A Killing Tide, by P.J. Alderman

Today I am not reviewing a fantasy or a scifi book--instead I am reviewing a contemporary thriller, located on the Columbia River, in a town I am most familiar with--Astoria. You may remember the town from the 1985 movie "Goonies." 

A Killing Tide, was a RITA finalist and climbed the charts to stay on the New York Times and USA Today bestselling lists for eight weeks. I can tell you why – this book grips you from the first page.


The BLURB:

Where there's smoke...

Kaz Jorgensen is used to fear--the anxiety of negotiating treacherous currents as she captains her family's fishing trawlers, the terrifying nightmares of the day she almost lost her life on the river. But now a man is dead, an arsonist has set the Anna Marie ablaze, and her brother is missing.

There's fire...

Michael Chapman knows how to take the heat--as the new fire chief of Astoria, Oregon, he's dealt with more than his share. No way can he afford to get involved with the sister of a suspect. But the scorching attraction between him and Kaz burns out of control, and when someone takes a shot at her, his protective instincts kick in. Whatever happens, he can't allow another woman to die because of him.

My REVIEW:

A Killing Tide by indie author P. J. Alderman takes place in the small Oregon city of Astoria. With simple strokes, she evokes the atmosphere of the coastal town, the eternal grayness and eternal rain. Based in Astoria, Oregon, Columbia River Bar Pilots were established in 1846 to ensure the safety of ships, crews and cargoes crossing the treacherous Columbia River Bar, which is recognized as one of the most dangerous and challenging navigated stretches of water in the world. The men and women who fish those waters are also a rare breed.

(Kasmira) Kaz Jorgensen was once a well-known local fisher-woman, and has recently returned to Astoria and fishing after a long absence from fishing as financial a consultant in San Francisco. Her best friend had called her, telling her there was trouble with her brother Gary, but not what the trouble was. She has not been able to talk much to him, due to having to be out on her own boat, the Kasmira B, and things are somewhat distant between them.

She has not been welcomed back with open arms by her brother or the community at large.  Having just lost half her pots and most of her catch to a vandal at sea, she brings her boat in late. She arrives at The Redemption, a tavern frequented by the local fishers, and meets up with her best friend, Detective Lucy McGuire who is also her brother’s girlfriend. Also eating dinner in the Redemption is the new fire chief, Michael Chapman. Just hired from Boston, Chapman is a man with a history, which comes out as the story progresses.

That evening in the Redemption, Michael witnesses Kaz trying to break up a violent disagreement between Kaz’s brother Gary and his friend, Chuck. Because she is no longer considered a member of the community for reasons which gradually emerge. Everyone warns Kaz to stay out of ‘it’; indicating to her that whatever is going on between Chuck and Gary is big and it involves the whole fishing community. Michael Chapman intervenes, to Kaz’s irritated chagrin.

Following that, a friend is murdered; a family man who is also a crewman on her brother’s boat, the Anna Marie. Gary, a vet suffering from post-traumatic-stress syndrome, is immediately suspected of murdering him and committing arson to burn his boat to cover it up. Making things worse, Gary has vanished. Police Chief Jim Sykes, a man with political ambitions, is hot on Gary’s trail, sure he is the culprit.  Michael, as fire-marshal, is leaping to no conclusions, and is handling the investigation his own way.

This is an intense tale of greed and small-town lust for power and easy money.  Each and every character is fully fleshed out and you immediately like or dislike them with one exception.  Jim Sykes remains somewhat of an enigma right up to the end.

The attraction between Kaz and Michael Chapman is part of what makes this tale so engrossing.  The possibility of their romance is a thread which weaves in and out of the tapestry that is this mystery.  Right up to the end, I was unsure as to whom the culprit was and the ending is a thrilling as any you could ask for.

First published in 2006, A Killing Tide was my introduction to P.J. Alderman’s work. She has become one of my go-to mystery writers, and I have enjoyed everything she has written.

Starliner, David Drake

I've been on a sci-fi jag lately. Hopefully I will find a fantasy book that rings my bells soon--but I can't seem to find any good fantasy that I haven't read already.  Show me some fantasy with an original plot and a great cast of characters, a book that's not full of cute, romantic fluff, thank you. I want to promote indies, but come on authors--you have to work with me! Write me something original or I'll go mad. I hate to be just killing time with my reading, and I refuse to blog about books that bore me. 

So I was cruising the cheap fiction in the Kindle store--and this one was free!

Starliner, by David Drake is another hard science-fiction tale. The ebook was first published In 2013, but it was first published in june of 1992 by Baen. Somehow I never saw this book, so it's new to me.


The BLURB:


The Empress of Earth

Finest passenger liner in the galaxy —
Brightest link in the chain that binds the starflung civilization of the 23rd century—
Six thousand lives in a single hull, trembling through multiple universes to land on raw, often violent worlds, each with its own history and wonder —


The Empress of Earth

Neutral pawn in an interstellar war!

When hostile necessity knows no law, Ran Colville and the rest of the complement of the Empress of Earth must bring home their ship and the passengers entrusted to them. From the Captain on his bridge to the Cold Crewmen who work in conditions that differ from Hell only by name, they'll have their work cut out for them this voyage!


My REVIEW:

Now this was an intriguing tale, an action adventure, written in a leisurely style. Politics, racism, and the privilege of class and wealth dominate this tale of a cruise gone bad. There is the sort of attention to detail that one might find in an Agatha Christie novel, if she had decided to write political thrillers set in interstellar space. It is a period piece.

The main character, Ran Colville is a poor-boy made good, a man who saw an opportunity to change his future and who seized it, though it is a secret that could destroy his career.  He is efficient, and determined to be as cold and heartless as the world he came from, but he has this annoying ability to care what happens to the people around him, though he refuses to admit it.

The crew is an interesting mix, and consists of people who would be found working on any high-end cruise ship. They are good at what they do, and serve with varying degrees of love for their ship and the passengers they carry, ranging from mild lip service to fanatic devotion.  

The passengers are drawn like caricatures, which in a book with as many walk-on parts as this, is the only way to describe them in the paragraph they are given, but they serve to illustrate the atmosphere aboard the starliner, Empress of Earth.

There is violence, and there is a military precision to the recounting of the action scenes. Juxtaposed against the backdrop of the wealthy  and the not so wealthy, it is a compelling drama that unfolds slowly, but eventually takes off with a vengeance.

If you want your books filled with action happening at all times, with no 'info dumps' this book is not for you. David Drake breaks all the rules of modern genre writing: There are many long passages of background information that is slipped into the middle of conversations--again, rather like an old-fashioned novel. It could be jarring to some readers, and while I normally don't approve of large injections of heavy background,  I felt it added to the atmosphere in this tale.

Starliner is most definitely not a one night read, as it takes a while to work your way through it. I did enjoy it, and all in all, I give this book 4 stars. 

The Martian, Andy Weir

In some ways, this is an old-school space-opera. The Martian by indie author  Andy Weir is one of the best science fiction stories to come out of the last 20 years.  A real adventure story from the get-go, this story of an astronaut inadvertently left behind is gripping from page one.

THE BLURB:

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

MY REVIEW:

Mark Watney is hilarious. He is the sort of man who gets through life by finding something positive in every disaster, and mocking the hell out of everything that is negative. A horrendous storm destroys much of their base, and his team is forced to abort their mission.  During the emergency evacuation of the Ares 3 landing site, he is severely injured in an accident that appears to have killed him. His body is unretrievable, and unaware that he is still alive, he is left behind. His companions begin the long journey back to Earth, grief stricken at his sudden death.

At first he has no communications, so it is a long while before NASA realizes he is alive, and that is only because a low-level scientist, Mindy Park, who has been assigned to monitor images returned by the Mars satellites decides to look at the Ares 3 landing site and realizes that human activity is still occurring. there, which can only mean he is still alive. Mark Watney is an astronaut, so of course he is extremely resourceful. He does what he has to in order to survive his injuries, and then figures out exactly what he must do to stay alive until the next mission.

A botanist and mechanical genius, eventually, Mark does the math and concludes that not only will he have to survive for more than a year, he will have to travel across Mars to the next mission’s planned site, with no GPS. He figures out a way to do that, by growing potatoes, and turns his habitat into a farm. He survives many near disasters in his attempts to supply his basic needs, and figures out a way to communicate with Earth, despite the fact that the communications array was destroyed in the storm that “killed” him.

The events that take place at NASA, the people there, and the way they pull together to figure out a way to rescue him before he runs out of food and water are gripping. The in-fighting is realistic and true to the way we humans are in real life, and the lengths some people go to in order to get him home are also both realistic and heroic.

If you only read one book this summer, I highly recommend The Martian. Originally self-published in 2012, the Martian is now set to be a movie and in May 2014 it was reported that Ridley Scott was in negotiations to direct an adaptation that would star Matt Damon as Mark Watney.