The Blind Run by Brian Freemantle

     British secret service agent Charlie Muffin continues his adventures as a spy during the cold-war era. Charlie finds himself in the notorious Wormwood Scrubs, incarcerated there for his escapades in a previous adventure. He is given a chance to break out and pose as a Russian defector. His mission is to find the nameless British mole working for the KGB. Characterization,great settings, and surprising twits in the plot make this book a winner for those who enjoy spy novels.

 

Karen Jaffe, Comsewogue Public Library

 

 The Wrath of God by Robert Gleason

       America -and much of the rest of the world - has been devastated by nuclear war; and in New Arizona, the last bastion of civilization is represented by the Citadel. And the Citadel is presided over by steel-eyed grandmother Kathleen Magruder, so tough and tight-lipped that she makes Jack Ryan look like a sissy, along with Betsy Ross, a pet bald eagle that has forgotten how to fly. Magruder's spies alert her to the advance of the madman Tamerlane and his bloody Golden Horde, a fanatical killing army utterly dedicated to the destruction of everything pure and decent and civilized, but the residents of the Citadel, grown soft and isolationist, refuse to heed her warnings. So she enlists her son, once a physicist at Los Alamos, now a student of Apache mysticism, to rip open a hole in time to bring forth allies from the past - Stonewall Jackson, General George S. Patton, and Amelia Earhart. Together with a precocious nine-year-old girl anda cranky adolescent triceratops, they form the last best hope of humanity against Tamerlane and his minions, the slinky seductive psychotic shamaness Lady Legion and the grinning sadistic torturer called the Cuddler. If this sounds over-heated and over-the-top, it is - Gleason has thrown into his ambitious genre-busting epic everything but the kitchen sink (and even that makes a cameo appearance at the climax). The tone is drenched in testosterone, all clenched jaws and slamming fists, combining jingoistic patriotism with rather nasty racist overtones (the dark-skinned, vaguely Islamic barbarians "from the East" leave a trail of unmatched rape and savagery, bleached bones, and mountains of skulls). The violence is graphic and profuse, the explosions frequent and massive, and gore splatters everywhere. Nonetheless, this is a ripping good adventure yarn,breathless and cinematic, and the action never lets up. While the character development is minimal - the book is people with embodied character traits (Determination, Spunk, Ambition,Cruelty, etc) - they are nonetheless memorably delineated, and will stick in your mind for a long time. And Gleason works in some fairly subtle philosophical musings about Destiny and the power of Fate that may intrigue some readers.

                                                                                                                                Lesley Knieriem, South Huntington Public Library

 

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

     On San Piedro Island in Puget Sound, in the shadow of World War II, a Japanese-American fisherman stands trial for cold-blooded murder. The journalist who covers the trial comes close again to the wife of the accused, his boyhood love. The plot is a combination of love story, murder mystery, and painful history lesson.

                                                                                                                        Jane Moore, Half Hollow Hills Library, Melville Branch 

 

The Quiet Game by Greg Iles

Penn Cage, Houston lawyer and novelist, returns home to Natchez, Mississippi with his grieving four-year- old daughter after his wife's premature death. Hoping to heal, he instead finds himself embroiled in an unsolved thirty-year-old civil rights murder. Racial tension, murder,political power, and conspiracies abound. Including fast-paced action, romance, and a wonderful setting, this book is a winner that John Grisham fans will surely enjoy.

 

                                                                                                                                           Karen Jaffe, Comsewogue Public Library

 

Danger in the Ashes and Survival in the Ashes by William Johnstone

     Johnstone's Ashes series tells the story of a post-apocalyptic America in the aftermath of a biological and nuclear war. It focuses on the adventures of Ben Raines, a former columnist, outdoorsman, and soldier, turned leader of Raines' Rebels, an army fighting to return the destroyed world to law and order and civilization. Ben Raines is a strong and courageous,but fair and just, leader, who always seems to know exactly when he has to be ruthless and when to be compassionate. In Danger in the Ashes, Raines knows he has to be ruthless in ferreting out and destroying every last one of the mutated night people cannibals and redneck goober hillbillies led by Redneck-in-Chief Hiram Rockingham. Yet he is also just and compassionate when he adopts the hillbilly children and places them with families of his Rebels and educates them in the ways of civilized folk. While Danger deals with the profound philosophical issues of our time,such as delousing hillbillies and bombing flesh-eating zombies into oblivion,  Danger in the Ashes is more action-oriented. It focuses on the rebels' fight against the evil mercenaries of Kenny Par and Lan Viller and the fanatics of Sister Volenta.There are currently 27 published volumes in the series. At least three more are currently forthcoming. Johnstone is undoubtedly the greatest writer in the history of civilization. Johnstone's books are exactly what men would want to read and should read.They are full of action and adventure. I doubt that women will enjoy these books. Probably for the same reasons that they do not seem to appreciate quality entertainment such as football bowl games or the Three Stooges. There's no accounting for taste.Oprah would definitely recoil from these books, much like a vampire does from a cross. I bet she wouldn't be very popular in Ben Raines' world. William Johnstone has been a soldier, deputy sheriff, carnival worker, and a member of the French Foreign Legion. He was actually kicked out of the Legion when they discovered that he was only fifteen and had dropped out of high school to join. He eventually received his equivalency diploma. He finally settled on a career in radio broadcasting, before retiring in the early 1980's to become a full-time writer. He is the author of over 100 books, mostly of the men's adventure and western variety. He has even written a romance novel called What the Heart Knows. Johnstone has his own Web site at http://www.williamjohnstone.com/home.html. You can find descriptions of all his 100+ books, which I am sure you will now be eager to read in their entirety. You can also see pictures of his two dogs.

                                                                                                                                       Bruce Silverstein, Patchogue-Medford Library

 

Be Cool by Elmore Leonard

     Although Elmore Leonard has won critical acclaim and numerous awards for his crime novels and earlier westerns, some readers are bound to find him too strong for their tastes, making him an ideal candidate for a "Manly Reads" suggestion list. Fast-paced, savvy, and full of colorful characters and dialogue, Leonard's work is well-suited to the screen, one excellent adaptation being Get Shorty, with John Travolta as Chili Palmer, who appears again in the 1999 novel, Be Cool. At the beginning of Be Cool, we learn that Chili's successful film "Get Leo" has been followed by a colossal flop, the amnesia film "Get Lost", whose title has, naturally, become a film industry joke. In search of a new project to keep himself afloat in Tinseltown's choppy waters, Chili schedules a business luncheon, ended melodramatically in Chapter One by a mob hit, which Chili escapes by picking a convenient time to go to the men's room. Chili soon perceives himself as the target of Russian gangsters and a few other assorted criminals whose attention he attracts by wresting control of the promising country/rock singer Linda Moon from the sinister pimp Raji, who had been managing her career into oblivion. Planning to make Linda the subject of his next film,Chili must elude his pursuers, to which end he befriends Raji's burly bodyguard, the half-Samoan and totally weird Elliot Wilhelm. Their uneasy alliance is based on the promise of ascreen test for Elliot, extended by Chili's love interest, the studio executive Elaine. Elliot seems to exhibit more talent of the strong-arm variety than as a thespian; for one thing, he can throw someone who becomes really troublesome out of an upper-story window with no effort at all. For someone in Chili's predicament, the importance of having a friend who possesses this sort of talent cannot be overestimated. With music, mayhem, and murder abounding, on a roller coaster ride through the dark side of our popular culture, and surrounded by authentic-seeming underworld and music industry types (sometimes interchangeable)whose flavorful dialogue is sharpened by Elmore Leonard's antic wit, Be Cool's Chili Palmer manages to maintain his"cool" in impressive style. Manly readers (including the adventurous women readers without whom Elmore Leonard's books could not have become such bestsellers), should be vastly entertained.

                                                                                                                                               Arlene Leventhal, Half Hollow Hills Library

 

 

 The Matarese Countdown by Robert Ludlum

       When it comes to manly reads, Ludlum delivers. Suspense, action, technology (computers, weapons, planes, boats, and gadgets), plus murder and mayhem galore (in the first 75 pages, there are 17 murders). Description does not slow the pace -- the story unfolds in Corsica, the Caribbean, Russia, London, the Hamptons, Spain, Bahrain, and CIA headquarters in Virginia. The Matarese are an international monopoly described as "avaricious psychopaths on a global scale." They are planning a "catastrophic financial tidal wave that will make the depression of the late 20's and30's look like a minor ripple." The protagonists are CIA agents Cameron Pryce and Brandon Scofield (Scofield is forced out of retirement because of his previous experience with the Matarese -- see The Matarese Circle.  Profanity: average. No sex; some heat between Pryce and a female agent. Ludlum's treatment of women is politically correct. The heroines are mature,intelligent women -- not unattractive, but Ludlum emphasizes their attitudes and actions rather than their physical attributes.

 

                                                                                                                                                 Grace O'Connor, West Islip Public Library

 

The Wine-Dark Sea by Patrick O'Brian

     This book is just one of the many that continues the ongoing saga of Captain Jack Aubrey and surgeon Dr. Stephen Maturin. These men have a close-knit friendship, and each has a warm attractive personality that keeps the reader interested. Capt. Aubrey is the seaman, a quiet,intelligent, and brave man. Dr. Maturin is also quite brave, but there is a greater sensitivity. He is an accomplished musician,he deplores slavery and Napoleon; he is also a spy for the British. The main focus of The Wine-Dark Sea is Maturin's quest to reach South America and try to recapture Peru and Chile from the Spaniards. Surprisingly, the battles and the storms at sea are handled directly and swiftly, a few paragraphs rather than pages. O'Brian takes more time describing the birds in Peru or a conversation about slavery. That is why his audience is so vast.This novel is not just about the sea and the ships that sail it.It is filled with historical detail, attractive characters, and a story that doesn't conclude. You must go on to the next book for more.

                                                                                                                                                        Jeri Sapir , Huntington Public Library

 

 

Degree of Guilt by Richard North Patterson

     A suspense-filled murder mystery and a riveting courtroom drama entices readers.Christopher Paget, a successful, handsome attorney, is defending a high-profile client with whom he shares both a professional and personal history. Mary Carelli is a famous television broadcaster who has been accused of murdering a controversial author after he allegedly attempted to rape her. Paget must separate his personal emotions from his professional panache, protect his family's privacy because Carelli is the mother of his son, and ultimately succeed in clearing her name in this must-read for all legal thriller fans. Richard North Patterson is a trial lawyer in San Francisco. His legal career includes work as a prosecutor on the Watergate case. He studied fiction writing at the University of Alabama. His first short story was published in The Atlantic Monthly and he won an Edgar Allan Poe Award for his first novel, The Lasko Tangent, also about the character Christopher Paget, as is another, Eyes of a Child.

                                                                                                                                                 Christine Ranieri, Smithtown/Commack

 

 Chain of Command by Ridley Pearson

     Some time ago, I was asked by a young male patron, "How about buying some books for us?" At that time my daughter was working for Doubleday, so I put the question to her. Among the authors she mentioned was Ridley Pearson. I checked the reviews and purchased some books and received profuse thanks. Having only read reviews and the fly leaves of his books, this became my opportunity to learn more.Joe Dartelli is a cop who spies a strange similarity between two suicides, both of whom were known sex offenders. Computer simulation helps convince Dartelli that the men were murdered,and the prime suspect becomes his former partner, a retired forensic specialist. Has he become a vigilante? Mix in complex motives, psychology, high tech clues, and suspense -- all of which add up to a good read for male or female. "In a Pearson novel, banging on a computer keyboard in search of a missing piece of information can create more real excitement than banging heads does" (Booklist) Ridley Pearson was the first Raymond Chandler Fellow in crime writing. Among his writings is a series which features Lou Boldt as a Seattle policeman, often paired with Daphne Matthews, a police psychologist. His latest is The First Victim, a tale right from the pages of today's newspapers: inside a shipping container in the harbor, the"unmistakable cry of human voices" is heard above the sound of the storm. Boldt and Matthews are off and running."

 

                                                                                                                                          Marie T. Horney, Cold Spring Harbor Library

 

 

Mind Prey by John Sandford

     Lucas Davenport, Deputy Chief of the Minneapolis Police Department and computer business owner, must once again call upon his investigative skills in this seventh book from the Prey series. This time a female psychiatrist and her two daughters are kidnapped and tormented in explicit detail by one of her mentally ill clients. Davenport, with the aid of his computer technicians, must discover the victims' location before all three are murdered. John Sandford, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, takes the reader through a suspenseful plot, which is full of unexpected twists and turns.

                                                                                                                                       Ilana Beckerman, South Country Public Library