old manuscript. A sense of authenticity is supported by occasional explanatory footnotes with references to a mixture of factual and fictitious sources.
Eaters of the Dead is a a good and interesting read, but in my opinion not among Michael Crichton’s best.
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.First Family, by David Baldacci
Filed under: book review, David Baldacci, Thriller
In First Family we meet again the former Secret Service agents, now private investigators, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell. They are hired by Jane Cox, the First Lady, 
This is the fourth book featuring this duo. They also appear in Split Second
First Family is a thick book with lots of twists and turns, a plot slightly on the implausible side, full of politics, scandals and plenty of intense action. It is all here: corruption, greed, lust, betrayal, cover-ups, and so on.
Baldacci’s excellent writing compensates for weaknesses in the plot and largely unattractive heroes. And, guess what, the terrorist is not an Arab! Rather it’s a Vietnam War veteran with a grievance. And as the investigation proceeds, some dark truths about the first family start to emerge. Sean and Michelle start making discoveries about things that are concealed, dubious deals, unscrupulous actions, and infidelity.
It’s a fun, entertaining read, a book that sucks you in after a beginning that is a tad slow. First Family is not the best Baldacci I have read, but well worth reading, and quite good entertainment.
Gone Tomorrow, by Lee Child
Filed under: book review, Jack Reacher, Lee Child, Thriller
Gone Tomorrow is the 13th novel in the Jack Reacher series (see also the review of Nothing to Lose). It is a strange and strangely appealing series. And it is one of the most successful thriller series in the world, currently selling six million books or so a year.
Jack Reacher himself is clearly part of the 
Jack Reacher is a born street fighter with enormous fighting skills. He owns nothing, buys a new set of clothes when the current set gets dirty, cleans up, puts on the new clothes and throws away the old set. He is a somewhat mysterious, elusive, and strange character – and sufficiently different from the rest of us to be attractive in his differentness.
In Gone Tomorrow we meet up with Jack Reacher on the New York subway late at night. He happens to see a passenger, Susan Mark, that acts strangely and in a way that makes Reacher conclude that she is a suicide bomber on a mission. He approaches her, and instead of setting off a bomb, she commits suicide. This could have been the end of the story, but it turns out to be the beginning.
All of a sudden Reacher – just a witness, an innocent bystander – is chased by the FBI, the Department of Defense, NYPD and a strange group of terrorists. Susan Mark had something a lot of people are willing to go to great lengths to get hold of, and they all suspect or fear that Reacher may know where it is. So now Reacher must flee or fight for his life. And as Reacher never backs out a challenge, there will be trouble. Big trouble.
Gone Tomorrow is definitely one of the best of the series. Perhaps it is even the best so far. It is a fast paced thriller with an intricate plot, lots of great action, a slowly unfolding mystery and an explosive and very violent conclusion. It has good guys, shady guys and really bad guys. And lots of flat-out-violence. But at the same time it is a smart thriller with lots of good, sound, deductive reasoning. A great mix. I loved it.mYou do not want to miss out on Gone Tomorrow!
Numbered Account, by Christopher Reich
Filed under: book review, Christopher Reich, Financial Thriller, recommendation, Thriller
Numbered Account is very good; especially considering it is a debut book. But, as we now know, Christopher Reich is an author with lots of 
The plot is interesting, rich and with more than sufficient drive to create excitement. It requires a little bit of a leap of faith to jump into it, but once you do, it is a smooth and fast ride. The beginning is a bit slow, but Reich is great when he describes the Swiss bank system, and is very intriguing to enter the world of the private banking in Switzerland.
The main character, Nick Neumann, has it all. He has a Harvard degree, a beautiful fiancée, and a star-making Wall Street career. But behind all of that is a man haunted by the brutal killing of his father seventeen years before.
Nick wants the truth and is willing to sacrifice his career, love, and future for a crack at untangling the mystery surrounding his father’s death. To do this, he takes a job at the prestigious United Swiss Bank, the venerable financial cornerstone of Geneva and his father’s former employer. Before he can begin his investigation, however, disturbing events come into play: One portfolio manager is dead, another had a “nervous breakdown,” and his training manager is jumping ship to cast accounts with their staunch enemy.
Nick is soon caught in a ruthless conspiracy that stretches around the world and far into his personal life. There is murder, revenge, and first-rate espionage as well as plenty of action, but even so Numbered Account is a thinking person’s thriller, a refreshing break from the old standbys.
Terminal Freeze, by Lincoln Child
Filed under: book review, Lincoln Child, Science Fiction, Thriller
Terminal Freeze is an enjoyable book 
As a group of scientists do research at a remote military base in Alaska, they discover a prehistoric beast frozen in ice. And, when news of the find reaches the cable television network which sponsors the expedition, Emilio Conti, a legendary documentary filmmaker, goes to the scene. He plans to film the thawing of the animal on live TV. But the beast has other plans, and suddenly the scientists along with the film crew find their lives are threatened.
Child’s writing is easy to follow, clear, fluid and good. Child is also very good at slowly building up anticipation and suspense. To really get excited, however, you must be willing to suspend your disbelief a little, as the creature involved is extraordinarily fierce and complex. If you do that, then this is an extraordinary and very interesting tale full of excitement and human ingenuity!
Personally, I think I liked Child’s previous book Deep Storm
First Daughter, by Eric van Lustbader
Filed under: book review, Eric van Lustbader, Thriller
This is a thriller featuring a newly elected – but still not inaugurated – 
ATF agent Jack McClure, who has previously come to the attention of Edward Carson, is chosen to play a prominent role in the search for Alli, primarily because she was the boarding-school roommate of his now-deceased daughter, Emma. Jack faces many difficulties, chief among them his own severe dyslexia. As we learn more about him, it becomes evident that he is a mess. He struggles with the demons of his youth, and has severe guilt over the death of his daughter and a very problematic and unresolved relationship to his ex-wife.
The unnamed current president, who makes religion the basis for all his decisions, wants to use the search as an excuse for all-out war on his enemies, the First American Secular Revivalists and their secret partners, the E-Two terrorist group.
Lustbader does a fine job of depicting the search for Alli, but I found the story and plot clear enough and good, but at the same time Lustbader mixes into the brew this time some confusing political message will leave many readers wondering what the book was really about. Also, the side stories and background provided in flashbacks was not all that interesting and oftentimes not all that relevant either. I think of this book primarily as a book for Lustbader fans.
Run for Your Life, by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
Filed under: bestseller, book review, James Patterson, Thriller
A calculating killer who calls himself The Teacher is taking on New York City, killing the powerful and the arrogant. His message is clear: remember your manners or suffer the consequences!
The Commissioner deems Michael Bennett’s experience with the Catastrophic Response Unit as critical to leading the investigation. The Commissioner’s concern and his request of Bennett appear even more justified as the Teacher next strikes by murdering an maitre d’ at a fancy New York Twenty-One Club. The Chase is on, and Michael Bennett, the hero of Step on a Crack, is running against the clock again.
At first these murders appear to be directed at somewhat random people or perhaps people that cater to the rich, but as Bennett and others in the police force, soon find a pattern in the killings. And discovering a secret pattern in The Teacher’s lessons, Detective Bennett realizes he has just hours to save New York from the greatest disaster in its history.
James Patterson’s books are up and down. Some good, some not so good, some pretty bad. I don’t expect too much when I start reading a new book by him, but I still for some reason do read them. I mostly like his writing style and the pace of his stories, I think. There are few dull moments in his books. The short chapters are nice. As well, you can read the whole book in a day.
I liked the main character Michael Bennett. He is a NYPD cop and single dad with an astonishing number of kids. And he is a likable, smart guy. A humane fellow of sorts too.
The storyline of the book, however, I didn’t much care for. But Run for Your Life is a better book than Step On a Crack. I recommend it to Patterson fans and fans of fast action thrillers.
A Calculated Risk, by Katherine Neville
Filed under: book review, Katherine Neville, Thriller
I read this book largely because I have recently read The Eight by the same author, and liked it a lot. However, this is a much shorter book than Neville’s first book, The Eight, somewhat more humorous, and not nearly as good. To some extent it may be read as a satire on the world of banking.
The heroine of A Calculated Risk is Verity Banks. Verity is a computer expert. Currently she is a vice-president of
the Bank of the World in San Francisco, in charge of Electronic Funds Transfer.
When her boss turns down her proposal for a tighter security system at the bank, Verity decides to break through security, hide some money where no one will find it, and then put it back, to show everyone how easily it can be done. However, when she seeks advice from her former mentor, Dr. Zoltan Tor, he surprises her by giving her a challenge that adds a new twist to her own plan: Which of them can steal $1 billion, and invest it to earn $30 million in only three months? (The money will be returned, and no one will be injured.)
If Verity wins, Tor will get her a job at the Federal Reserve that she wants. If Tor wins, Verity will come to New York to work for him. However, while working on their scams, Tor and Verity stumble on a plan by members of the Vagabond Club, a club of CEOs of major corporations, to take over the Bank of the World in a financial coup, possibly sending the U.S. economy into a tailspin.
I enjoyed A Calculated Risk, but in my opinion it is not in the same league as The Eight. Both Zoltan Tor and Verity Banks are very likable characters, and the relationship between them interesting. As well, the plot is interesting, but the drive is somewhat lacking. The pace is a tad too slow and the side-stories not quite interesting enough.
High Citadel, by Desmond Bagley
Filed under: bestseller, book review, Desmond Bagley, Thriller
Desmond Bagley is an almost forgetten English master thriller writer. But his books are still very well worth reading – elegant, extremely suspenseful, good characters and smart plots. High Citadel is one of his best.
A plane is forced down in the Andes. The survivors – a pilot, two businessmen, 
And as they try to organize their effort to improve their situation, we start to find out that the people involved are not what they say they are. Each has their own past. And, in addition, it soon becomes evident that the survivors have a traitor in their midst.
They manage to get down to a mining camp. There another bad surprise awaits them. What follows is tense, tightly scripted action. The party of survivors gets holed up on one side of a gorge, trying their best to holding off attackers with limited weapons and ammunition and a homemade crossbow. Their hopes rest on a small number who have volunteered to climb the other side of the mountain looking for help.
Every character in High Citadel plays an important role. The action is very tense, and the suspense is present all the time. This is one of Bagley’s best books, well written, exciting and a great read. It is highly recommended for all thriller fans.
The Bourne Deception, by Eric van Lustbader, Robert Ludlum
Filed under: book review, Eric van Lustbader, Jason Bourne, Robert Ludlum, Thriller
Robert Ludlum died in March 2001, but even so 
In this book a very highly placed American makes a deal with a Russian to have Bourne killed – once more. And in exchange for this, the Americans will kill a terrorist for the Russians (a bit of a shift from the old days, when the *Russians supposedly supported terrorists?) A Russian sniper, who turns out to be Leonid Arkadin (see The Bourne Sanction
Then the canvas widens. A US airplane is shot down over Egypt. War hawks plot for an American invasion of Iran. A rouge American security outfit with extremely greedy owners meddles with intelligence reports and kills high ranking US Government officials. The American Secretary of Defense pushes for war to increase his own standing in the government.
The plot in The Bourne Deception is rich and past paced. And there is lots of action – almost too much, in the sense that it feels a little like sitting in a roller coaster train. The plot moves along, but its underpinnings are weak and strange, the logic that drives it a little artificial, and in the midst of it all Van Lustbader – who has a metaphysical leaning – throws in a little meta-physics (something Ludlum would never have done!).
I have to say I have read the follow-ups to Ludlum’s Jason Bourne novels by Eric van Lustbader with growing frustration. More and more I experience the books as overwhelmed by movie-like action descriptions as a substitute for intelligent plots and clever dynamics. The Bourne Deception I liked even less than the previous. To my mind, these books are now moving into a territory where only for the really diehard fans of the Jason Bourne saga will enjoy them.
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