Relentless by Jonathan Maberry was a pretty good book. From the synopsis:

Joe Ledger's world has been torn apart. The people closest to him have been savagely murdered and Ledger is on the hunt for the killers. His already fragile psyche has cracked apart, allowing a dangerous darkness to overwhelm him.

His hunt takes him deep into the world of the deadly black market weapons sales, and standing in his way are a new generation of private military contractors. These mercenaries have been enhanced with cutting-edge cybernetics and chemical enhancements, transforming them into real-world super soldiers. Stronger, faster, harder to hurt, and fitted with built-in weapons. They are beyond anything Joe has ever faced.

But he is not the Joe Ledger they expected to fight. He is defined by the Darkness now. The attempt to destroy him--to break him--has backfired. Instead his enemies have turned him into a far more fearsome weapon.

I have read almost every Joe Ledger book and short story that is out there. This book follows a little bit of a different Ledger than you may have read before, except possibly in Maberry's novel, Rage.

Joe is dealing with depression and a possible psychotic break. The novel takes a few heartbreaking turns as the reader wonders about his psyche and the delightful pup, Ghost. Joe starts the novel on a mission that he may not be prepared for. Later, on this mission, the reader sees him kill someone that seems to cross the line of who does and does not deserve death. The point of this singular killing was an act of mercy, but in reality it may not seem that way. After this killing Joe leaves the team and disappears.

Throughout the novel I was concerned for Ghost, as Joe's psychotic break was so dramatic. I wondered if his demons would be too much for both of them. Throughout the novel the entire team is concerned and tries to help or find Joe. I was a tad bothered by the treatment of Junie, only because I thought at this point she would be a tad bit stronger.

To me the most interesting character in the novel was Mr. Sunday, another character who is not who he seems. He is a man able to sell anything to anyone. I enjoyed reading his scenes, and finding out the secrets behind who he is.

I did not think the end was suited perfectly to the story. I felt that at least two of the characters were killed off and died too fast, especially since so much was built up throughout the novel about them. I don't want to say too much, as I don't want to give anything away. I will say that one character, I would have liked to see go down a little harder.

Overall, I enjoyed this novel. At almost 500 pages it is not a light read. It probably could have been edited in a few places, and still held it's meat, but I enjoyed it and I enjoyed seeing Joe Ledger continue to develop. I also really enjoyed the character of Toys (had to end with that).

Girl A by Abigail Dean is about a young woman named Lex, who, along with a few siblings, survived a traumatic childhood. Lex, or Alexandria, was the one who escaped and got help for her siblings.

Lex is the main character in this novel, and the reader doesn't really learn much about her siblings or their life as children. I see that a lot of people liked this book, but I really don't understand why. Each chapter is about a different sibling, and each is chapter is interspersed with past, present, and future information. This makes it really hard to read and follow as we never know what timeline we are reading, and it really hurts the reader who is trying to get to know the characters. I don't mind books that skip through chapters and changes through characters, but none of the information was reliable, and so the reader never got enough information to really care for any of the characters.

The other big problem I had with this book was that it took a really long time to get to the trauma of the children. I didn't even feel that it was fully explored. We keep being told that the children went through unimaginable horrors, but the details weren't really delved into until we learned what we already knew - the conditions the children were found in when Lex escaped and got help. The father is described as an evil man, but we aren't really given reasons or answers as to why or how. The reader finds scenes where there is obvious cruelty but nothing is delved into further.

I almost gave up and stopped reading this book. I didn't care for the characters, nor did I care for the range of the novel. The novel took too long to get to the point, and the "twist" was obvious from the very beginning. Nothing was developed as far as if could have been because there was too much jumping around in the chapters between the timelines. I never really got to how one child was killed (I don't think it was delved into) or how the other children felt about it. There was so much that could have made this a better book than it was, and I really do hate giving bad reviews, but so many people are seeing this book and wanting to read it, when there are so many other great books out there.

I know you will make up your own mind whether you read this or not, but I had to add my "two cents" to the conversation.

Behind Her Eyes By Sarah Pinborough was not a bad book, not fabulous, but not bad.

The story revolves around Louise, David, and his wife, Adele. Louise meets David in a bar and ends up kissing him. The next day Louise learns that David is her new boss, and his wife is Adele. Adele is a beautiful young woman and Louise feels guilty. One day she runs into Adele and a friendship forms. Louise is having a difficult time because she knows that she much eventually choose to either end things with David or Adele, but she loves them both and cannot decide. She then learns a horrible secret and doesn't know what is the truth and what is a lie anymore.

The main character, Louise, is not a very interesting character. She doesn't develop as much as she should and even when she learns part of the truth she continues to do something stupid, which may end up with the death of those she loves. Adele is not who she seems, and the twist at the end was not quite what I was expecting.

Overall, most of the characters were annoying, and this book could have been shortened and edited to make it more interesting. It almost seems as if most books these days have too much in them and people are afraid to edit them for content, interest, and length. There were quite a few scenes that just didn't add much to an already long story line. It was very repetitive, and it seemed as if most characters did not learn from their mistakes.

I did like the ending, but it also made me wonder why one of the characters was so stupid. I mean can't most people tell the difference between one person and the next? I would think if I had known someone most of my life, I would have learned to recognize if they were the person that they said they were or not.

So, I do understand some of the hate this book as received. I, personally, would recommend it if you had some time on your hands, but really only because I liked the ending.

Serpentine by Jonathan Kellerman is the thirty-sixth book in the Alex Delaware series. Unlike other authors who I have given up on, Jonathan Kellerman continues to deliver.

This novel revolves around a difficult decades old cold case. Milo is forced to take the case on, and he reluctantly does, and seeks out Alex's help in trying to figure out where to start. As the two try to figure out what happened, they are stopped frequently by other people and someone who doesn't want the murder to be solved.

This was just as interesting as the last book, Museum of Desire. In fact, I enjoyed this more than I did Museum of Desire, but a little less than some of the previous novels. I enjoyed that this novel featured Milo a little more, and that it also had a little more with his partner, Rick. I wish we actually saw more of Rick and a little less of Robin, even though I know that Alex is really the main character.

Ellie is looking into who murdered her mother when she was only three. The murder had few clues and few answers, there is almost nothing for Milo to go on. Milo learns that Ellie knows more than she thinks, and that there is a lot that was kept from her. Her adopted father was also murdered because of her mother. There was in fact so much death around her mother that Ellie begins to think it was and continues to be all because of her.

The end was a twist that, once again, I did not see coming. Kellerman is very good at writing surprise endings, that are actually surprises. I did not expect everything that happened at the end; however, I did have an idea. I enjoy how a lot of the time Kellerman leaves much to the imagination, and lets the reader try to figure things out.

The ending was satisfying, overall, but I wish there had been a little more in regards to the "bad guy" of the story. I wanted more to satisfy my needs of vengeance, but I feel that one of the bad guys got what they should have.

I recommend all of these books to anyone who likes suspenseful mystery with well-developed characters.

Tender Is The Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica was just .... wow.

When I picked this book up I thought it would be predictable in the end, a little like the movie Soilent Green. I was happy to be incorrect.

The book follows Marcos, a man who had his wife leave after a tragedy. He is trying to figure things out, while still working at the slaughterhouse, where the cattle is people. A virus has made all animal meat infectious and toxic to humans, at least that is what the government wants everyone to believe. In comes humans bred for food, they are bred to be cattle and only cattle, with no thought or intelligence. One day Marcos is given a gift, a gift he is not sure what to do with. He starts trying to decide what to do with this gift, when he realizes what he has been given. Marcos must keep a secret while trying to move on with his wife, and his life.

This book made me think, especially now going through this Coronavirus pandemic. I wondered what those of us in the United States would do if the government claimed all animals and animal meat were toxic? We are having a hard enough time trying to regulate what people should or should not do during the pandemic, so it was a perfect time to read this book.

This was a very disturbing novel, in more ways than it simply being about cannibalism. The book followed Marcos as he moved through time, going from slaughterhouse, to butchers shop, to cattle field. We see him introduce to potential applicants through the floor of the slaughterhouse, as humans are treated like pigs. Stunned and then killed, these humans are expertly dismembered to separate the pieces to go where they will be distributed. Marcos lives a hard life, full of questions, and he often questions what is and isn't right. After the tragedy that he and his wife suffer, he has stopped eating meat, and no matter what he does he struggles to get past what he has seen and lost. Marcos isn't sure what to do, so he goes against what he has always believed, and what the government has told him, and makes a decision all on his own.

I am pleased to say that while I was reading this novel I thought it was going to end predictably, but it did not. The ending was unexpected as I really thought that Marcos had changed his mind and was going to do something totally the opposite of what he did. The novel is one of those novels that make you think about what makes a person human, what makes a person someone who gets to live or someone to be eaten, and how far are you willing to go to get meat if it becomes unavailable. I am still thinking of this book, and I finished it a few weeks ago, I simply waited to write this review because I kept thinking of this book.

Really, if you have a chance read this book. It is about more than cannibalism, it is about life and life choices.

Del Rio by Jane Rosenthal is about a middle-age District Attorney named Callie. Callie has a sister named Mia, and a brother named Mike. This family is very dysfunctional, and the spouses of Mia and Mike are both into something they should not be.

After a child's arm is found by migrant workers, Callie McCall finds herself embroiled in uncovering a family secret and a murder investigation. She has to decide what to do, or if she should do anything. When she finds out that things are happening on both sides of the border, she decides she must find out what is going on, even if that means destroying everything she has worked for.

This novel was not bad to start with, although there were some things I was uncomfortable with (as someone who was raised in California), but I will address these things later. The story starts off interesting with Callie dealing with her horrible ex-husband, Sam, and her equally horrible brother-in-law, Jim Fletcher. The readers find out that Jim Fletcher is involved in something unsavory, involving children, but it takes a bit to find out what that unsavory thing is, and in the end there are several things. Callie travels to Mexico and back to her inherited orchard in California, hoping to find the answers to the death of the child, and trying to figure out what her brother-in-law, husband, sister, and brother might be into.

About halfway through the book it becomes a little bit disjointed as another character, Nathan, is added. It seemed very unnecessary for him to be inserted into the novel, and a lot of his chapters seemed like non-sequiturs. Then in the end I was not sure why he was there. I would have liked more into his character, and why he was important, but to me it seemed like he was in the novel to move some parts of the story along, when he wasn't really needed, or possibly when the author didn't know what exactly to do.

I was a little disappointed in the ending of the novel as well. A few of the bad characters really did "get what they had coming to them," but since at least two of the characters who did not deserve the endings they got (Mia and Mike), which meant it was not satisfactory. Callie was a bit of a disappointment to me as well. She seemed so strong in the beginning, but she continually discusses how much her political future means, and that makes her feel as if she cares, but does not really care, about the migrant workers or the death of the child whose arm was found.

One thing that really bothered me was the town, and how the Hispanics were described. Most seem like stereotypes, as someone from California, and that bothered me. Also the description of the town as a place filled with run-down Dollar stores, a place where you drive through with the windows up and the doors locked. I feel that this is a stereotype when in reality places with orchards, vineyards, and farms, with migrants working are usually peaceful, with high end stores and tourist destinations near them. This may be my own issue.

I'd say this is an interesting read, and you should give it a chance.

Jealousy, revenge, murder, and betrayal are all issues in the novel The Dead Ex by Jane Corry.
 
Vicki is a woman with a troubled mind, a sad past, and a horrible ex-husband. When her ex-husband, David, goes missing, and the police arrive on her doorstep asking her if she knows where he is, she is thrown into a life she never thought possible. A life of questions without answers. A life of mystery. A life where she isn't sure what has happened or what is going on. Vicki is an aromatherapist who can't find a way out. She wants to confront David's new wife, Tanya, who should be the first suspect, but doesn't seem to be.
 
Then the story follows Scarlet, a young girl forced by her mother to play a dangerous game, which eventually gets them both in trouble. Scarlet then learns what it is like to live without her mother, and Zelda learns what it is like to have her daughter removed from her custody. Every visit is traumatic, and in the end Scarlet see who her mother really is, but she doesn't act, because no matter what Zelda is still her mother.
 
The first third of the story follows the beginning of the stories of Scarlet and Vicki as she learns of David's disappearance. This was probably the most interesting part of the story. The characters were intriguing. Learning about the games Scarlet was made to play by her mother was interesting, and gave a view into a dark side of life that I would have no idea about. I have never been involved in criminal activity, and I wouldn't even know how to do some of the things that Zelda made Scarlet do to make money. When Scarlet is taken and Zelda is punished the story that unfolds from there is sad and, well sad, because the truth of what is going to happen is probably not going to have a happy ending, especially since Zelda doesn't seem like she is going to change.
 
The next third is a set up of what is going to happen in the last third, and neither seems to be surprising or interesting. The biggest thing is we learn more about what a dick David is, and boy is he a 100% grade A dick, and we learn more about Vicki and why she is so trouble, also why she is still so in love with David, even though he treated her like garbage. Of course, he still treats her like garbage, and everyone else in his life. The ending isn't a huge surprise, especially after reading the beginning. None of the characters were really relatable, even though the author tries to make Scarlet and Vicki relatable, they really aren't. None of the characters have anything to offer the reader. Yet, as I say this the beginning of the book was well done, I wish it came together a little better, and I wish the book didn't become as vicious as it ended up being.
 
I can't really say whether one should or shouldn't read this, but in my opinion is was only okay. Some people might like it, but others might find it mediocre, as I did.
 
I want to say one last thing, the title in a little farfetched, and this could have used a better, more thrilling, and one better suited to the content.

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James revolves around two young women, Vivian, and her niece, Carly.

Vivian was on her way to New York, but stops in Fell, NY. She really has no plan, but she has to get away from her mother, so she heads to New York with aspirations of being an actress, even though she isn't even sure that is what she wants to do. While on this break from her family, she stops at a place called the Sun Down Motel, where she stays a few nights until the owner offers her a job as the night manager. Strange things go on at the motel, and Viv starts to seek out the truth.

Carly heads to Fell after her mother's death from cancer, and decides she must do research on what happened to her Aunt Viv twenty-five years earlier. She leaves school and goes to Fell to find out why no one knows where her Aunt is, and what happened on the night she disappeared. Carly sees a help wanted sign in the window of the Sun Down Motel and decided it is fate, so she takes the job her Aunt one had in hopes of getting closer to her, and closer to finding out what happened to her Aunt.

This book started of very well. The characters were interesting and the plot was intriguing. Of the two main characters, Viv was much more interesting than Carly, and more developed. Viv was also a funner character to read. Carly was a little to self-absorbed and she didn't seem very bright at times. The other characters weren't very interesting. Heather seemed a stereotype of what someone with mental illness would be like in a place like Fell. Nick was a boring man, and it was obvious what was going to happen with him a the end of the story. The rest of the characters ran into each other, although I would have liked more from the little boy and Betty.

I like a good ghost story, and I could have used more from the ghost perspective. I thought the ending was way too predictable, and I really wanted a twist to it. There was no surprises at the end, which disappointed me. The book could have been a lot better if the last few chapters had been rewritten so the story did not end the way it actually did. That being said, I liked this book. If I kept books just based on their covers I would keep this book for forever as the cover is wonderful. However, I like to share books that I like, so I will be sending this one along to a friend.

*I was going to write about 2020 and how we are finally at the end of a terrible year, but I am not sure that the next year will be any better....yet. So, I am going to leave you with this movie review, and we will see if the world is less of a dumpster fire at then end of January."

Jigsaw is the last thus far in the Saw series. From IMDb the plot summary states that bodies are turning up around the city, each having met a uniquely gruesome demise. As the investigation proceeds, evidence points to one suspect: John Kramer, the man known as Jigsaw, who has been dead for over 10 years. Logan Nelson, the local coroner, is trying to figure out who the killer is, because unless a man can come back from the dead, someone is framing a dead man.
 
The Saw series is an interesting series, and how it ended with the last movie seemed to close a loop, which I really enjoyed. It was the same with the Final Destination series. I enjoyed how the last movie linked the series of movies together, even if I didn’t like all of the movies themselves. I thought the last movie in the Saw series did that too, bringing the movies together and ending a loop in an interesting and exciting way. While I didn’t care for all of the movies, I did enjoy the ending and the way they were brought together.
 
This movie didn’t have anything new or exciting that the last bunch of movies didn’t have. There were the traps that people had to try to figure out before it took their life, and there were grotesque and dramatic death scenes that involved as much blood as gore as possible. The characters were nothing new, all there because of some deed they had done which had either taken another life or affected another life.
 
I didn’t, however, expect the ending. I was a little surprised who and why they ended up killing people, and how everything had progressed.
 
This wasn’t a good movie, and seemed pointless. There was really no reason for this movie to be made, unless it was being made to keep the franchise running. But in reality, everything should come to an end. I feel that if they had stopped at the last movie it would have been better, because the last movie closed things up in a way that, to me at least, was satisfying. This movie added nothing to the rest of the franchise, and is a one off that isn’t necessary. It didn’t keep the integrity of the series, and like a lot of series not every aspect needs to be continued or made (think the Solo movie, I mean did it really need to be made???).
 
Skip this movie, and go with something else, or go back to the beginning and watch the original Saw movie.

What Remains of Her by Eric Rickstad is one of the best books I've recently read. Before reading this, I had not heard of Eric Rickstad, and right now I am happy to have won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. I would not have picked it up on my own, likely because I wouldn't have known where to find it, nor would it have grabbed my attention.
 
The plot follows a man, Jonah, and his search for his wife, Rebecca, and his daughter, Sally. He comes home from work to find neither home, and hours later, after they still have not arrived he calls his friend, Maurice, who is the Sheriff. For Jonah, things don't get any better. He becomes the main suspect, as everyone knows he would, and in fact the only person who seems to believe he had nothing to do with the disappearance is his young daughters’ best friend, Lucinda, who has a few secrets of her own. The story then moves to twenty-five years later, Jonah is still living in the shadow of what happened, having lost everything because he has waited for his wife and daughter, believing that someday they would come back. Lucinda has a better life, but not by much, as she owns a local story, is a part time deputy, and helps care for her ailing father. And on top of this past destruction, another young girl has gone missing, on the same day that Sally did. Coincidence?
 
Jonah is not a likeable character, but there are things about him that continue to lead the reader to believe that he is a good father, and continues to love his daughter, and is in fact living for her return, even though that is unlikely. Lucinda seems to have some issues with her father, with a past live, with her store, and with future decisions she needs to make. There are things that could have been developed a little more, for example the relationship between Lucinda and her ex, Kirk, isn't as developed as it could have been and the reader doesn't really get the reasons for the breakup even though they seem like they are very important to the story.
 
The reader also sees Jonah living, but there is no development into what he is doing. Is he living just in the hopes that Sally will come back? Or is there something deeper?
 
There is a character, Dale, who isn't as developed as he could have been, as there were several times in the story when he could have had a little more emotion, but instead he was flat.
 
Now, even with that being said, I still really liked this book. The end made me want to cry, even though I was sitting in the middle of a Starbucks. I felt for Jonah, and I felt for Lucinda. Their lives could have been so different if things had been revealed twenty-five years earlier.
 
I do recommend this novel, as not only a mystery thriller, but also as a book with real characters. How would you act if your child and spouse didn't return home and you had no idea where they went? How long would you search for them? Would you give up? Or would you give up everything, like Jonah did, in the hopes that your family would find you again?