Summer’s almost over…but the thrillers keep on coming

Rain Gods

By JAMES LEE BURKE

Simon and Schuster, $25.99

An anonymous call to the sheriff’s office in a little town on the Texas-Mexico border sends Sheriff Hackberry Holland to the site of a mass grave containing the massacred bodies of nine young Asian women. The victims, prostitutes whose stomachs carried balloons of heroin, had been machine-gunned to death.

Pete Flores, a veteran of Iraq and the only witness to the killing, goes on the run with his girlfriend, Vicky, tracked by the crime lord behind the murders, Hugo Citranos, and the so-called “preacher,” a brutal and malicious killer-for-hire. Also on their trail are Sheriff Holland, the FBI and U.S. immigration officials. The tension continually grows, relieved only by Holland’s young chief deputy, Pam Tibbs, who reawakens feelings in her boss that died with his wife.

It’s another sure winner from Louisianan Burke.

Sunnyside

By Glen David Gold

Knopf, $26.95

Charlie Chaplin – ” a comedian who owns his own studio… a terrible son, an awful husband, a romantic, a brat, a dancer, a mimic and a genius” – was so famous that, in one day in 1916, he was spotted in 800 different places, simultaneously.

Chaplin shares the spotlight with two less famous characters: Leland Wheeler and Hugo Black.

Wheeler’s star rose after he found on a battlefield in France during WWI, which he trained. One later became Rin Tin Tin, the Hollywood canine that saved Warner Brothers Studio.

Not to be confused with the famous jurist, this Black fought in America’s failed expedition against the Bolsheviks and occupies the book’s darkest scenes.

Chaplin, called a slacker for not joining the U.S. Army, redeemed himself by enlisting famous stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford in making record sales of Liberty Bonds. That is, when he wasn’t making two-reelers, feuding with Pickford and marrying his (first) child bride.

If you enjoy historical fiction, you’ll relish this one.

The Doomsday Key

By JAMES ROLLIN

William Morrow, $27.99

Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma Force are thrust into the mysteries of three apparently unconnected murders in the Vatican, Africa and Ghana, each victim marked by a fiery symbol burned into their flesh: a druidic pagan cross.

What they discover is a powerful industrialist who plots to control the world’s food supply, in one way by diverting corn to produce ethanol rather than food. (Really?) As he says, “the amount of corn needed to produce enough ethanol to fill one SUV tank could feed a starving person for a year.”

Gray is aided by two women – one a former lover and the other, his new partner – one of whom may have to be sacrificed.

The action moves quickly, sometimes so quickly one might lose track of the plot and characters, but fans of Rollins’ past four books will certainly be thrilled.

Finger Lickin’ Fifteen

By Janet Evanovich

St. Martin’s Press, $27.95

If you like your larceny with lots of laughs, you’ll get your share with the antics of bounty hunter Stephanie Plum and her cohorts. In the 15th of this series, Stephanie hires on with Ranger, one of her two amours, to catch whoever’s robbing houses and businesses he’s paid to protect. Stephanie finds herself short on funds, too, since three of her bail jumpers are on the loose. Worse, her co-worker Lulu witnesses a decapitation and the two goons responsible are planning to rub her out as well.

Lots of fun and, food, so enjoy.

You Are Where You Eat

By Elsa Hahne

University Press of Mississippi, $35

Those happy faces on the cover have found great places to eat, not at restaurants, but in homes throughout the New Orleans area.

Author and accomplished photographer Hahne visited 33 homes and came away with many first-person accounts and over 100 photographs, both color and black-and-white. The 85 recipes included here represent virtually all cultures, offering taste-tempting dishes from catfish court bouillon to Vietnamese spring rolls.

By all means, try these at your home.