LAURIE WOOD - BLACK ICE REVIEWS

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	Reading and writing have been a passion for Laurie Wood since winning city-wide writing contests in Grade Five and Eight. Her favourite genres are romantic suspense, mysteries, and a good spine-tingling thriller. She loves to judge contests as well as enter them, and is active in several RWA Chapters. Although published in non-fiction articles, she's yet to grab the golden ring of being published in novel-length fiction. Until then, she writes at home and takes care of her two special needs children, an alpha male husband who inspires her heroes, and a golden retriever who thinks she's just a kid in fur.

361
Donald E. Westlake
Hard Case Crime, May 2005 (First Published 1962)
$6.99, ISBN: 0-8439-5357-8

Once again, HARD CASE CRIME has brought back a classic hard-boiled noir novel from one of the greatest authors of the genre. ".361" stands for "destruction of life: violent death. Killing." (from Roget's thesaurus of words and phrases.) It's one of Westlake's best titles, catchy and yet doesn't give away on the cover what the book is really about; killing, revenge killing, grief killing, and patricide.

Westlakes' voice is staccato, firing bullets instead of words when the action heats up. Young Ray Kelly is 23 years old and just sprung from the Air Force post WWII. He joins up with his father in New York for some R&R, when his father is suddenly murdered in front of him in a drive-by shooting by men in a tan and cream Chrysler. Ray wakes up in hospital a month later, minus one eye, and his half-brother Billy hanging over his bed. He knows his father was a lawyer for the Mob but he doesn't know why they've killed his dad. Ray decides it's his mission to find out the "why", and the "when and how" of their deaths will be his retribution for both his father's death and the loss of his eye.

Westlake was writing stripped down pulp fiction before Elmore Leonard even thought about it. The book is filled with stark images such as "Bill grinned like a spreading wound..." and although there is next to nothing in the way of narrative description the reader crosses the bridge of imagination with Westlake to fill in all the pieces.

Ray Kelly is taken places even the war didn't take him. Westlake examines the question: What will a man do when he loses everything? His hero doesn't disappoint us in taking us along for a searing ride of desperation, violence, and extreme sacrifice. Reading this book is like an adrenaline rush. There's only one ending, but you can't help yourself. You keep turning the pages to get there as fast as you can.

Reviewed by: Laurie J. Wood

ALL SHOOK UP
Mike Harrison
ECW Press May 2005, $15.95 US, $19.95 Cdn
ISBN: 1-55022-688-6

Eddie Dancer is a welcome figure on the Canadian crime genre landscape. He's as tough as Robert B. Parker's Spenser, with a dry wit and a cast of friends from the wrong side of jail bars. He takes things in stride; going days without money, doesn't blink at cons who lie to him, and enjoys the come and go friendship of his associate Danny Many Guns. His curiosity and humanity often make him go beyond the case he's working on. It seems trouble follows him wherever he goes.

Harrison solves the white man/Indian partnership (reminiscent of Spenser's partnership with Hawke) immediately by having Eddie remember when Danny Many Guns told him once that "Kemo Sabe" meant "white trash". The character of Danny Many Guns is enigmatic and three-dimensional. He has his own code that he lives by, and Harrison gives us a glimpse into some of the culture of the Plains Indians that is both horrible and yet needs to be understood by whites.

Eddie isn't afraid to mix it up with anybody in his pursuit of the truth. He's relentless, a street warrior who works hard for his own cause. He takes on the DEATH HEAD biker gang with a box of jelly donuts, using self-defense techniques Danny Many Guns taught him. In the end, he makes a friend of the biker leader for life. We know this guy will show up in another book. The character of Jimmie Faddon is too well developed to be thrown away. The plot is twisted, fast-paced, and flawless. High stakes and a movie rated ending make this story a hard to follow bonanza for another series book. Harrison has served up an exciting tale of the underworld, the double-cross, corruption, along with the code among criminals. And Eddie dances with them all.

This debut series novel bodes well for a starlit career for Mike Harrison. You can buy ALL SHOOK UP at any Chapter/Indigo (or order from them online) or from your local independent bookstore.

Reviewed by: Laurie J. Wood

CUBA STRAIT
Carsten Stroud
Pocket Books, June 2004
ISBN: 0-7434-6393-5
Price: $7.99

Right off the top, let me say that even though we somehow received this book late - click on over to Amazon.com and speed click order yourself a copy of this action adventure/suspense/thriller powerhouse of a book. I can't recommend it highly enough and I don't usually read this so-called "male" mainstream genre.

Stroud takes everything I've ever learned about writing and cranks it up about a 1000 watts. His hero, Rick Broca, is not just an ex-cop who's been framed and done out of his police career - boo hoo for him - he has a serious anger management problem too. Our other counter-point hero, the mysterious pilot Mr. Green, may be a drug runner for the Cubans, but used to be a Naval Commander with a mysterious family loss of a wife and a daughter. Broca's got to find out pronto what this guy's up to because not only has he just saved Green's life in a classic Perfect Storm, strange guy's are shooting up his bosses boat, kidnapping his movie producer boss, and whoops, now Broca's got just his guts and 9mm to go back to Cuba to rescue the whole sorry lot of them.

Being a male mainstream book you wouldn't expect much romance, would you? However, Stroud surprised me by writing the best bombshell heroine I've ever come across. Some romance writers might want to take a read through this book and take notes. No sex here, but tension! Flash! Stars! And a heroine who goes from being the marina girl who manages the office to confessing to a dim bulb like our hero that she's spent two years in the Swiss Army and she'll just relieve him of his second gun, thank you very much!

The plot takes many satisfying twists, turns, and convolutes back onto itself. Stroud is the master of the sub-plot and never loses any of the threads he weaves throughout the suspense angles of the book. He goes from international political thriller, to the hunter-pursuing-the-hunted, to cop procedural, to narrative on Cuban Indians and their witchcraft without missing a beat.

This is a summer, favorite drink-at-hand, fantastic read. As I said, try and get it from Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble. You'll enjoy it as the body count mounts up and our heroine saves the day. It'll heat up your summer!Cobraville, by Carsten Stroud, is now available in hardcover from Simon & Shuster.

Reviewed by: Laurie J. Wood

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