Wait For Dark by Kay Hooper

This is the seventeenth book in the Bishop/Special Crimes Unit of the FBI series.  If you are new to the series, do not fret.  She always writes her books in trilogies. This should be the second if numerous past examples have shown, in such a trilogy.  Bishop is the head of a unit of FBI agents that he has specially formed, fighting an uphill battle with the bureau and other law enforcement officers along the way, completely with psychics. He recruits them and trains them as agents.  They learn what all agents learn: how to use a gun, profile, and old-fashioned police work. Their psychic abilities are just another tool in the toolbox, that sometimes can work against them.  Several books ago, thankfully, Hooper began including bios of the returning characters in the books and which books they were previously in (after a while, with so many, you tend to forget), definitions of terms, and a timeline of when the books take place.  Hooper, who lives in the mountains of North Carolina, sets most of her books in the southeast, mostly in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia.

This book is set in Charity, North Carolina where there have been three violent accidents in a short period of time in a town where the last accident happened fifteen years ago.  The first was a young teacher who ran her car into a telephone pole and it exploded destroying any evidence of wrongdoing.  The second accident was when a grill exploded as the local grill master was manning it.  No one else was seriously hurt.  The third accident was a farmer who was shredded by his thresher which should be next to impossible to happen the way it did.

Sheriff Malachi Gordon has heard about the SCU as a group that solves odd cases but isn't aware that they are made up of psychics. He calls them in to help with these cases especially after he realizes that none of the people had their phones survive their ordeal.  He had the cell phone company download all calls and texts and all three of them received the same text at 3pm: Wait Until Dark.

Bishop decides that Hollis is ready to not only go back into the field after her ordeal with Samuel [see Haunted http://nicolewbrown.blogspot.com/2014/12/haunted-by-kay-hooper.html] but to lead the team.  Hollis started working with the SCU as a medium, but it seems every time she goes into the field she acquires a new ability. She also has the ability to see auras, heal herself and others, sense, define, channel and use energy, and she finally created a shield for herself.  Reece, who is in love with Hollis, doesn't think she's ready to go back out into the field. Reece has a double shield that he can use to protect others and he is also a telepath and ex-military sniper.  Also along for the ride are Cullen, a clairvoyant and Kirby, a young empath who is generally upbeat but also gets carded often if she wants to buy alcohol and is often underestimated. 

When they arrive a woman has just been found impaled on sharpened tree limbs outside her attic window.  So now it looks like murder.  How did she get out there and how did the killer subdue her?  The husband is devastated and he doesn't look strong enough to have pulled it off assuming the other deaths were to hide the murder of his wife.  Hollis is doubting herself beyond reason due to a spell the bad guy cast to hide from her.  Hollis is also developing a new ability which is hard for her to deal with as she tries to lead the team.  She will also have to make the decision of whether to save herself or risk dying to save a teammate.  This was a great book with interesting characters that you care about.  I was up all night reading to find out how it ended.  I really do recommend this book.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Wait-Dark-Bishop-SCU-Novel-ebook/dp/B01AHKXIXI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522671489&sr=8-1&keywords=wait+for+dark+kay+hooper  

Suicide Squad: Vol 3 Death Is For Suckers by Adam Glass (Writer), Henrik Jonsson (Artist), Sandu Florea (Artist), Cliff Richards (Artist), Fernando Dagnino (Artist), Matt Yackey (Colorist), Allen Passalaqua (Colorist), Pete Pantazis (Colorist) Jared K. Fletcher (Letterer)

In the last book, Harley was still acting as Harleen Quinzel for the most part but it ended with them at a fifty-fifty split.  Waller had sent them after the Basilisk, an evil enemy and told Deadshot that there was a traitor in their midst. The traitor turned out to be Black Spider. Deadshot shoots himself and Regulus, the man behind Basilisk, who is holding him rather than shoot Harley.

The book opens up with the Joker who is alive and has taken back his skinned face kidnapping Harley.  But Harley isn't sure she wants to be with him the way that he is so she escapes and goes back to the suicide squad.  Deadshot isn't really dead. For once his aim was off and he missed his heart.  Boomerang has come back.

Voltac has joined the team. He has the power of electricity.  Waller wants them to go after Red Orchid and to pick up a package that is in her possession. This is a dangerous mission and one especially so for Yo-Yo who is the brother of Red Orchid.  Red Orchid has the ability to grow vines and have poisonous properties. And she isn't working alone.  This series just keeps getting better and better. The evolution of Harley is very interesting to watch and to see how Deadshot plays in the drama is fun to see.  Not everyone makes it out alive.  I can't wait to read the next book in the series. I really recommend this book.

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Suicide-Squad-Vol-Death-Suckers/dp/1401243169/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522410942&sr=8-2&keywords=suicide+squad+vol+3&dpID=61icmMYnQmL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

This book is set in the Deep South in the 1930s and begins with the story of two deaf mutes, Spiro Antonapoulos and John Singer who live together in companionable friendship.  Antonapoulos works at his cousin's grocers and Singer is an engraver at a jewelry store.  Antonapoulos is a simple-minded fellow and they have their routine for ten years until Antonapoulos became sick and the doctor put him on a strict diet. Then suddenly Antonapoulos became belligerent and began to urinate in public, assault people and steal. Now Singer was having to spend all the money he had saved up on bail money to get his friend out of jail.  Soon, though, his cousin, fearing that he would be put to blame for Antonapoulos's behavior has him committed to an asylum far away leaving Singer alone.

Singer moves into the Kelly boarding house and spends his nights for a while wandering around the town at night just walking.  He takes his meals at the New York Cafe owned by Biff Bannon.  It is there that he meets the wild alcoholic Jake Blount who has gone on a bender and owes Bannon a great deal of money and whom Bannon's wife insists that he take care of him. Singer takes him home with him that night. Blount is a communist who wants to save the world and the mill workers of the town by telling them the glories of communism and how it can change things and by organizing them.  He believes Singer truly understands him and listens to him like no one else does.

Dr. Benedict Mady Copeland, a black doctor, meets Singer on one of his night walks and Singer lights one of his cigarettes for him. Dr. Copeland thinks this is an unusual white man and vows to get to know him better, so he comes to visit with him and talk about the plight of the black man and the need to rise up and end segregation by becoming educated and not taking menial jobs working in the white man's house. He also worries about the futures of his adult children who didn't turn out the way he planned.  And he believes that Singer really understands him and listens carefully to what he says.

Thirteen-year-old Mick Kelly has a crush on Singer and quietly begins to visit with Singer and tell him of her love of music. Before Singer moved in she would listen to the radio played by a teacher staying there. She'd sometimes put it on the classical station for a while and Mick memorized some pieces by Mozart and fell in love with him.  When the teacher wasn't playing her radio, Mick would go out into the neighborhood and radio hunt. She would listen in to the open windows and listen for the sound she was looking for and stop when she found it and spend the evening there. The music would make her cry it was so beautiful.  Now she is learning to play the piano at school with the help of a girl she is paying and is composing songs in her notebook.  She believes that Singer understands her completely and listens carefully to what she says.

Biff comes by but doesn't say much. He just observes. He notices that the others go and see Singer and wonders why they all treat Singer as though he is some God.  He doesn't mourn his dead wife, Alice because the love had gone out of the marriage, but sprays her perfume on himself to remember the good times. He also remembers Singer and his friend and wonders what happened there.

The character of the tomboy Mick is partly autobiographical.  Mick is a favorite character of mine.  Her love of music mimics my own and I too was a tomboy.  You watch as she quickly grows up in a large household where there is never enough money and soon there is large debt.  You weep for the girl who has big dreams that may never come true.

No one asks what is on Singer's mind and they accept his non-answer when they ask where he has gone when he leaves to visit Antonapoulos at the asylum.  Singer is happiest when he visits his friend at the asylum because he gets to use his hands and talk to someone.  Everyone just uses him. And not just the ones mentioned here. When he goes walking around town people come up to him and talk to him. Everyone thinks they know him. The Turkish man swears that he is Turkish. Dr. Copeland swears that he is Jewish. Blount swears that he is Scots-Irish.  Singer is what people think he to them.  In a way, he is a blank slate that they write upon themselves their own story to suit their needs. But Singer treats Antonapoulos the same way when Antonapoulos barely pays him any attention at all just takes the gifts he is given.  This book is largely about lonely people and loneliness and reaching out to make a connection in the dark. It is a brilliant piece of Southern Gothic literature and I highly recommend it.         

Quotes

Nothing was really as good as music.

-Carson McCullers (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter p 37)

Resentment is the most precious flower of poverty.

-Carson McCullers (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter p 55)

Why was it that in cases of real love the one who is left does not often follow the beloved by suicide? Only because the living must bury the dead? Because of the measured rites that must be filled after a death? Because it is as though the one who is left steps for a time upon a stage and each second swells to an unlimited amount of time and he is watched by many eyes? Because there is a function he must carry out?  Or perhaps, when there is love, the widowed must stay for the resurrection of the beloved—so that the one who has gone is not really dead, but grows and is created for a second time in the soul of the living? Why?

--Carson McCullers (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter p 104)

He sees how when people suffer just so much they get mean and ugly and something dies in them.

-Carson McCullers (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter p 129)

And how can the dead be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are left behind?

-Carson McCullers (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter p 284)

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Lonely-Hunter-Carson-McCullers/dp/0618526412/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522245127&sr=8-1&keywords=the+heart+is+a+lonely+hunter+by+carson+mccullers

Paper Girls Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan (Writer), Cliff Chiang (Artist), Matt Wilson (Colorist), Jared K. Fletcher (Letterer)

Paper Girls is set in 1988, Ohio and involves Erin, a newspaper delivery girl who on Halloween night meets up with three other paper girls, Mac, Tiffany, and KJ when she runs into trouble with some teenagers.  They decided to split up into twos using Tiffany's walkie talkies to keep in touch with.  Erin goes with the legendary Mac, one of the first paper girls.

Tiffany and KJ get their walkie talkie stolen by some really weird guys wrapped up in cloth.  All four of them go on the hunt for them since the walkie talkie cost so much and means a lot to Tiffany.  On their hunt they find in a building a mysterious machine. They go outside and have a run in with those guys and they drop a slim disk like object with an apple on it that looks like the apple that the new computer at school has on it.

When they go over to Mac's place to get the gun they run into Mac's stepmother who tells her that her dad just disappeared into thin air.  They themselves had seen a kid from school be in the streets one minute and gone the next.  Her stepmother tries to take the gun to kill herself and Mac wrestles her with it, but the gun goes off shooting someone.

On the way to the hospital, a man in a suit of armor stops them and says he can help.  Then the cloth-bound people show up and insist that they are the ones who can truly help.  Who should they trust?  And what is happening to their world?  Can a group of paper girls save it? These four just might be able to.  This was a great comic showed the power and smarts of four young teenage girls during the time of some great mysterious threat to the earth.  I highly recommend reading this book.

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Paper-Girls-1-Brian-Vaughan/dp/1632156741/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522064456&sr=8-1&keywords=paper+girls+vol+1

Captain Marvel: Earth's Mightiest Hero Vol. 4 by Kelly Sue DeConnick (Writer), Warren Ellis (Writer), Kelly Thompson (Writer), David Lopez (Artist), Marcio Takara (Artist), Laura Braga (Artist), Lee Loughridge (Colorist), and VC's Joe Caramagna (Letterer)

In the previous book, Captain Marvel decided to sign up for a year in space as the Avengers representative there to keep a lookout for things.  Her first assignment is to return a pod with a Nowalian, who turns out to be Tic to her home planet of Torfa where they are being oppressed by J'son and the Haffensye, pirates who are working for J'son, the ruler of Spartax and Star Lord's dad.  She helps the people of Torfa win their freedom and Tic leaves with her.  Rocket tries to set up a buyer for Carol's cat, which is actually a flerken, a rare space creature that can be used as a weapon, but word gets out and someone shows up to steal it.  Carol meets a rock star who has the ability to travel anywhere in the blink of an eye and when she helps her the rock star transports her back to earth for twenty-four hours where Carol sees Tracy who is very sick, unconscious, and might not make it to her return. 

When she returns back to the ship, Tic and the cat flerken are gone and the ship is damaged.  She brings the ship, Harrison, back online and finds out that Haffensye came and attacked the ship to get the flerken.  Captain Marvel decides to take a shortcut through the endless envelope which proves to be a spacial anomaly that will take ten times as long to get there then if she'd just followed their path.  But she finds some unusual things inside the envelope on her way to try to rescue Tic and the cat.

Included is a storyline where Earth-616 and Earth 1610 were unable to save the multiverse and all that remains is Battleworld, a planet composed of fragments of worlds that no longer exist maintained by its god and master, Victor Von Doom.  Captain Marvel is in charge of the Carol Corps, an elite flying force of women.  There's also the Thor Corps the police force where each is selected by Doom himself from all the different worlds.  Kit is a member of the Thor Corps. But not all accept that there is nothing beyond the void or that the enemy that they are fighting is really Ultron.  The Carol Corps intend to retrofit their planes to fly into the void, but first, they must get past the Thor Corps and the Baroness, Colonel Carol Danvers superior.  

Also included in this comic is a story from the Black Vortex where Captain Marvel is tasked with delivering the magic mirror to Kitty Pryde and avoid a great many people who want it themselves first.  There is a short storyline where Carol says goodbye to Tracy and Tracy leaves behind a message for her that will tug at your heartstrings and make you laugh just like Tracy could sometimes do as a person.  This was a great book and a fine ending to a stellar series.

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Earths-Mightiest-Hero/dp/1302902695/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521808760&sr=8-1&keywords=captain+marvel+volume+4&dpID=51ctZPPK1-L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch         

Year One: Chronicles of the One Book One by Nora Roberts

First off, this book is a bit of a departure from Roberts normal fare of writing.  In a way, this is her version of The Stand with magical abilities thrown in for spice.  A prophecy predicted the events that were to unfold.  An American couple holidaying in Scotland with family kill a pheasant spilling blood on the sacred ground. He gets sick and passes it on to the family and everyone he comes into contact with at the airport.  Within seventy-two hours he is dead in the hospital.  Pretty soon a pandemic in underway and within three weeks two billion people are dead from what they are calling the Doom.

Some are naturally immune and some develop magical abilities such as being faeries, elves, or witches, or the ability to see into the future, telekinesis, or know whether someone is going to live or die.  Like people, though, those with magical abilities come in light and dark.  Lana and Max were witches with a small bit of power before the big event but now their powers are greatly heightened. Max is a writer and Lana is a top-notch chef.  Things in New York City are getting dangerous with the band of Raiders on motorcycles attacking and killing those they call Uncanny who have magical powers so they decide to head to the Pennsylvania mountains to where his brother Eric is holed up.  On the way, they pick up a young man named Eddie and his dog Joe.  When they arrive they discover a summer cabin with Eric's girlfriend Allegra, a girl named Kim, a guy named Poe, and the owner of the house, Shaun.  All of them are people from Eric's college.  But life is not all sunshine and roses at the cabin.  Eric has abilities he does not know how to control and he and Allegra are not doing their share around the cabin causing some resentments.  Also, they know they can't stay there forever. They must move on and find a community to join that has a farm and animals, where there is safety in numbers.

Aryls Reed has moved up in the media world to anchor chair in New York City since everyone else has either died or fled.  She has a secret source, Chuck, a hacker who gives her the real scoop but she keeps most of it to herself because to do otherwise would cause a panic and the government to come and shut them down.  They have a plan to meet in Hoboken, New Jersey whenever she decides to reveal everything and hightail it out of the city.  When she does, including that the government is rounding up people who are immune, magical and nonmagical alike to experiment on them, her and the young cheery woman Fred, a faerie, head out and meet Chuck.

At the hospital in New York City, Jonah knows when people are going to die so he's been feeling pretty depressed as he's a paramedic and everyone he brings in is a goner.  But the woman he has a crush on, Dr. Rachel Hobson remains a beacon of hope for him. But when she gives up he decides to end his life. Before he can, he runs into Katie, the daughter of the original carrier of the Doom who is pregnant with twins and is in labor.  The only OBGYN doctor is busy doing a C-section on another woman and he is trying to reach Rachel, but the babies are coming now, so he ends up delivering them himself.  Jonah and Katie talk Rachael into going with them out of New York and taking the now dead woman's baby girl.  They stock up and head out and wind up in Hoboken where they meet Aryls and her gang.

Lana and Max and their group will meet up with the other group too eventually.  Like The Stand this book is also about a battle of good versus evil, only in this case, the evil side proclaims to have God on its side.  You get a sense of what the United States and the world are like at the very end of the book.  The ending will leave you half content to wait and half desperate for answers that can't wait.  I really tore through this book. It is easily the best book she has written to date.  Hopefully, the next one will be coming out soon. 

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Year-One-Chronicles-Book/dp/1250122953/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521634104&sr=8-1&keywords=year+one+nora+roberts&dpID=51BHJceirlL&preST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

Promise Not To Tell by Jayne Ann Krentz

In this sequel to When Have All the Girls Gone, which you don't have to have read to read this book, Krentz turns her attention to the brooding brother Cabot Sutter.  When Virginia Troy walks into his new detective agency that he runs with his brothers and his father because she recognizes the name Salinas as being that of the sheriff who rescued her all those years ago from the fire set by cult leader Quinton Zane.  Cabot and his two brothers were also rescued by Anton Salinas and later he became their foster father and raised them when no family members came forward to claim them. 

Virginia suspects something suspicious about the death of her friend, artist Hannah Brewster a former cult member, who it is believed to have jumped over the cliff near her home on one of the San Juan islands after torching her house.  What makes her doubt this is that she sent her a camera with one picture on it: the last painting of a series of paintings she had been doing of the night the compound went up.  In this last picture is a clear picture of Quinton Zane wherein the others the face was hazy. There's also a picture of a modern car in the background.  Salinas and his boys believe that Zane faked his death and is alive and well but haven't been able to find him.  This could be a major clue. 

Meanwhile, someone at Nightwatch, a small tech company, is searching Victoria's home and art gallery business for a missing key that will lead to Quinton Zane's missing money.   His ex-lover with whom he designed an app for the company, which he took credit for, is found dead at the gallery in the locked storeroom where Hannah's paintings of the fire are stored.

While Virginia and Cabot are looking for a connection between Nightwatch and Quinton Zane, the two become quite close. Neither one has a great track record in the relationship department.  Virginia has anxiety attacks and the last time she had sex she had one during it which imploded the relationship.  I love that this book doesn't make their first time together perfect with him "curing" her right off of the bat or anything.  Or that just because they get close and form a relationship it doesn't stop him from getting up at 1:35 in the morning.  Virginia and Cabot are great characters too that I came to really care about.  This book also held some real surprises for me. I didn't have it all figured out and that was refreshing. I highly recommend this book. 

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Promise-Not-Tell-Jayne-Krentz/dp/0399585273/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1521461589&sr=8-3&keywords=promise+not+to+tell+by+jayne+ann+krentz&dpID=51GTo2uyC3L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch