Cry in the Night by Carolyn Hart

Since I purchased my Kindle, I have been reading two books at the same time. I have my ebook, and then I have the print book that I got from the library. Tonight, I just finished reading my ebook. Carolyn Hart had released some of her earlier book in electronic format. As I already mentioned, I really enjoyed reading Dangerous Summer, so I moved onto Cry in the Night. Cry in the Night in the night is from 1982, but it's not obvious from the plot. Sheila Ramsey is an Egyptologist working in a New York City museum. She goes to a conference in Washington, DC, and runs into, literally, one of the speakers who was against museums buying stolen artifacts. Jerry Elliot strongly expresses his opinion, and although Sheila is repulsed, she is also attracted. After knocking Sheila over and picking her up, Jerry spends the afternoon with Sheila. Unfortunately, she has to return to NYC that evening. Sheila becomes obsessed about meeting up again with Jerry, but he works in a museum in Mexico City, and there's no way they will meet. No way, until Sheila answers a posting in the museum looking for a courier to take an important manuscript to its owners in Mexico City. Sheila applies and hopes for the best since it's for the Latin American section. Surprises of surprises, when Sheila is selected to be the courier. She will take the manuscript to the Ortega family< and then staying with them for a short visit. When Sheila arrives in the Mexico City airport, a little boy passes a note to her from a stranger. The note is a warning for Sheila to return to America. At the Ortega house, Sheila doesn't get much of a reception, and when she hears a cry in the night, she goes to investigate, and finally meets a member of the family, the oldest son, Tony. Of course, Sheila is still fixated with Jerry, and when she goes to the museum to see him, she is shocked at the rude, abrasive, even threatening confrontation with Jerry, who threatens her if she continues to stay in Mexico. Sheila runs from the museum crying, and she is ready to leave Mexico when someone starts to shoot at her! Sheila decides that she is not going to run with her tail between her legs, and she decides to figure out the mystery. Also, she finds that she is starting to develop feelings for Tony.

The book is a very enjoyable read, and there's lots of talk about Aztec treasure and description of Mexican sights. The mystery was a good one, and I did not figure out what was going on until it was revealed at the end. Carolyn Hart did a great job with the earlier books, and if you have the chance, you should run, not walk, to the closest bookstore for the print version or Amazon for the Kindle version. You won't be disappointed.

Congo by Michael Crichton

I thought I had read all of Michael Crichton's books, but I realized as I was looking through his list of books that I had missed Congo. Congo was one of the earlier books, published in 1980. A scientific expedition from Earth Resource Technology Services Inc. (ERTS) to the Congo went awry in a horrible way. The entire team was killed. When the video transmission connected for the daily morning update, the home team in Houston find the Congo team dead, with their heads smashed in. Who could have done it? From a brief glimpse in the video, Karen Ross was chosen to take a team to the Congo when she realized that one of the creatures caught on the video image might be a gorilla. But gorillas aren't supposed to violent. Ross enlisted the aid of Peter Elliot, who had been working with Amy, a gorilla that has learned American Sign Language to communicate with her human handlers. Elliot agreed to go to the Congo with Amy to help Ross find out what happened to the first team. In Africa, the ERST team connected with a white African mercenary, Munro, who agreed to take the team into the Congo to the lost city of Zinj.

As is usual with Crichton books, he went into detail about the travails of experimentation in teaching language to gorillas, and he also examined the interactions of tamed gorillas with their wild counterparts. Are gorillas behind the attacks and murders in the Congo? It seemed to point that way until Elliot realized that there was a separate race of gorilla, previously unknown to man, who had been trained in the earlier development of the lost city of Zinj to act as security guards. How does the team protect themselves from the gorillas, and does the team find the valuable blue diamonds that ERTS, along with other competitors, wanted so desperately to find? The story is very fast paced, and I found myself feeling more of a connection with Amy the gorilla. Crichton did an excellent job of making Amy a compassionate character.

I understand that there was a film version of the book, that came after the success of the movie version of Jurassic Park. I have never seen it, and I don't think that a movie could do the book justice. If you haven't read Congo, you should give it a try. It's a good example of Crichton's brand of science fiction thriller.

Dangerous Summer

When I was a tween, I read a book that had a huge impact on me. I loved it, and I read it every summer. The paperback book had a picture of a modish, 60s girl on the cover. The girl found herself involved in a kidnap plot with the CIA and Russian agents involved. I loved it because there was an Atlantic cruise and a European tour with a bunch of teens. Whenever I read the book, I would imagine myself on a ship crossing the Atlantic. I can remember the heat of a summer night while I was engrossed in the book. The problem is that as I got older, the book got packed away, and I could not remember the name of the book or the author. Well, imagine my surprise when I heard that Carolyn Hart, one of my favorite mystery writers, who wrote the Annie Darling and Henry O. books was releasing some of her early books in electronic format. As I looked at the descriptions of the books, I found the beloved book of my childhood: Dangerous Summer. Yep! I quickly purchased the book and started to read.

I had some trepidations. When you like a book as a kid, you find that your tastes change as an adult. Books that were real page-turners turn into poorly written pieces of trash. Boy, Dangerous Summer and Carolyn Hart did not let me down. The story was just as gripping and thrilling as I remembered. Nan Russell's parents are going to South Africa to do some geological work for an energy company. While they are gone, they plan on sending Nan to spend the upcoming school term with her grandmother in Scotland. Instead of sending Nan directly to Scotland, they plan an Atlantic cruise and European tour with other teens. Nan travels to New York meet up with the tour. Of course, she goes to a museum to pass a few hours, and notices a woman and a man behaving strangely. The woman acts like she doesn't know the man, but then picks up a brochure the man leaves behind. Imagine Nan's shock when one of the tour guides mysteriously drops out, and the woman from the museum takes her place. Nan is suspicious and keeps an eye on the woman. When Nan hears the woman talking with the other tour guide, Dr. Yates, and telling him that there is a kidnap plot, Nan, and her friends Leslie and Jack decide to keep an eye on the situation. There is a kidnapping, and not what was expected, an escape, and a plot to unveil the hidden agent.

All in all, I loved the book. I am so glad that I found the it, and that it turned out as good, if not better, than I remembered. I know plan on reading more of the early Hart books because I am sure there are some other real gems hidden there.

Mount Dragon by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

I don't know how I missed it, but when I was reading through the Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child thrillers, both individual and as a team, I somehow missed an early offering of theirs, Mount Dragon. The book was the second book the team wrote, and it is definitely in the manner of Michael Crichton. Mount Dragon is a biological thriller with the title referencing the location of GeneDyne's desert facility for genetic testing. The scientists there are doing advanced work, but Frank Burt, Nobel winner, turns out to have some weird medical problem that has left him on the verge of insanity. Burt's hospitalization leads to the transfer of Guy Carson to the facility. Once there, Carson learns that he will be working on something called X-FLU. X_FLU is a mutation of a chimp gene that prevents chimps from catching the flu. Brent Scopes, the owner of GeneDyne, wants to create a vaccine of X-FLU that will genetically change people to never catch the flu. Of course, Scopes and GeneDyne have success with PurBlood, a soon to be released artificial blood product. However, there are problems. Charles Levine, Harvard professor who opposes genetic engineering, is a constant antagonist of Scopes. Also, Burt and Carson are having issues making a version of X-FLU that isn't an even worse version of the flu. Imagine exploding cranial cavities, and you get one of the side effects of X-FLU. In addition, it is deadly in a short time. The person exposed to X-FLU may die within hours! Carson eventually figures out what the problem is, but that doesn't mean that he and lab assistant, Susanna de Vaca, are lauded. Instead, they are under physical threat from others at Mount Dragon.

The book is a real page turner, and the twists and turns were unexpected and well-done. I found myself wanted to read ahead to see how things were going to end. The book is a great addition to the biological/scientific thrillers that I love to read. I just wish that Preston and Child would write more in this vein both together and individually. They don't churn out enough books in my opinion. If you haven't tried Preston and Child, what area you waiting for? Go to the library or Amazon right now, and start with a copy of Mount Dragon. You won't be disappointed.

Easy Go by John Lange (aka Michael Crichton)

As I've mentioned before, I love Michael Crichton. It's such a shame that there will be no more new books by Crichton, and that means that I've been looking for authors with a similar style to get a good thriller fix. So, as you might have imagined, i was happy to find out about the John Lange books, which are being re-released in e-book format. That's the pseudonym that Crichton wrote under while he was in medical school. Recently, I read Easy Go, which has a hunt for ancient Egyptian treasure as a theme. The gist of the plot has a group lead by an Harold Barnaby, an Egyptologist who translated hieroglyphics that show where an undiscovered tomb can be found. He enlists the help of writer Robert Pierce, who comes up with an ingenious plan to fund the search for the tomb, AND to make money off the deal. The plan is to find the treasure, then send pictures of the trove to the Egyptian authorities to extract a generous ransom before turning over the items. The book covers the build up to the search and then the search itself.

The story is thrilling. I found myself really liking Pierce, who was the hero of the story, and wishing that things would work out so he could win out in the end. Things look bleak, and then ending has a very interesting twist. So far, I think that it is my favorite of the John Lange books that I have read in recent months. The characters are well drawn, and the plot moves along at a fairly good pace.

Groosham Grange

I'm always looking for new books, even when they aren't necessarily newly published. That's how I happened to come across Groosham Grange by Anthony Horowitz. I know Horowitz as the creator and screenwriter of Foyle's War. He's also written episodes for other television series, such as Midsomer Murders. I know that Horowitz also did the Alex Rider series of spy books for kids that I have on my TBR pile. So when I saw Groosham Grange on the shelves at the local library, I picked it up.

As I started to read the book, I was overwhelmed with the feeling that the book was eerily similar to the Harry Potter stories. Instead of being an orphan, David Eliot is the seventh son of a seventh son. HIs parents make the Dursleys look like ideal parents. As David is expelled from his most recent boarding school, his parents receive an offer from Groosham Grange to take on David. David is quickly bundled off to the school, which is reached by a train ride, and the school itself is on a secluded island. The students and teachers at the school are strange, and as David nears his thirteenth birthday, he feels the tension pick up.

Notice any similarities yet? Yep, it was very like the Potter books in spirit. It turns out that Groosham Grange is a school for wizards and witches. The teachers include a werewolf (named Leloup, French for wolf, like Lupin) and a ghost. Hold on a minute! I went to look at the publication date, and (strong>Groosham Grange came out in 1988. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone came out in 1997. Horowitz didn't go to the lawyers and sue. Instead, he just thanked J.K. Rowling for contributing to young adult fiction in the UK. How do you like them grapes?

Groosham Grange is a good read. It's much shorter than any of the Potter books and much darker in tone. Read the book yourself, and see what you think. All the Potter readers should give Groosham Grange a try. You will not be disappointed.

Laughter of Dead Kings by Elizabeth Peters

Everyone who has read the Vicky Bliss books always wondered if, and what, the connection was between Sir John Tregarth and the Emerson clan of the Amelia Peabody Emerson books. Before Laughter of Dead Kings came out, there were many rumors that this book would answer all the questions.

The adventure started out with the theft of King Tutankhamen from his tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Feisel, from Night Train to Memphis, contacted Sir John because who else would ever think of stealing Tut? Well, obviously, Sir John would never do such a dirty deed to his friend, So Vicky and Sir John decided that they would have to investigate the crime to help Feisel and clear Sir John's name. Of course, Schmidt got involved. At first, Schmidt was going to spy on Sir John for Schmidt's new amour, Suzi, who believed that Sir John was guilty. Schmidt joined forces with Sir John and Vicky, and before you know it, the trio was on the scene in Egypt to find Tut. There's lot so action, twists, and turns before the mystery was solved, and the entire ride was great fun! It was fun to look for hints about the Emersons in the book, and a few things showed up. First was the compound that the Emersons lived in while on their archaeology trips, the home after the river boat. Then a character that can only be Elizabeth Peters herself showed up. The author admitted to buying some manuscripts from the Tregarths and of stealing others from the family estate's attics.

What I loved about the book was the ending. We do find out that Sir John is connected to the Emerson family, through the youngest granddaughter. As Sir John said, although Ramses was an only son, with three children, those children bred like rabbits. And we get the ending we all wanted since Vicky met John: the marriage proposal. I was left with a warm glow. It's sad that we won't have any more Vicky Bliss or Amelia Peabody Emerson books. I suppose we will all just have to continue the adventures in our imagination.