I’ve always felt an element of fear about the jobs I do. In the right dosage it can help you. It gets your adrenaline firing, makes you think clearer, faster—gets you alert and ready to tackle anything that comes your way. But if the fear builds too much, all that good stuff swings things around; the nerves make you hesitant, jumpy and too cautious. That’s when you start making mistakes. And mistakes, in my world, can be fatal.

After barely getting to take a breath following the events of Deep Dirty Truth, Lori finally gets the chance to work off her debt to FBI Agent Monroe. This puts Lori and JT in Chicago trying to get the mobster Cabressa to take possession of some stolen goods. Once that's done, a series of dominoes will fall and Monroe will be able to put him away for a very long time.

So he insists, anyway.

Step one involves Lori getting an invite to an incredibly exclusive Poker game, Step two involves giving her a crash course in playing Poker so she seems mostly credible in the game. (this isn't presented as a comedic segment, but I chuckled at this part of the book—also, I'm jealous, I wish I could learn how to play like this).

Now, every thriller reader knows what will happen next—no plan, no matter how thorough, how well-thought-out no matter who's involved, will work. If for no other reason than it would produce a dull novel. But also, every thriller reader has heard the line, "no plan survives first contact with the enemy" and knows it to be true. The questions that need to be answered are: how badly will the plan go awry? and How will Lori and JT react to it?

So let me assure you, when this plan is derailed, it's derailed in a spectacular fashion, providing a lot of danger for our heroes, peril for those around them, and more than enough tension to satisfy a hungry reader. Lori and JT respond appropriately, not perfectly (which would be boring), but they display the stamina, resourcefulness, and tenacity we've come to expect from them.

The poker game collected quite the interesting mix of players—sports figures, politicians, as well as shady characters like Cabressa. When things go wrong during the game, it opens things up for a lot of drama and conflicting interests causing trouble for all involved. Suddenly, Lori and JT can't focus solely on getting Cabressa to fall into Monroe's trap—they have to worry about survival—their own, and as many others that they can help. Sure, Cabressa is still their target, but there's a lot they have to go through before they can make him a priority.

I'm not going to get more in-depth than that, I'll leave it there and say there's more than enough going on plot-wise to fuel a book at least half again as long as this one. Broadribb has stacked the deck against the pair and it's great to watch them try to navigate the situation.

The game takes place at the top of a pretty high building in Chicago and the action centers around that location, stories above the ground. In the real world, I'm pretty acrophobic—and occasionally (okay, more than occasionally), a movie can get me to feel the anxiety that heights can bring out in me. I don't remember ever feeling symptoms while reading a book, but I did here. It's not like Broadribb focused all that much on the height and risk of falling (it was there, but she didn't belabor the point), but something about the way that she told the story, flicked that particular switch in my brain. There's something very disconcerting about sitting in a comfortable seat (on the ground level like a sane person) but feeling like I was standing in a precarious* location several feet off the ground. I'm not promising that anyone else will experience what I did, I assume the rest of humanity is a bit better adjusted than I am, but for me that was an unexpected "bonus" to the book.

* Yeah, fine, my definition of a precarious location applies to perfectly safe—even benign—spots.

I'm a little worried about the long-term health of Lori's elbows. She uses them so often as weapons, she probably heads back to Florida with at least one of them horribly bruised. I don't remember this being the case in the previous novels, maybe I just forgot—or maybe she's just relying on the technique in these circumstances (I remember more than once the narration in a Jack Reacher novel talking about the usefulness of that tactic compared to the use of a fist).

As far as long-term character development goes, Lori and JT start a conversation they've needed to have since, well, since we met the two of them about Dakota and why Lori didn't tell JT about her before she did. This will prove helpful in the future and provide the opportunity for the relationship to grow and change. The two of them have some sort of plan going forward about their careers and daughter, but we're going to have to come back to find out what they have in mind. Seeing these two deal with each other and their daughter is almost as rewarding to me as the action-hero kind of thing is, and Broadribb's featuring both sides of Lori like this is a real strength of the series.

For my money, this is the best of the series—she's got a real handle on these characters by now and knows just how to put them through the wringer in a way that provides real tension and thrills. I got more wrapped up in this than I expected to (and I had pretty high expectations at this point in the series), and it was absolutely worth it. Book five cannot arrive soon enough for me.

If you haven't met this bounty hunter yet, you need to—either in the pages of this book or the beginning, either would work (but you might as well just buy the set all at once, you won't be satisfied until you read them all). Deep Dark Night will win Broadribb some new fans and confirm those readers already along for the ride.

Sleepy Hollow Square: Ali joins her Aunt and cousin at a remote lake in Maine where thirty years ago something terrible happened.

When going through a box of books from her mother's childhood 13-year-old Ali finds a torn photo of her mother and Aunt Dulci as girls at a lake. All that remains of the third girl in the photo is a arm and the first letter of her name: 'T'. When Ali asks her mother about the photo, her mother grows pale and denies ever knowing anyone whose name began with T.

Ali absorbs this normal reaction until her Aunt Dulci and cousin Emma come over. Dulci has a proposition for Ali: stay the summer at the family's old lake house and watch 5-year-old Emma while Dulci works on her art. Ali is excited, but her mother is full of protests about how horrible and boring it is at the lake house - its why they stopped going 30 years ago. Ali is finally given permission, but knows there's a mystery to uncover.

This book was a lot of fun, I love how Hahn always works in shout-outs to classic kid fiction in her works. A cameo from a vintage Lenci doll (star of 'The Lonely Doll') was an unexpected bonus. She weaves certain themes of those books she references into the plot as well including Nancy Drew and Helen Cornish nearly drowning in 'The Bungalow Mystery', the loneliness of Edith in 'The Lonely Doll' profoundly influences Emma, and a subtle thread of class consciousness and justice reflects Ali's assignment to read 'To Kill a Mockingbird'.

The atmosphere was top-notch, there were just a few loose ends among Hahn's secondary cast of characters that kept it from being perfect.

I'm going to cover two books in this post. They're the first two books of a series and I read them a few weeks apart at the end of last year. (Yes, I'm still working on reviews from last year. Yes, I am annoyed with myself.)

The first book is Fran Krause's Deep Dark Fears which is an adult graphic novel. The majority of the content is gleaned from submissions received by the author on his website although a few are from his wife and himself. As the title suggests, this is a collection of fears harbored by people and then put into a comic format. (The illustrations are really great by the way.) And while these are legitimate fears that people have they're not all totally scary. Some of them are so out there that they're humorous...although to the person who submitted it I guess it's not funny at all. From the content, it seems that the majority of people developed these fears/phobias when they were still children from adult family members who told them horrifying things. Note to adults: Please think about what you're telling your kids because you never know what they'll hold onto and how they'll twist it in their minds.

An example of the 'fears' illustrated inside. [Source: Bored Panda]

The second in the series is called The Creeps and it continues the thread of bringing to life some of the most bizarre fears you can (or maybe can't) imagine. I have to say that one of them freaked me out so much that I had to put the book down for a while. (It was about AI.) I also learned that something I had thought was universally known is not in fact known to many people outside of the Southern United States. When you or someone you know has a sudden shiver have you ever explained it by saying, "Someone just walked over my grave."? Now imagine if you had never heard that and then someone said it to you in an offhand manner. Would that totally freak you out? A lot of the things that people are scared of seemed quite niche and silly while others were super dark and gory. It's a really great mixture.

See how creepy this is to the unfamiliar? [Source: Bookspoils]

 

Both books are really quick reads that can be devoured in a single afternoon (or train ride). I especially liked that they were presented in the form of a graphic novel instead of in short story format. Both books combined were a 10/10 if you're into creepy dark humor.

 

What's Up Next: Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods: 20 Chilling Tales from the Wilderness by Hal Johnson

What I'm Currently (Re)Reading: The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

This dark and twisted tale comes with a warning in the blurb, and it is definitely necessary. In most cases, I would've preferred a longer story for development, but the author does an excellent job of conveying the horrors inflicted on Rock and Sophia and the emotional turmoil of the story. It is an extremely disturbing tale and I was riveted from the very first page. As the story progressed and got darker and more twisted, I absolutely had to know how it would all play out. As tragic as much of this one is, I found myself doubting any romance would come to fruition, but Lucy Wild does dark romance like few others, and pulled it off masterfully.