Mystery

Title: Dare Not Blink
Author: Gerald Gillis
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Reviewer: Margaret Brown

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0985252340

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer... The Old Man is dead. Langdon Elerbee—the chairman and founder of Elerbee Engineering—has been struck down by cancer, and the multi-million dollar company that bears his name has devolved into clandestine corporate infighting. The company president, Jeff Wylie, has kept the old man’s illness a secret, so no one but Wylie is prepared to exploit the power vacuum created by Elerbee’s death. Now, Wylie is quietly pulling strings and making backdoor deals to consolidate his own position at the top of the pyramid. Dave Paige is a young gun. A regional vice president at age forty-two, he’s one of the company’s rising stars. He believes in playing the game the way that Elerbee himself had played it: with loyalty, integrity, and a personal devotion to excellence. He suddenly finds himself going head-to-head with corporate backstabbers who will pull every dirty trick in the book to achieve their own short-sighted goals. Dave isn’t just fighting for his job, or the millions of dollars at stake, or even for the company he has grown to love. He’s fighting for the soul of corporate America, and no one is guarding his back.

Title: Codename Aphrodite
Author: Charles S. Faddis
Genre: Thriller/Mystery

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 061553967X

Ex CIA ops officer, Bill Boyle, has been languishing in limbo in Mexico since the day his wife, another CIA officer, was blown to pieces in front of him during an op on the streets of Athens. Now he's been given a chance to redeem himself and find his wife's killers, but to do so he is going to have to return to Greece and dig up an old, and very dangerous asset, codenamed Aphrodite. Based on the author's own real experiences as a CIA operative working against terrorist groups in Europe and the Middle East, this is as close as you can get to running an operation yourself without signing up for the Company.

Title: Sword of Shiva
Author: Jeff Edwards
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Reviewer: Sandra Linhart

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0985044381

A SINGLE SPARK CAN IGNITE A WAR THAT CONSUMES THE WORLD.

Three Tibetan rebels attack a train carrying Chinese soldiers into the Tibet Autonomous Region. The rebels escape across the Himalayas into India, unaware that the son of China’s First Vice-Premier lays maimed and dying among the burning wreckage of the train.

As an escalating series of retaliations drive China and India toward outright war, hostilities spill over into the sea, and the Bay of Bengal becomes a crucible of naval warfare.

The president of the United States orders a U.S. Navy strike group into the area as a stabilizing force, but the situation between the two nations has already deteriorated beyond any hope of peaceful resolution.

With Asia hovering on the brink of annihilation, a small force of U.S. warships must defeat the Chinese Navy to preempt the coming firestorm.

The fuse has already been lit…

Title: Patriot and Assassin
Author: Robert Cook
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Reviewer: Dick Geschke

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0984315535

Blend a dollop of Enlightenment history for the lawyers and history buffs, a skosh of cool technology for the geekish, and a smidgen of business for the Wall Street crowd. Add to a boiling cauldron of passion and armed violence. Sprinkle with strong dialog and wit. Shazaam! Tomorrow’s headlines today, in Patriot and Assassin. Patriot and Assassin places the protagonist, Alejandro ‘Cooch’ Cuchulain, at the heart of a plot to release nerve gas in one of our nation’s busiest stadiums, then later into the sadistic hands of the terrorist who planned that attack. Cooch leads a Rhodes Scholar former Seal, a stunning female MacArthur winning physicist, a former USMC Master Sniper and the former director of the CIA’s special operations unit, now working in the White House. Together, they engage a large contingent of Al-Qaeda, among others, while working to improve the life of Muslims. Inspired by the evidence that Middle Eastern culture will be transformed positively when Muslims are convinced that transformation in their self-interest, Patriot and Assassin uses the proven lessons of the Enlightenment to expedite that transformation. More than simply sex and violence advance the story. Patriot and Assassin incorporates strong character development and powerful, thoughtful dialogue to drive this politico-thriller at a breakneck pace. The Enlightenment transformed the Western world in three hundred years. Cooch and company hope to transform the Muslim world in far less time, using technology, violence and lessons from the past. They neither disdain violence on this journey to improve, nor avoid using the latest technology to make both the journey and the violence easier. Action flows seamlessly from West Texas to Washington to Morocco to Yemen and back. Former CIA warrior Cuchulain is a strong male protagonist working with a dynamic female protagonist in Dr. Caitlin O’Connor. This thriller brings a fresh dynamic to the genre. Patriot and Assassin positions itself as the thriller for thoughtful readers interested in observing strong, complex characters meeting complex world-wide challenges.