{"id":7901,"date":"2019-04-22T06:41:52","date_gmt":"2019-04-22T10:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7901"},"modified":"2019-04-22T06:42:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-22T10:42:00","slug":"two-promising-thrillers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7901","title":{"rendered":"Two Promising Thrillers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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When they\u2019re good, thrillers set in interesting foreign\nplaces are like a trip without the airport hassles. Both of these seemed like promising\njourneys, and both had good points. If the premise intrigues you, go for it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

***Secrets of the\nDead<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Murray Bailey – This is the second of Murray Bailey\u2019s crime thrillers to follow the adventures of Egypt archaeologist Alex MacLure, and it\u2019s clear the author knows his subject. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secrets of the Dead<\/em>\nbegins, not in Egypt, but in Atlanta, Georgia, where a cache of bodies has been\nfound, eight in all. The victims were buried in a crawl space under The Church\nof the Risen Christ. FBI agent Charlie Rebb and her annoying partner Peter\nZhang are immediately brought into the investigation because she\u2019d worked a\nprevious serial killer case in which the eight victims were murdered in the\nsame manner as those under the church. They bear a mysterious mark loosely\nlinked to a local tattoo artist who appears to have fled the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alex MacLure\u2019s research is under way in the town established\nby Pharoah Akhenaten and his beautiful wife, Nefertiti. Ancient secrets hide in\nthe artifacts of the period, and MacLure hopes to reveal them. A stranger claiming\nspecial knowledge asks MacLure to meet him in Cairo, and MacLure follows a\nrather obscure trail of breadcrumbs to find the mysterious man. When he enters\nthe apartment, he finds not an informant, but a dead body. Hard on his heels\nare the police, and an uncomfortable time in an Egyptian jail ensues. Bailey\u2019s\nvivid description of jail conditions are enough to make you not risk even a\njaywalking ticket in Cairo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charlie Rebb is sent to Egypt to work with Cairo police, as\na body has been found there with similar markings as those under the church. Clearly\nthe two stories are becoming intertwined. Occasional sections are from the\npoint of view of the killer and his Master, unnecessary in my opinion, and not\nvery realistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bailey intersperses Rebb\u2019s and MacLure\u2019s narratives with the\nstory of Yanhamu, an official from 1315 BCE who became the Pharoah\u2019s Keeper of\nSecrets. He was given the charge of finding one particular secret, that of\neverlasting life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bailey\u2019s writing moves the action along smoothly. His\nauthentic passion for the country\u2019s long and complicated ancient history shines\nthrough. It\u2019s a strong contender for your summer beach bag, the kind of book\nyou don\u2019t want to have to think about too much. That\u2019s partly because Bailey\ndoesn\u2019t give you much help. The map and schematic of the Great Pyramid are a\nstep in the right direction. A glossary, perhaps a timeline, would be equally\nwelcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***Pretense<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By John Di Frances\n–<\/strong> This is the first book of a trilogy about an international hunt\nfor a trio of assassins targeting European politicians. As a crime thriller,\nthe tradecraft of the assassins is detailed and persuasive, and the police\nprocedural elements also are good. It\u2019s billed as a book that demonstrates\ndisenchantment with the European Union \u2013 <\/strong>the assassination targets are\nbig EU supporters \u2013 but it doesn\u2019t really work as a political thriller, because\nthere\u2019s very little politics in it. The assassins could just as well be\nmurdering top chefs or social media gurus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The assassins are an Irish couple, handsome and strikingly\nbeautiful, wealthy, elegant, and socially adept (in a too-good-to-be-true way)\nand a more rough-around-the-edges German man, who is an expert sniper. The\ncouple\u2019s first target is Slovakia\u2019s prime minister, killed by a car bomb outside\na Bratislava restaurant. The German accomplishes the second murder, that of the\nPolish prime minister. It\u2019s technically difficult, shooting from a distance of\n640 meters into a packed stadium of excitable soccer fans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three escape to Berlin, several steps ahead of the multiple\nsecurity services now on their trail. The cat-and-mouse game is well done and\nmay carry you through some of the clunky writing. Technical information dumps\nshow Di Frances did his homework. Yet the weight or length of a rifle is\nimmaterial, of itself. Such information needs to be brought into the story. Has\nthe sniper had experience with a rifle of that type, is its length an advantage\nor does it make it hard to conceal? Worst was a bullet-point list of 16\nvariables affecting the soccer stadium shot. Dude, this is fiction!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plot pulls you forward nevertheless, and Di Frances has a great twist in store. Unfortunately, when you reach the end of Pretense<\/em>, you\u2019re not at the end of the story. To really understand what\u2019s been going on, you\u2019ll have to read book two and very probably book three. Not sure I\u2019m ready for that.<\/a> Link to Amazon.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Ron Porter from Pixabay.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When they\u2019re good, thrillers set in interesting foreign places are like a trip without the airport hassles. Both of these seemed like promising journeys, and both had good points. If the premise intrigues you, go for it. ***Secrets of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Two Promising Thrillers - interesting premises, some stumbles in execution. ","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[440,52,54,40,266,3,126],"tags":[1554],"class_list":["post-7901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventure","category-crime","category-detective","category-fiction","category-history","category-mystery","category-reading-2","tag-egypt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Egypt.jpg?fit=372%2C426&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-23r","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7903,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7901\/revisions\/7903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}