Serial Uncut (Graves, Kilborn/Konrath)

Chicago homicide detective Lt. Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels walks into Murray’s diner, unaware that two serial killers are sitting at the counter getting acquainted. She’ll soon find out.

The first two chapters of Serial Uncut (Extended Version) are mere appetite-whetters.

Just outside of Tampa in 1978, a man named Gregory Donaldson hitches a ride after the Ford Pinto he’d stolen breaks down. He’s picked up by a serial killer (Mr. K) who coaches him into slowly killing the man in his Lincoln Continental trunk – very slowly (it takes two hours) alongside the road.

Then in Indianapolis, 1995, 15-year-old horror novel fan Lucy gloms onto a writer at a horror writing conference and slashes his throat in the hotel bathroom. She’s taken under the wing of two serial killers (Orson and Luther); the three of them dispose of another writer before parting.

Which brings us to Wisconsin, 2007, truck driver toe-muncher (literally) Marshal Otis Taylor takes a break from dining on a Murray’s diner prostitute and meets Donaldson (remember him?). They overcome Lt. Daniels, but she and the prostitute escape.

A week later, Donaldson messes up another hitchhiker in Utah, then picks up … Lucy, who’d just messed up two young men. It becomes a battle of wits and “who can outdo the other.” But, they both mess up.

Serial Uncut is full of irony, and kind of fun in a sick and gory way. The authors put the tale together, taking characters from their previous stories and sort of stitching them together. It works – a little ragged at first, but if you can get through the first two chapters, you’re good to go.

Serial Uncut (2010)

Carl Graves, Jack Kilborn & J.A. Konrath

Smashwords ($19.99 list)

ISBN 13: 987-1452366319

A Girl Like You (John Locke)

Sam Case is bitten by a water moccasin when he goes to the toilet in the middle of the night. Described as “so methodical and orderly, he makes Spock look like Richard Simmons,” Sam awakens in a hospital bed.

Flash back 24 hours to a restart with former CIA agent Donovan Creed. Seventeen chapters later, we’re caught up and Sam’s little adventure with the snake now makes sense.

Nadine Crouch, Creed’s former psychiatrist (remember her from Lethal Experiment?) has been caring for his long-time girlfriend, Rachel Case, who’s recently had a blood test. Now her doctor’s dead and she’s missing.

At the end of Lethal Experiment, Creed had a $1-million operation and had his face changed to protect his cover (after all, he WAS a CIA assassin). He paid for it himself because he’s extraordinarily rich. Now, he’s an extraordinarily handsome man, and he knows it.

Along the way, he has a conversation with Ruth Henry, the deceased doctor’s receptionist. That encounter is told with great hilarity and with a wonderful working of the English language. An example: “There is some sort of odd growth just over her left eye that resembles a button mushroom someone jabbed with a fork.” And there’s more, a tête-à-tête that had me laughing out loud.

Along the way, we become reacquainted with Lou Kelly, Creed’s long-time “facilitator” and right-hand man. About two-thirds way through the story, we are reintroduced to the stunning beauty, Callie Carpenter, who works with Creed.

So, why was Rachel taken? Sam – who, by the way, is Rachel’s former husband, and from whom Creed stole her away – figures it out. Rachel has a gene in her blood that’s one in a billion and awfully valuable. 

A Girl Like You (2011)

John Locke

Telemachus Press, LLC ($0.99 Kindle edition)

ASIN: B004Q9TJU8

Trapped (A Novel of Terror) (Jack Kilborn)

Sara and Martin Randhurst are taking their teen-age charges on an outing to a remote island in Lake Huron. As directors of the Second Chance Center in Detroit (for kids society has given up on), they’re little sad, for their program just got cut.

Still, they have good work to do for the kids who are with them – kids on whom society has given up: ADHC sufferer Tom Gransee, black gang member Meadowlark Purcell, rival gang member Tyron Morrow, hard-luck  Laneesha Simms who only wants her baby back, hardened individualist Georgia Dailey, and the frightened Cindy Welp, a reformed meth addict.

At a campfire after their arrival, Martin tells story about Rock Island Prison, used to house confederate prisoners during Civil War. The survivors, it seems, reverted to cannibalism. Maybe he shouldn’t have tried too hard to frighten them, because he disappears after telling story.

Although it would be safer to remain at camp, Sara and Laneesha set out to search for Martin, Cindy has to pee and takes Georgia with her. And then … Sara, carrying her little baby Jack, pulls a long, rotten, stinking human bone out of the ground, and the story gets really interesting.

As Trapped develops, we learn more about Sara and Martin, who are on verge of divorce, and about each of the youths, all of whom have interesting back stories. And then … their whole world falls apart. THEY are stalking the group. THEY are getting braver. THEY are brandishing their forks because THEY are HUNGRY.

Laneesha (lucky girl) gets to meet Subject 33, an experimental subject of The Doctor – Dr. Archibald Mordecai Plincker, great-great-grandson of the Rock Island Prison warden.

Georgia (lucky girl) gets to meet Lester Paks, who has Stereotypic Movement Disorder and loves to bite. He bit a woman to death and is now the charge of The Doctor.

Tom (lucky guy) gets to be the first to eat barbecue (“Hmm. Tastes like chicken”), and then experiences his first-ever French kiss … but it definitely was gross and unenjoyable.

Speaking of gross, listen to this passage: “The Doctor scratched his chin and a bit of dried skin flaked off. George felt the crumb land on her lower lip.”

Kilborn takes the reader on a horrifying journey laced with psychopaths, two-timing characters, cannibals, limbless remainders of living people, disgusting experimentations and rotting flesh.

When I finished the book on my Kindle, I noticed I was only about 50% through the file. As it turns out, Kilborn explains he had written a different version earlier, one that was rejected by the publishers. So he revised it. What I read was the revised version. The other half of the file contains the original version (bonus!) that I plan to read at a later date.

For now, I’ve had just about all I can take of the horror and terror that transpires on the island. If you’re a horror/terror fan, you’re going to love Trapped. It’s been a while since I’ve read a horror story and this one got my juices flowing once again and I think I’ll get more of them.

There are some misspellings, but I’ve decided to just ignore these from now on and not get obsessive over them any longer.

Trapped (A Novel of Terror) (2010)

J.A. Konrath as Jack Kilborn

CreateSpace (Paperback, $13.95 list)

ISBN-13: 978-1453806029

The Innocent (Vincent Zandri)

Jack Marconi (aka “Keeper”) is warden of the maximum-security Green Haven Prison in New York. Once used to house German POWs during WWII, it’s now the home of 2,500 inmates, which includes the permanent population plus transients to Attica or Sing Sing.

Since his wife was killed in a traffic accident, Marconi has kind of lost his focus on work. He’s been having flashbacks of the Attica riots where he worked as a corrections officer.

The one day, a cop killer named Eduardo Vasquez escapes when he’s returning from an appointment with a local dentist. Before he knows it, the hammer seems to be coming down hard on Marconi. Desperate to clear his name, Marconi goes out on own to find Vasquez and bring him back.

Did Vasquez have inside help? The two COs who accompanied him to the dentist provide conflicting stories. A discarded envelope in Vasquez’s cell provides a clue, but Marconi is arrested for obstruction of justice and withholding evidence when he asks a favor and has forensics done on a found gun, bullet casings and handcuff keys.

It turns out that a partnership involving corrections officers, prisoners and a dirty cop was selling drugs in/out of the prison, setting up Marconi as the unsuspecting key because signed the outside-visit releases.

With the help of his secretary Val, and Vasquez’s girlfriend Cassandra, Marconi devises a scheme that will clear his name.

The Innocent is a good read, the action is easy to follow, and the characters are well-developed.  In his foreward, author Vincent Zandri confesses that The Innocent is actually a dozen years old and was originally published as As Catch Can in 1999. Tell you the truth … I’m glad he brought it back.

The Innocent (2010)

Vincent Zandri

Amazon Kindle ebook ($.99 list)

ASIN: B00452V7TM

Brittle Shadows (Vicki Tyley)

Having traveled from her home in Perth, Jemma Dalton was in Melbourne to gather up her sister’s things. Her sister, Tanya Clark, had found her fiancé Sean Mullins hanging in closet, naked, covered with gay porn magazine pages – auto-erotic asphyxia.

Two months later and six-months pregnant, Tanya killed herself, leaving an estate of more than $1 million, with a major stock holdings in Bartlett Developments, owned by philanderer Marcus Bartlett.

Jemma is trying to find some answers. Instead, she finds two cryptic incomplete notes between washer and dryer, and a DVD taped inside a wardrobe. She receives a mysterious letter advising her to be careful, trust no one, and go back home. But why?

Sean, Marcus Bartlett’s chauffeur and personal trainer, had been possessive and controlling of Tanya, and had left his wife Kerry for her. Understandably, Kerry hated Tanya and harassed her.

As Brittle Shadows progresses, it appears that Jemma has gained the attraction of several men – Det. Sgt. Chris Sykes of the Victoria Police; Ethan Kelly, property manager of Tanya’s flat, and Marcus’ son, Ash. Jemma herself is confused about the intentions of each. Throw into the mix her former boyfriend Ross Gibson, and security guard Gerry Hobson, and things really get complicated for her.

With hardly a moment’s rest – PDA beeps, phones ring, someone at the door, bumping into people, lunches, dinners, one after the other in rapid succession – Jemma  strives to maintain her sanity via calls back home to Aunt Gail.

Then, a shocking revelation. And then, more revelations. At last, we understand what really happened to Tayna, and why. Author Vicki Tyley’s third novel, Brittle Shadows lured me on, constantly guessing at who the culprit really is. Eventually, she shows us that lives come apart, shattered in the bright light of truth.

Couple of irritations, both incorrect usage: Tyley used “further” twice when the correct usage is “farther” (a pet peeve of mine), and then “But it’s not that’s sort of relationship” (she meant “that sort of relationship,” I’m sure).

Brittle Shadows (2010)

Vicki Tyley

Amazon Kindle ebook ($3.99 list)

ASIN: B004FV4YNY

When Darkness Falls (James Grippando)

Although it was published in 2007, When Darkness Falls was offered free for Kindle in three parts earlier this year, and I was lucky to discover the offering one day while perusing the free titles list. What a treasure I found, and it was verification that sometimes, the best things in life are indeed free.

Pablo Garcia is a homeless character, well-known to Miami police as Falcon. He’s a bit of an odd job who lives in an abandoned, stripped Ford Falcon that he calls home. One day, armed and battling delusions, he takes two young prostitutes, a black bar owner and a TV weatherman hostage following a car crash in which he was a passenger.

It seems that Garcia had killed a woman who visited him and had taken shelter in his car/home. What a mistake that was, as in his own mind, she represented someone who had come to make him pay for his part in “the Disappeared.”

Falcon wants criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck’s help, so Jack and his assistant Theo Knight (bar owner) fly there to pick up his fee from Falcon’s Bahama bank safe deposit box. What do they find? They find $200,000 in crisp small bills.

That’s when things get dicey. Upon their return Jack, Theo and Falcon are involved in the car crash that plows into the motel room where the Latinas and their client are having what they thought was a fine time.

Sgt. Vincent Paulo, a Miami PD crisis negotiator who recently blinded when a negotiation went south, has a personal connection with Falcon and is called in to negotiate. Sgt. Paulo has a relationship with police officer Alicia Mendoza, who is Mayor Raul Mendoza’s daughter and his former girlfriend.

But something’s not quite right. Something else is going on, and it involves a mysterious woman, Mayor Mendoza, his bodyguard and who knows who else. And, who are “the Disappeared,” and why does it frighten Falcon?

When Darkness Falls is fast-paced, and Grappando is able to flash back at just the right moments, filling in historical details that have the reader nodding in acknowledgement. His writing is witty and humorous at times, especially when Jack and Theo are conversing on their plane ride to the Bahamas.

My only complaint. For some reason, a continual formatting error popped up. Whenever the word “service” appears, there’s an extra space between “ser” and “vice” (ser vice) … 7 times in fact. But who’s counting?

When Darkness Falls (2007)

James Grappando

Harper ($7.99 paperback)

ISBN-13: 978-0060831141