Mystery/Thriller Book Reviews
Page Four of SixMurder Take Two by Charlene Weir
St. Martin's Press, March 1998.Hardcover, 327 pages.
ISBN: 0312181361.
Ordering information:
Amazon.com.
Susan Wren, the Chief of Police for Hampstead, Kansas
has a world of trouble on her hands when a Hollywood
film crew shows up in the small town to film Tinseltown's
latest blockbuster starring megastars Laura Edwards and
Nick Logan. The crew has not been filming long when Laura's
stunt double, Kay Bender, is killed when a stunt goes wrong.
When another actress on the set is found stabbed in her hotel room
and Laura begins receiving threatening messages, it's clear that
a killer is stalking the cast. Wren is forced to conduct the investigation
without the help of her best officer, Parkwood, when it comes to light
that Parkhurst used to be married to Laura and so is disqualified from
the case. As Wren investigates, she finds a complex web of relationships
between the cast and a confusing array of motives for doing away with
the much-despised Laura.
Charlene Weir has crafted an interesting mystery with a colorful cast of characters who are vividly drawn. The subplots work quite well and the storyline moves at a crisp pace right up until the exciting ending.
Reaper by Ben Mezrich
HarperCollins, Jan., 1998.Hardcover, 342 pages.
ISBN: 0060187514.
Ordering information:
Amazon.com.
Nick Barnes, an ambulance driver whose
brilliant surgery career was short-lived due
to a hand injury, is on an emergency stop
where a disoriented man, with multiple
cuts and bruises, is stopping traffic. In
the midst of the rescue
operation, Barnes figures out that the
man's moans and wild gestures are meant to get the
police and ambulance crew to investigate an
office building above the street, where the man
apparently came from.
Barnes and two of the officers cautiously
make their way up to the office.
What they find in the office building is horrifying.
Nine suited business men are sitting dead
in their chairs -- their skin has turned a chalk white.
Astonished, but
quick on his feet, Barne's initial
reaction is that the culprit is a virus and he urges everyone
away from the area. Barnes concludes
that there is much more to this situation than meets the
eye when a beautiful female FBI agent, Samantha
Craig, takes charge of the situation the next day.
When Nick Barnes gets nosy, Samantha enlists
his help and explains to him that this is not the
first case. They soon discover that the virus,
known as the Reaper, is
spreading through televisions and computers that
are hooked up to a new information highway project
from mega-company, Telecon -- which has swallowed
up smaller companies like Microsoft in its rise to
the top. Telecon has placed a communications
device called a Set-Top Box in
every home that allows the secure and super-fast
Telecon network into local TVs and computers.
The race is on to stop the virus before
Marcus Teal, CEO of Telecon, turns the network on
-- which could send the Reaper to nearly every
home and office in the world.
Reaper is an exciting techno-thriller from budding author Ben Mezrich. The novel is an exciting combination of an ebola-esque disease, corporate mega-opolies and technological advances. Look for more scientific thrillers in the future from youthful talent Mezrich.
Return to the June 1998 issue of The IWJ.
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