REVIEWS BY SANDY HUSEBY
The jewelry trade is a rough-and-tumble business, in ways that gem cutter Kate Chandler discovers can be deadly.
Popular romance writer Elizabeth Lowell captures this intriguing world in her riveting new suspense novel,
The Color of Death. When her half-brother, Lee, disappears with the Seven Sins, a priceless set of unique sapphires,
Kate refuses to accept easy explanations. FBI agent Sam Groves catches her switching gems at a Scottsdale trade show. Already
working on a crime task force investigating attacks on gem couriers, Sam is persuaded to help Kate prove the truth about her
brother and the disappearance of the sapphires. When they realize Kate's troubles are just a small part of an ongoing
conspiracy, they confront the most likely suspects—Sam's colleagues in the task force. Lowell weaves the twists and
turns of this multi-dimensional suspense novel with the elegance and clarity of the gems Kate cuts. This hot summer read
is priceless!
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Assassin on the loose
When one of the CIA's top contract assassins turns rogue, she endangers the organization itself. And the man assigned
to stop her is Lucas Swain, one of the CIA's best predators, in Linda Howard's edgy and exhilarating romantic thriller, Kiss Me While I Sleep. Lily Mansfield risks her own life to exact revenge on Salvatore Nervi and his family for the deaths of her close friends and their daughter. Lily and Lucas learn that poisoning Nervi doesn't stop the ominous project he's been sponsoring: the production of the deadly avian virus that caused her friends' deaths. Now, Lily and Lucas set out to finish their work by destroying the lab and the team that operates it. The romantic French setting is a foil to the virulent evil they fight against—the greed of unscrupulous people who create a virus so they can profit from the vaccine. And when Lily understands the time of reckoning with Lucas' assignment is at hand, the love they share drives her to accept her fate. As timely as cable news, Howard's thriller twists, turns and caroms with danger right up to the last page.
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Circles of life
For three generations of women, a summer at the family home in the Shenandoah Valley becomes a bittersweet reckoning
in Emilie Richards' poignant new novel, Wedding Ring. Tessa MacCrae's trip to her grandmother's home thrusts her into the challenge of helping Helen Henry retain her aging dignity amid the towering piles of trash and clutter that overwhelm her. Tessa's mother Nancy joins the daunting cleanup project. Gradually the women confront the emotional baggage that has added lifelong strains to their mother-daughter ties. Tessa is consumed by bitterness toward the man who caused her young daughter's death, adding extra tension to her marriage to Mack. As the women dig deeper into physical and emotional layers, an unexpected treasure emerges: Helen's lovingly made quilts. Wedding Ring aptly reflects the circuitous nature of life and relationships. Richards tells profound truths with truly gifted writing.
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Justice in peril
FBI agents Sherlock and Savich are on the hunt again, this time for the murderer of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice,
in Catherine Coulter's Blowout. Even more determined to track down the killer are Callie Markham and D.C. Metro detective Ben Raven. Callie is a Washington Post investigative reporter with a vested interest in the case: the victim was her stepfather, Justice Stewart Califano. The murder investigation grows more complicated when a second victim turns up, one of the justice's law clerks. Family loyalties butt up against professional challenges when Callie finds out that her stepfather had been having an affair, and that one of the other justices had hit on Callie's mother. With possible blackmail, intra-judiciary rivalries and personal peccadilloes, there's more than enough intrigue—and suspects—for full court standing in this snappy page-turner. And then, of course, there's the ghost. A zesty read.
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Sandy Huseby reviews from Fargo, North Dakota, and northern Minnesota.
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