VJ Books - Blog

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vjbooks — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:34:58 +0000

VJ Books has received: Robin Cook - Cure, Jeff Lindsay - Dexter is Delicious, Nancy Grace - Death on the D-List, Brandon Sanderson - The Way of Kings, Alex Dryden - Moscow Sting, Dick Francis - Crossfire, Michael Atkinson - Hemingway Cutthroat, Sara Paretsky - Body Work, Carla Neggers - The Whisper, Jamie Freveletti - Running From The Devil, and Ellen Crosby - Viognier Vendetta.

Press Release: VJ Books Announces September 2010 Favorite Author - Suspense Writer John Sandford

vjbooks — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:13:50 +0000

Tualatin, Oregon - September 1, 2010 - VJ Books (http://www.vjbooks.com) honors bestselling thriller writer John Sandford as September 2010 Favorite Author.

John Sandford was born John Camp on February 23, 1944, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He attended the public schools in Cedar Rapids. In 1966, Sandford graduated from the University of Iowa with a bachelor’s degree in American Studies. John Sandford is widely recognized for his Prey novel series featuring Lucas Davenport. Sandford has written more than 30 fiction novels and two non-fiction books.

The Washington Post says that “John Sandford is at the top of his game”.

“In addition to the twenty novels featuring Lucas Davenport, he has written four in the Kidd series (two as Camp, two as Sandford), two showing us the razor-edge world of the Night Crew, and more recently four books featuring Virgil Flowers, a gun-totin’ cop who looks, dresses, and acts a lot more like a road-weary drifter than your stereotypical bullet-headed badge-wearer” says John Hutchinson of VJ Books. “John Sandford has been writing brilliantly suspenseful, consistently surprising thrillers filled with rich characters and exceptional drama since 1989, three years after winning the Pulitzer Prize as a features reporter for the Pioneer Press in St. Paul.”

Sandford’s latest novel, Bad Blood, is filled with the brilliant plotting and compulsively readable prose that are John Sandford’s hallmarks. Bad Blood is another masterpiece by one of our very best suspense writers.

A chronological list of John Sandford books and series is shown below.

The Prey Series: Rules of Prey (1989), Shadow Prey (1990), Eyes of Prey (1991), Silent Prey (1992), Winter Prey (1993), Night Prey (1994), Mind Prey (1995), Sudden Prey (1996), Secret Prey (1998), Certain Prey (1999), Easy Prey (2000), Chosen Prey (2001), Mortal Prey (2002), Naked Prey (2003), Hidden Prey (2004), Broken Prey (2005), Invisible Prey (2007), Phantom Prey (2008), Wicked Prey (2009), Storm Prey (2010)

The Virgil Flowers Series: Dark of the Moon (2007), Heat Lightning (2008), Rough Country (2009), Bad Blood (September 2010: Putnam)

The Kidd Series: The Fool’s Run (1989), The Empress File (1991), The Devil’s Code (2000), The Hanged Man’s Song (2003)

Standalone Novels: Dead Watch (2006), The Night Crew (1997)

Book Review - “61 Hours” by Lee Child

vjbooks — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:56:31 +0000

Review by John

Living the life of a nomad suits Jack Reacher just fine. No bags, no baggage and with just the clothes on his back, he boards a bus loaded with elderly travelers heading south through the Dakota Territory when a near collision with a car sends the bus sliding on ice and snow into a ditch.

With the weather growing more intense, Reacher, in a borrowed coat, gets drawn into the drama of another small town. Once again the locals need his special insight, logic, and sharply honed skills to face a situation growing more severe than the storm.

As Reacher watches his ride pull away it becomes clear to him that “South Dakota is the place you go when you run out of alternatives.” He stays to “serve and protect,” working with… the local police to find a killer, protect a witness, and solve the mystery of a drug facility sitting in an abandoned military site.

61 Hours is both the title and the time that elapses in the pages of this breakneck thriller.

Lee Child expertly uses the Dakota winter weather to create a stark and dangerous environment to frame this story. Its frigid impact rises from the page like some threatening character testing Reacher’s usually sharp ability to “figure things out.” You can almost feel him shiver.

I have had an unusually good run lately, reading some superb books. Starting with Savages by Don Winslow, I moved to Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke, then to Live To Tell by Lisa Gardner, finishing with Lee Child’s 61 Hours. Each book different in so many ways, but sharing the author’s artful skill in laying a story line that takes you for a ride you won’t soon forget. I recommend them all! My problem is ‘what now?”

Book Synopsis - Clive Cussler Lost Empire

vjbooks — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:00:31 +0000

Clive Cussler is the author of many New York Times bestsellers and is an internationally recognized authority on shipwrecks and the founder of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA).

Clive Cussler and Grant Blackwood now bring us the action-packed Lost Empire featuring treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo who first appeared in Cussler’s Spartan Gold (2009: Penguin).

In Lost Empire, Sam and Remi Fargo come upon a relic belonging to a long-lost Confederate ship. An anomaly about the relic sets them off chasing a mystery-but unknown to them, a much more powerful force is engaged in the same chase. Mexico’s ruling party, the ultranationalist Mexica Tenochca, is intent on finding that artifact as well, because it contains a secret that could destroy the party utterly. Through Tanzania and Zanzibar, into the rainforests of Madagascar, and across the Indian Ocean to Indonesia and the legendary site of the 1883 Krakatoa explosion, the Fargos and their ruthless opponents pursue the hunt-but only one can win. And the penalty for failure is death.

(Click here if you’re looking for Signed, Collectible or Limited Editions of Lost Empire or other Clive Cussler books.)

Clive Cussler’s books have been published in more than 40 languages in more than 100 countries. See below for a chronological list of Clive Cussler books and series.

The Dirk Pitt Adventures novels

Pacific Vortex (this is the first book that Cussler wrote but it was published in 1983), Mediterranean Caper (1973), Iceberg (1975), Raise the Titanic (1976), Vixen 03 (1978), Night Probe (1981), Deep Six (1984), Cyclops (1986), Treasure (1988), Dragon (1990), Sahara (1992), Inca Gold (1994), Shock Wave (1996), Flood Tide (1997), Atlantis Found (1999), Valhalla Rising (2001), Trojan Odyssey (2003) and Black Wind (2004), Treasure of Khan (2006), and Arctic Drift (2008). Crescent Dawn, the latest of The Dirk Pitt Adventures, is set to release November 2010.

The NUMA Files novels

Serpent (1999), Blue Gold (2000), Fire Ice (2002), White Death (2003), Lost City (2004), Polar Shift (2005), The Navigator (2007), and Medusa (2009)

The Oregon Files novels

Golden Buddha (2003), Sacred Stone (2004), Dark Watch (2005), Skeleton Coast (2006), Plague Ship (2008), Corsair (2009), and The Silent Sea (2010)

The Isaac Bell Detective novels

The Chase (2007), The Wrecker (2009), and The Spy (2010)

The Fargo Adventure novels

Spartan Gold (2009) and Lost Empire (2010)

Clive Cussler has also written single books in Non-Fiction and Children Classics. His Non-Fiction books include The Sea Hunters, The Sea Hunters II and Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed. His stand-alone Children Classics include The Adventures of Vin Fiz (2009) and The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy (2010).

Grant Blackwood has written three espionage thrillers including The End of Enemies, The Wall of Night, and An Echo of War in addition to co-authoring Spartan Gold and Lost Empire with Clive Cussler.

Book Synopsis - “Death on the D-List” by Nancy Grace

vjbooks — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:52:25 +0000

The brutal slayings of a string of her patients in New York and a horrific attempt on her own life leave Hailey Dean down, but not defeated. After a yearlong respite back home in the Southland, former violent crimes prosecutor Hailey Dean finally returns to her apartment in the sky overlooking Manhattan.

Hailey’s determined to rebuild a normal life and settle back into her growing practice as a therapist. But in a twist of fate, Hailey agrees to follow her heart and fight crime once again, this time in a new arena, in front of a camera! Under the hot lights of a TV studio, Hailey learns the TV industry’s not so glamorous. In fact, it’s downright deadly!

Book Synopsis - “Heaven’s Fury” by Stephen Frey

vjbooks — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:44:29 +0000

New York Times bestselling author Stephen Frey thrills readers with the mesmerizing tale of a small-town sheriff who must confront the worst violence that man and nature possess.Bruner, Wisconsin, is really two different towns. On one side are the magnificent summer estates of wealthy families who value their privacy and privilege above all else. A few miles away, but a world apart, are the homes of the working men and women who cook, clean, and tend to the needs of the summer visitors. It’s a place of staggering natural beauty, but where death can come unexpectedly and with no regard for a person’s bank account or family tree. A place of steadfast loyalties and friendships, but where the long and brutal winter can make even the most intimate friends turn on each other with frightening intensity.

Alan Jacobson’s “Velocity” Receives Publishers Weekly Starred Review

vjbooks — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:04:03 +0000

Publishers Weekly Starred Review -

“Jacobson’s third thriller featuring FBI profiler Karen Vail (after Crush) sizzles with nonstop action and startling details. Refreshingly real, Karen doesn’t let her tough ‘take no prisoners’ attitude stand in the way of following her heart. [Velocity is a] dizzy nail-biter.”

Book Synopsis - “Crossfire” by Dick Francis & Felix Francis

vjbooks — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 12:37:16 +0000

In the enjoyable fourth and final collaboration between Francis (1920-2010) and son Felix Francis, Captain Thomas Forsyth’s tour of duty in Afghanistan is cut brutally short when he s badly wounded by a roadside bomb. His world is torn apart by the injury - the army is his life. Six months of leave to recuperate is a daunting prospect but not as bleak as the probability of never rejoining his regiment.Tom returns to his childhood home in Lambourn, where his mother is a racehorse trainer and the First Lady of racing. Never having seen eye-to-eye with her, Tom doesn t expect a hero s welcome but even he s not prepared for the reception that awaits him.

When his mother s prize horse finishes a vastly disappointing last in a race he should have won, Tom discovers that the training business is on the edge, and facing a threat far more dangerous than a run of bad form. Tom finds himself on a very different, but just as deadly, battlefield, where again his military skills are tested. . . . Kill or be killed?

Book Synopsis - “Bad Blood” by John Sandford

vjbooks — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 23:11:35 +0000

One late fall Sunday in southern Minnesota, a farmer brings a load of soybeans to a local grain elevator- and a young man hits him on the head with a steel bar, drops him into the grain bin, waits until he’s sure he’s dead, and then calls the sheriff to report the “accident.” Suspicious, the sheriff calls in Virgil Flowers, who quickly breaks the kid down…and the next day the boy’s found hanging in his cell.

Alex Dryden’s “Moscow Sting” - Book Sysnopsis

vjbooks — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 12:29:53 +0000

When Finn, a former British spy, is poisoned by a Russian assassin, his ex-boss Adrian, the chief of MI6, wants vengeance. He also wants answers-information that only Finn’s widow knows. But Anna, a former KGB colonel who betrayed her country for love, vanished with her child shortly after Finn’s death.Moving from Paris to New York, from the Kremlin to the American Southwest, Moscow Sting is an absorbing and timely tale of intrigue, betrayal, fatal lies, and complex truths, told with the authentic detail and chilling insight of an experienced insider.