Blog Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: The Binding Room by Nadine Matheson

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE BINDING ROOM by Nadine Matheson on this HTP Summer 2022 Mystery & Thriller Bog Tour.

Below you will find a book summary, my book review, an excerpt from the book and the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!

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Book Summary

Detective Anjelica Henley confronts a series of ritualistic murders in this heart-pounding thriller about race, power and the corrupt institutions that threaten us for fans of S.A. Crosby and Tami Hoag

When Detective Anjelica Henley is called to investigate the murder of popular preacher in his own church, she discovers a second victim, tortured and tied to a bed in an upstairs room. He is alive, but barely, and his body show signs of a dark religious ritual.

With a revolving list of suspects and the media spotlight firmly on her, Henley is left with more questions than answers as she attempts to untangle both crimes. But when another body appears, the case takes on a new urgency. Unless she can apprehend the killer, the next victim may just be Henley herself.

Drawing on her experiences as a criminal attorney, Nadine Matheson’s new novel deftly explores issues of race, class and justice through an action-packed story that will hold you captive until the last terrifying page.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58767994-the-binding-room?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=rl5q9tlr0q&rank=1

THE BINDING ROOM

A Henley Thriller Book #2

Author: Nadine Matheson

ISBN: 9781335426925

Publication Date: July 12, 2022

Publisher: Hanover Square Press

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My Book Review

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

THE BINDING ROOM (An Inspector Anjelica Henley Thriller Book #2) by Nadine Matheson is an intense and gritty British police procedural thriller. This is the second instalment in this series and can be read as a thriller standalone, but there are major character relationships that are better understood if you read The Jigsaw Man, Book #1 first.

Detective Anjelica Henley and her team are back and still dealing with the trauma of their last case as they are pulled into another difficult investigation. Henley is called to a scene of a brutal stabbing of a popular preacher in his own church and as they search the church discover another apparently tortured body barely alive, tied to a bed in a hidden room.

Henley and her team work both cases even as politics, secrets and lies make the team feel like they are getting nowhere fast. More bodies are discovered with the same terrible injuries and the female victim shows signs of having given birth. Both investigations have crossover suspects, but the clues lead to different motives. Henley must move quickly to stop more tortured murder victims.

I am happy to announce there was no sophomore slump with this addition to the series. Henley is still having problems emotionally from their last case and the loss of her mother. Her marriage is still in flux, and I still do not know how that will turn out in future books. Her entire team has become more fully fleshed and I care for them all with all their quirks and differences. This book does have several very dark and graphically disturbing scenes, but it is about sadistic torture murders and Ms. Matheson’s first book was the same, so I was expecting it. The investigative plot was well paced with several twists throughout that keeps you reading with a major twist right before the end.

I highly recommend this thriller and I am looking forward to many more in this series!

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Excerpt

“We all lost,” said DS Paul Stanford as he held out a Quality Street tin in front of Henley.

“What on earth are you talking about?” Henley asked as she took off her coat and flung it onto a spare desk. “Are there any toffee pennies in there?”

“You might want to keep your coat on. The heating’s on the blink again. Either that or they’ve forgotten all about us and haven’t paid the bill. There’s a hundred and forty pounds in the pot and no toffee pennies.”

“Why is there a hundred and forty quid in there?”

Stanford rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. “Remember our bet?” he said. “On him. Our illustrious fully fledged Detective Constable Ramouter.”

“What have I done?” Ramouter asked from his position in the kitchen where he’d been eyeing the bottom of a mug with disgust.

“This is ridiculous,” Henley said. Her ears picked up the whirr coming from the electric fan heaters and the ice-fueled wind whistling outside and rattling the glass.

“You lasted, Ramouter; that’s what you did,” said Stanford. “We had a bet on how long you would last in the SCU.”

“And you didn’t think that I would last six months?” asked Ramouter as he picked up another mug.

“Mate, I didn’t think you would last six days. I’ll have a coffee if you’re making.”

“You shouldn’t be so mean to him,” said Henley as she took off her scarf and pushed it against the rotting frame of the window to block the icy draft that was sweeping across her desk.

“How am I being mean? I’m paying him a bloody compliment. After everything that happened, no one would have blamed him if he’d bolted for the door.”

“Well, he didn’t. He’s stuck with it. So, what are you going to do with the money?”

“I could give Ramouter the money. He could spend it on a train ticket to Bradford or something.”

“Now who’s getting soft?” Henley said. The phone on her desk started to ring.

“Or I could book a table at the curry house down the road. It will be teambuilding.”

“Or a normal Friday night out with you falling asleep in your chili chicken.”

“Rude,” Stanford replied as Henley picked up the phone and Ramouter appeared by his side with a mug of steaming coffee for him.

“Right. I see,” said Henley, reaching for the pad of blue Post-it notes on her desk and a ballpoint pen with a chewed cap. “I didn’t realize that we were still on duty. Can you send me the CAD details? No, I can’t get it myself because the system has crashed again. Thank you. Who found the body? Right.”

Henley pulled off the Post-it note and stuck it to the side of Ramouter’s mug. He peeled it off and looked at it quizzically. “Depending on traffic, we should be there in fifteen minutes.”

“You’re not going to have time to finish that,” said Henley, putting the phone down and grabbing her scarf.

“There’s a body in a church?” Ramouter said as he read the note. “Seriously?”

“That’s what it says.”

“Why are we dealing with this?”

“We’re dealing with it because the borough commander decided that the Serial Crime Unit should be helping out Homicide and Serious Crime with their caseload,” Henley replied wearily.

“Anyone would think that we were just sitting here watching Netflix all day,” Ramouter moaned. “Is it even a murder?”

“We won’t know until we get there, will we?”

“Can I say it?” asked Stanford, a grin spreading across his face.

“No, you can’t,” Henley replied. She picked up her bag and headed toward the door, with Ramouter in tow. She knew Stanford well enough to know exactly what he was going to say.

“I bet you a tenner that it was the Reverend Green with a candlestick in the library,” Stanford shouted out as Henley slammed the door shut behind her.

“I’m not telling you again. Step away from the tape.”

“What’s going on?”

“If I knew I was going to spend the afternoon standing out in the freezing cold I would have stayed in bed this morning.”

“I bet that they’ve found a body or something.”

“Look, those CSI lot have turned up.”

“I only popped out for a coffee and now the old bill are saying that I can’t go back into my own office.”

“F this. I’m going home.”

“I’m telling you that they’ve found a body.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“I don’t understand these kids. Too busy stabbing each other up. No value for life.”

“You can dress it up as much as you like. It’s Deptford innit.”

The murmurings of the curious and disgruntled crowd met Henley and Ramouter as they walked toward the scene of the crime.

“This is a church?” Ramouter asked as he looked up at the cream-colored facade of the brickwork. “I was expecting something a bit more… I don’t know, church-like. Maybe a steeple. This looks like a bank.”

“It used to be a NatWest when I was seventeen. The space was once cheap to rent. Not so sure now,” Henley replied.

“I did a quick Google search—”

“Of course you did.”

“And there’s another seven churches on the Broadway.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Henley. “Betting shops, churches and chicken shops on literally every London high street.”

Henley and Ramouter held up their warrant cards to the officer behind the police tape. Henley scoped the gathering crowd. Nothing about them raised any alarms, but she knew from experience that some murderers were voyeuristic by nature.

“Look likes Dr. Choi is here,” Ramouter said, pointing out the car of Henley’s friend and the Serial Crime Unit’s favorite pathologist, parked between a police motorbike and small white transit van that had ‘Forensic Services Crime Scene Investigation’ marked in black font on the side.

Henley stopped and looked around the small car park. There were no security cameras. She felt a sense of calm as she walked closer to the crime scene. It was a welcome emotion and a respite from the anxiety that was usually coursing through her veins, which she could keep at bay if she bothered to take her prescription to the chemist. She spotted the police officer that she was looking for leaning against the side of a police car, flipping through the pages of his notebook with a pen in his mouth.

“PC Tanaka? DI Henley from the SCU.”

PC Tanaka looked up and then stood to attention a little bit too quickly as Henley walked toward him.

“Ma’am,” said PC Tanaka.

“This is my colleague, DC Ramouter.”

“Shit,” said PC Tanaka when he dropped his notebook. “Sorry.” He brushed off slush from the cover. “It’s bloody freezing.”

“You were first on scene?” Henley asked.

Tanaka nodded. Henley could tell that he wanted to get it right. Giving a senior officer information about a murder scene was a lot different to dealing with burglaries, domestics and breaking up a fight between a couple of crackheads at the bottom of the high street.

“We, that’s the sarge, Sergeant Rivers, and I were driving back to the station. We’re based around the corner at Deptford station. We had just finished our shifts and was coming back from the McDonald’s up the road…”

PC Tanaka paused and took a breath.

Henley felt sorry for him as nerves or possibly shock overtook him. She saw a look of sympathy on Ramouter’s face as they both waited for PC Tanaka to continue.

“Sorry, guv, I mean ma’am,” said PC Tanaka straightening himself again and lowering the volume on his crackling police radio. “As I said, we were heading back to the station and one of the guys who works in the design agency practically threw himself onto the bonnet of the car. He was screaming about a body. We found the cleaner in hysterics in the staffroom of the agency. She refused to leave and take us to the church. I left her with the sarge and I went into the church and yeah, I won’t forget what I saw.”

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Author Bio

Nadine Matheson is a criminal defense attorney and winner of the City University Crime Writing competition. She lives in London, UK.

Social Media Links

Author Website

Twitter: @NadineMatheson

Facebook: @NadineMathesonWriter

Instagram: @QueenNads

Purchase Links

Book Review: Every Kind of Wicked by Lisa Black

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

EVERY KIND OF WICKED (A Gardiner and Renner Book #6) by Lisa Black is a fast-paced, intricately plotted addition to this forensic/police procedural thriller series set in Cleveland, Ohio featuring a female forensics expert and a male detective tied together by a dark secret. This series is best read in order due to the evolving character arc between the two main characters, but the crime plots in each book can stand alone.

A young man is found dead in the snow in the Erie Street Cemetery and Jack Renner is assigned to investigate with Maggie Gardiner on scene to look for any forensic evidence. Maggie’s ex-husband, Rick is assigned to investigate the death of a junkie in what appears to be an overdose by the Westside Market. At first, they are considered separate cases, but they begin to merge when both cases lead back to a pill-pushing doctor they are having difficulty finding.

When Maggie is called to the scene of a murdered woman connected to Rick’s case, she discovers a bloody fingerprint, and it belongs to Rick. Rick is missing and Maggie refuses to believe he could be involved in this murder. As Jack and Maggie investigate the several murders they find connections to a call-center scam operation as well as a Medicare scam. Maggie’s world is about to be changed forever.

This was such an exciting addition to the series! I could not put it down. You have two crime plots that at first do not seem connected and then Ms. Black merges them into one terrible criminal operation which was completely unexpected. Maggie faces personal emotional trauma during this story that was a complete surprise and then the ending through me for a complete loop. I love that this series is set in my hometown and I can visualize all the locations in the book.

This is definitely one of the best books in this series! I cannot wait for the next book. I highly recommend this series and author.

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About Lisa Black

Lisa Black’s books have reached the NYT bestsellers list, been translated into six languages and have been optioned for film. Perish was shortlisted for the inaugural Sue Grafton Memorial Award by Putnam and Mystery Writers of America. Lisa will be a Guest of Honor at 2021 Killer Nashville.

She is a certified crime scene analyst in Florida and a former forensic scientist for the Cleveland coroner’s office. She is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the International Association for Identification, and the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts, and has testified in more than fifty homicide trials.

She still aspires to drive Nancy Drew’s convertible and marry Ellery Queen.

Website: https://lisa-black.com/

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Armored by Mark Greaney

Book Description

Joshua Duffy is a Close Protection Agent – a professional bodyguard, and he’s one of the world’s elite operatives. That is he was until his last mission in Lebanon. Against all odds, Josh got his primary out alive, but the cost was high. Josh lost his lower left leg.

There’s not much call for an elite bodyguard with such an injury. So, Josh has to support his family working as a mall cop in Jersey. For a man like Josh this is purgatory on earth, but even in Paramus miracles occur.

A lucky run in with an old comrade promises to get Josh back in the field for one last job. The UN is sending a peace mission into the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico, an area so dangerous it’s known as Espinazo del Diablo (The Devil’s Spine). Only a fool would think they could broker peace between the homicidal drug cartels in the region and only a madman would sign on to keep those fools alive.

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Elise’s Thoughts

Armored by Mark Greaney shows why he is currently one of the best thriller writers. Although written first as an Audible Original, the book is much more enjoyable. Once again Greaney does not disappoint. There is plenty of action, but also some important issues covered including those still able to serve after losing a limb as well as how contractor companies treat their employees.

Best known for his “Gray Man series,” there were times in the story that readers wished for Court Gentry to come out and help the main character, Joshua “Duff” Duffy. But the badass in the novel was not Gentry, but Duffy’s wife Nichole, a former helicopter pilot.

Duffy, a former military Infantry soldier who became a private military contractor, shows his tenacity after losing part of his leg. Down on his luck and struggling to financially support his family, Duffy has an old comrade set up an interview with the contracting company, Armored Saints, that has a checkered reputation. He is hired as part of a private protection squad to guard a team of UN representatives. They are going to meet with warring drug lords deep into cartel country in Mexico, hoping to negotiate a peace between them. It soon becomes obvious that Duffy and his teammates must deal with hidden agendas, double crosses, and warfare.

Not only are the guys front and center but so are the women. Dr. Gabrielle Flores, a regional analyst for the area of Sierra Madres, in Mexico, informs Duffy’s team how dangerous the area is. She is also very valuable in helping them escape, knowing the area, the cartels, and the locals. The other woman in the story is Duffy’s wife Nichole who goes on a fact-finding mission to save her husband and refuses to take “no” as an answer.

This military thriller will leave readers on the edge of their seats. The plot will remind readers of “The Dirty Dozen.” The novel has everything Greaney is known for including intense action, great dialogue, and team of heroes that are very likeable, while enemies that are very unlikeable. This is a book that should not be put down, but unfortunately, people will have to wait for book 2 to come out.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Can you tell us something about the “The Gray Man” movie on Netflix?

Mark Greaney: It stars Ryan Gosling as The Gray Man, Court Gentry, and will be released on July 22. I read the script when they started filming. I have also seen it and really liked it. They did change some things. With so many people involved in making the movie, there is always creative influences. Characters who were not in the first book but did come along later in the book series are introduced in the movie. It is true to the spirit of the longer story of the first book. The dialogue was clever for the story.

EC: How did you get the idea for Armored, your latest book and will it be a series?

MG: Yes, it will be a series. The idea came about when I was training in a school with firearms. This school trained a lot of civilian contractors. There, I took a lot of classes that were designed for executive protection. It had a lot of running and gunning with team tactics. I thought in 2009 about writing a story about these contractors. First it was an audio play, and now the novel has come out.

EC: You put a different take on contracting firms?

MG: Some are not loyal or supportive to their employees. The one I created in this book, Armored Saint, is corrupt and dirty. Overall, the contractors themselves are awesome. Some of these companies have a reputation, which I wanted to dance around a bit. In the 2000s it was the heyday for these companies and now things have dried up.

EC: How did you come up with the scene where Duffy saved the wife?

MG: Duffy had a mission that went wrong but did his job. I decided to do it in Beirut because there was an assassination of a presidential candidate fifteen years ago. With that in the back of my mind I orchestrated the different roads and tactics. I did not go over there but mapped it out.

EC: How would you describe Duffy?

MG: Very much a blue-collar worker. Not at all like The Gray Man, not a secret spy, a Superhero, or Special Forces. But he was not a mercenary because he seeks justice. In the beginning of the story, he is not a leader, but a helper. When he lost his limb, he was depressed at the inability to financially support his family. But as a strong family man he was responsible and caring. He has the desire and guts to get back out there even with the loss of a limb. Very courageous.

EC: How would you describe Nichole, Duffy’s wife?

MG: She was a Captain in the Army, flying helicopters. I wanted to write her as an alpha female. She is very assertive, someone who takes charge. She is the opposite of Duffy who is very easy going. I think she wants to go back to the world where she was a leader, her natural habitat. Overall, she is straight forward, no nonsense, and detailed.

EC: The Cartels are like the Mafia?

MG: I wrote a Gray Man book, Ballistic, where Court faced off with the Cartels. I found out through the research how much torture and violence there is. I could not put that in the books. It is a civil war in Mexico, the Mexican Marines versus the Cartels who are brutal to the townspeople. There are rivalries between the different Cartels and actual maps show what territory is held by which Cartel.

EC: What role did Dr. Gabrielle (Gabby) Flores play?

MG: I spent some time in the Archeological Museum in Mexico City where Gabby works. As I was writing the story, I realized that many of the contractors were American, French, British, and in a world they did not understand. Gabby became the character, the heart and soul of the story, that allowed me through her, to tell the story of the setting and the hardships the people face. She preached to the contractors the danger in the area and how desperate the people living there are.

EC: How would you describe Dr. Gabrielle (Gabby) Flores versus UN representative Michelle La Rue?

I contrasted Gabby with Michelle La Rue. Gabby is a realist, caring, honest, and direct. La Rue is a UN bureaucrat who overestimates her abilities and influence. She is an allegory for the UN going into places and doing things, trying to be peacekeepers. Through La Rue I was able to put in my own personal bias. La Rue has a naiveté and a jadedness at the same time, especially when she wanted the contractors to disarm in a very dangerous setting.

EC: Next books?

MG: I have written two books a year since 2009, the “Clancy series,” “Red Metal,” of course “The Gray Man,” and now this series “Armored,” where I will probably start to write the next book in August. Armored has been optioned by Sony with Michael Bay producing it. The second Armored book will have a strong dynamic between Duffy and Nichole, co-leads.

The next Gray Man book is titled Murder, the twelfth in the series, out in February next year. Zoya will be back with Zack probably in the latter part of the book.

Red Metal II written with Lt. Col. Hunter Ripley Rawlings will be out before the next Armored book.

THANK YOU!!

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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.

Book Review: Poison Evidence by Rachel Grant

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

POISON EVIDENCE (Evidence Book #7 on Goodreads, Book #8 on Amazon) by Rachel Grant is another thrilling installment in the Evidence series featuring another brilliant member of the Naval History and Heritage Command team. This book is easily read as a standalone, but there is carryover of characters from previous books in this series. Any history from previous stories between characters is explained without going into detail and seamlessly keeps the current story flowing.

Ivy MacLeod is sent to the islands of Palau with her new advanced remote sensing technology known as CAM to map a WWII battle site. Ivy is happy to leave the states and distance herself from her ex-husband’s trial for treason. When she is attacked at a party for dignitaries on the island, she escapes with the help of Jack Keaton, an American on vacation in Palau.

Jack Keaton is not who he seems, but he has saved Ivy’s life. When Ivy learns the U.S. government has betrayed her, she must make up her own mind who is the spy, who is the protector and who is the villain.

I love this series! The heroines are accomplished, intelligent women with intriguing jobs whose personal lives become very complicated with heroes that are alpha males and over-achievers in their own right. Ivy has always been socially awkward due to her intelligence and then she suffered the ultimate betrayal from a husband she loved. Her invention is her life until she meets Jack, but he has many identities and Ivy has to trust him with her life even as he could be as bad as her ex. Jack’s backstory and the reasons for the way he lives his life make him a sympathetic character and the author does a great job of keeping him on that fine line between hero or villain. The plot is an intricate, edge-of-your-seat, fast paced spy thriller that leaves the reader questioning the motives of most of the characters right up to the climax. The sex scenes in this book are all smokin’ hot and explicit, but never gratuitous.

I highly recommend this romantic suspense/spy thriller, as well as every other book in this series!

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About the Author

USA Today bestselling author Rachel Grant worked for over a decade as a professional archaeologist and mines her experiences for storylines and settings, which are as diverse as excavating a cemetery underneath an historic art museum in San Francisco, survey and excavation of many prehistoric Native American sites in the Pacific Northwest, researching an historic concrete house in Virginia, and mapping a seventeenth century Spanish and Dutch fort on the island of Sint Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles.

She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and children.

Social Media Links

Website: https://rachel-grant.net/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RachelGrantAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/rachelsgrant

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: The Handler by M.P. Woodward

Book Description

A disgraced former CIA operative must go back in the field with only his ex-wife as his handler in this electrifying thriller from a former intelligence officer.

Meredith Morris-Dale is a CIA agent and a damn good one…even if this last mission did go terribly wrong. Now she has been summoned back to Langley where she expects to be fired. Instead, she is met by the Deputy Director with stunning news.

A single well-placed CIA mole in Iran’s uranium enrichment program has kept the terrorist nation from building a bomb by sabotaging their centrifuge’s performance. But after losing his daughter in an airliner shootdown, the mole wants out–leaving the world on the brink. His one demand: a reunion with the only handler he ever trusted, John Dale–Meredith’s disgraced, fired, wayward ex-husband. As Meredith and John struggle through their fraught relationship, a craven CIA political hierarchy, Russian interference, and the rogue spy’s manipulation, they must reach deep within their shared connection to maintain, recover, or kill the asset.

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Elise’s Thoughts

The Handler by M. P. Woodward allows readers to gain knowledge of the intelligence world with a story all too real, delving into the return of the Cold War days. If readers are looking for a Vince Flynn like author that has the same action, characters to root for, and national security concerns, Woodward is the author to read.

In this debut story disgraced CIA operative John Dale is coaxed out of retirement by his ex-wife Meredith, the head of the CIA’s Counterproliferation Division. John is asked to extract Iranian asset Cerberus, a scientist working on the Iranian nuclear program. The CIA mole has kept this terrorist nation from building a bomb through sabotage. But now the mole wants out and will only deal with his trusted former handler, Dale.

Both John, and his handler, Meredith, must work together to bring the scientist to safety. Together they face very dangerous obstacles including the CIA’s political hierarchy, Iran’s military, and Russian spies. There are Russian agents leading an SVR team anxious to take out John and Meredith, a lieutenant colonel with the Quds branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who wants Cerberus just as badly as the CIA, and Meredith’s corrupt supervisor, Rance.

Woodward, a former naval intelligence officer, uses his experience to write a very believable story full of suspense and twists. There is plenty of drama, tension, and conflict. Readers will not want to put this book down.

***

Author Interview

Elise Cooper: The idea for the story?

M. P. Woodward: I have been a naval intelligence officer and like to keep up with what is happening in the world. In January 2020 on the airport TV was the coverage of a civilian Ukrainian airliner shot down by Iran. I started to think about how and why it happened. The people on that plane were largely Iranian students going back to school in Canada. I thought it could be a plot for a novel. I wanted to write a story with authenticity and realism.

EC: How did your professional experience help in writing the book?

MPW: I divide it into two halves. The first is being in the military for several years. The other is working at Amazon doing distribution deals. With the former, I used to write war game scenarios. I knew a lot about how various agencies on both sides would react to certain escalations. This helped with some character development, setting, and timing. The business side helped me to capture working at a bureaucracy that has inertia and people with political motivations.

EC: You talk about the countries of evil toward the US which seems to be the same ones as of today?

MPW: We were in a period of history, post-Cold War that had a rule based on international order. Now we are in Cold War 2.0 with three imperialist powers who challenge the status quo to expand their sphere of influence. As I discuss in the book, China is the senior partner with Russia and Iran the junior partners, all working together. Russia is helping the Iranians with a nuclear reactor in exchange for oil drilling rights. The Chinese try to build client satellite states. Whereas the western democracies are a little slow to this threat. I am worried because they have failed to deter.

EC: The Iran nuclear threat?

MPW: Many countries in that area have nuclear weapons. A lot of them are modern societies, while Iran has different ideas. There are those in Iran who believe that the 12^th Iman will come back once Armageddon is achieved. A facility was built, spending 500 million dollars, to welcome back the 12^th Iman. These are the people in power. The idea they will have nuclear weapons is very scary. The Iranians are hiding their secret nuclear facilities which for me shows they do not want a deal with the US.

EC: Besides writing about the geo-political threat, you have well developed characters. How would you describe John?

MPW: He believes in honor, duty, and commitment, but lacks the patience of working within large organizations. He would rather work alone to get the mission accomplished. His heart is in the right place. He is frustrated with working within the system. He and I are landscape painters, a loner profession. The cabin he lives in is like the one I have, up on a mountain. He can be charming and unpredictable.

EC: How would you describe Meredith?

MPW: She is the opposite of John. She accepts the rules and works within the organization. She also has a sense of honor, duty, and mission. She goes about doing things in different ways than John and becomes frustrated with him. She can read people and at times is intense. Meredith is attracted to someone like John but has a hard time in making peace with his actions. She and John have a bond.

EC: You show how intelligence works?

MPW: Yes. I wanted to show how a lot of times the handler and the operative sometimes have incomplete information. Since they were married with an adult child, she feels her first duty is to John. Meredith is an advocate for him. I put in this quote, “Good assets are in it for ideology, or even better, their vision of morality.” They want to do the right thing because they want change.

EC: How would you describe Rance, Meredith’s CIA boss who is a political animal?

MPW: He is fallible and cautious. He is not decisive versus Meredith who thinks quickly. He does put his career first. He is arrogant, selfish, calculating, uncaring, and tries to throw Meredith and John under the bus. He thinks he can get away with things, which is his undoing.

EC: Please explain this book quote, “Intelligence failures were infamous for overlooked, seemingly innocuous assumptions.”

MPW: I worked with Special Forces who must know the smallest details. Remember during the raid on OBL when the helicopter crashed. It did so because the rehearsals during the mission had a chain linked fence. But the actual fence was a masonry wall. People like John in this story must know does the door open in or out, are the hinges on the left or right side of the door.

EC: The next book?

MPW: It will come out this time next year, titled Scorched Earth. The plot is the shadow war between Israel and Iran. The question should the Americans appease Iran and get a deal done, angering Israel. The overriding arguments, containment versus appeasement of Iran? Meredith and John are on Israel’s side. I used many real-world references. I wanted to portray the existential threat to Israel if Iran gets a nuclear weapon and highlight Israel’s military.

THANK YOU!!

***

Book Review: Let Justice Descend by Lisa Black

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

LET JUSTICE DESCEND (A Gardiner and Renner Book #5) by Lisa Black is another exciting addition to this crime thriller series featuring a forensics expert and a detective who takes justice into his own hands. The crime plots in each book stand on their own, but I feel to understand the dynamics between the main characters, these books are best read in order.

With only three days before the contentious November election, Maggie and Jack are called to a unique crime scene. The current U.S. Senator Diane Cragin is dead on her own doorstep from electrocution. Cragin’s chief of staff is quick to blame the Senator’s Democratic contender, Joey Green Cleveland’s city development director.

With almost a million is cash found in the Senator’s home safe, Maggie and Jack must follow the money through the double-dealing politics of Cleveland and D.C. which only leads to more suspects. The investigation into the pending election exposes corruption at the highest levels and leads to more dead bodies as Maggie and Jack work to put the pieces together and catch a killer.

I love Maggie and Jack and the twist at the end of this book! The pace of the plot moves quickly with the election so close. Ms. Black does a good job of keeping the political players equally good and bad without favoring one side or another. The two political projects were good examples of how corrupt government officials and dark money work for the participants, but not the public and the government employee who was looking out for the public really had limited power. This story brings elements of political intrigue, police procedural and forensics all together into a thriller read.

I loved this addition to the series, the entire series and cannot wait for the next book to find out what Jack does next!

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About Lisa Black

She still aspires to drive Nancy Drew’s convertible and marry Ellery Queen.

Website: https://lisa-black.com/