Sometimes I read books

I finally finished reading "Scream For Me" by Karen Rose, the follow-up to "Die For Me", which I reviewed a few weeks ago. It took me a little while to read it. Karen Rose falls into that section of mystery/thriller writers who got their start in romance fiction. So, while there is plenty of gruesome goings-on, there's also a lot of fragile heroines breathing in manly scents and alpha-males holding said fragile heroines to their furry chests. Therefore, sometimes I need to take little breaks so that I don't put the book down and vomit into my nachos.

All in all, it wasn't a bad read. I always find it ridiculous in these sort of books when the demure heroine, who's usually somewhat scared of sex, suddenly transforms into a modern-day Jenna Jameson as soon as the new hunky man in her life decides he wants to sleep with her. In this case, we have Alex Fallon, who's still haunted by the death of her twin sister, who was gang-raped and murdered fifteen years ago. She hasn't had much luck in the sex department, but when Special Agent Daniel Vartanian is called in to investigate the disappearance of Alex's foster sister, she can't rip her clothes off fast enough. As it turns out, this disappearance has links to the past gang-rape (plus several others), a spate of current murders, not to mention the evil activities of Daniel's brother Simon, who was the serial killer hunted down and killed in "Die For Me". Confused? Well, you could actually read this book without reading "Die For Me" and still follow what's going on, which I guess says something positive about Rose's abilities as an author. In fact, she manages to wrap up the various goings-on in this novel and yet still leave a couple of threads dangling to be resolved in the next installment, which I believe is titled "Kill For Me".

After finishing "Scream For Me", I moved onto "The Passenger" by Chris Petit, which is basically a "what-if" scenario centred around the plane crash in Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. A father is devastated by the death of his son on that plane - until he learns of the possibility that his son never boarded the plane. The book goes on to involve real-life spy James Angleton and his meetings with Kim Philby and Graeme Greene, the political climate between America and Palestine, and numerous other factors, to provide a multitude of conspiracy theories as to why the plane crashed. It's fascinating reading, but is saddled with a bizarre "twist" ending that pretty much renders everything that preceeded it as non-sensical.

After "The Passenger" I've since gone on to read "Until It's Over" by Nicci French and "8th Confession" by James Patterson, but I'll provide my illuminating and heart-thumping opinions on those for another occasion.