The North Sea Killer by Dale E. Manolakas; The Mantis Corruption The Mantis Gland Series Book 3 by Adam Andrews Johnson

 The North Sea Killer by Dale E Manolakas 

Dale E. Manolakas’ The North Sea Killer is a short but tight thriller about a rich aristocrat with a very dangerous side. 

Edward Kenworthy is the second son of the Duke of Belford, a prominent British family. Besides being a wealthy playboy, he is a serial killer and his latest conquest is Chloe Bridgeport, an American senator’s daughter. When she goes missing, the trail appears right at Edward’s doorstep and his collection of dead bodies and other activities won’t be hidden for long.

There isn’t a moment in this book that is wasted because of its short length and tense plot. It tells a fascinating Psychological Crime Thriller from beginning to end that takes multiple view points of the murders, the coverups, the investigation, the arrest and trial of Edward’s colleague and cohort, Greg Sterling, the estate gamekeeper’s son, and the eventual accusations and evidence mounting against Edward. 

Edward makes for a charismatic but terrifying killer. He is reminiscent of the type of villain found in old Alfred Hitchcock films who hides his sinister intent underneath a veneer of wealth and privilege. He is the center of a very wide circle of the elite and famous, people who get drunk, take drugs, sleep around, and run wild. 

One of his favorite places to scout for potential victims is the International Edinburgh Festival because it fits both aspects of his personality. It’s a public place to go where he can see and be seen among the fashionable and idle rich elite. It’s also somewhere he can find young female victims far from home, easily attracted to his charm, and who may not be reported missing for while if ever. This location selection reveals that Edward spends just as much time maintaining this entitled surface as he does killing women. It is the surface that allows him to do such nefarious things without getting caught. 

After all, Edward could always call a solicitor, one of his father's contacts, crooked and prestigious law enforcement officers, one of the estate’s many employees, or a partygoer and an alibi is provided, money is thrown around, bribes are offered and taken, threats are made, a witness is paid off, a case is dropped, a body is hidden, and Edward is home free and clear. These are resources that Greg doesn’t have so it’s no surprise that when the law comes, they come for him and try him as the killer instead of Edward. Greg is made the fall guy and Edward is all too willing to throw him under the bus so he can continue his private activities. 

To be fair, no one looks particularly good in this book. Many characters reveal a duplicitous nature underneath their surface. Chloe’s friend, Shannon Kelly is a distraught key witness but she is also an aspiring actress who is willing to use her friend’s death as a launchpad to her own career. Her father, Senator Jeffrey Bridgeport, is clearly grieving and wants to see justice done but also knows that he can get sympathy votes that will take him far into politics, perhaps to the White House.

 The prosecution and defense attorneys, Thomas J. Dodd and Penelope Thompson respectively use the case to raise their own standards and those of causes that are important to them. Then there’s Edward’s father, The Duke of Belford, who becomes aware of his son’s violent tendencies, has his own speculation, and has to weigh whether he wants to protect his family name and legacy or provide evidence against his son and give Edward’s victim the justice that she deserves. 

The North Sea Killer is a tense thriller that peeks into various minds in a murder and its aftermath the investigators, the witnesses, the allies, the attorneys, the judge, the court staff, the jury, the observers, the friends, the family members, the victims, and the murderers. 

The Mantis Corruption (The Mantis Gland Series Book 3) by Adam Andrews Johnson 

Now we return to Teshon City and its world of Shifts, people with extraordinary abilities provided by the Mantis Gland and their sworn enemies, The Messiahs, a theocratic powerful religious cult that force Shifts into isolation, imprisonment, and extinction while killing them and feasting on their glands. The first volume, The Mantis Variant introduced us to this Science Fiction world and its protagonists Ilya, a Shift with the ability of flight, Dozi, a human runaway and their new family The Mystic, who has healing abilities, Theolon Mystic’s husband, and Lahari, their Shift daughter. The second volume. The Mantis Equilibrium introduces us to some new characters like Nanyani and Tachma, new Shifts and Auntie Peg, the eccentric leader of the Anti-Messiah resistance. It also makes the series darker by raising the stakes, putting the characters in more violent and destructive situations, and killing off an important cast member.

If possible the third volume, The Mantis Corruption gets even darker by giving us characters with stronger and more chilling powers and severe graphic body modification. It also expands the concept even farther by taking place mostly outside of Teshon City and putting the regular cast in supporting roles towards the end. 

West of Teshon City are the wastelands of Xin. Sumi and Harakin are among the many who were forced into the military from the time that they were children. They are also the only non-humans in their regiment and have abilities that help their destructive commanders. Harakin can manifest light and can create photon blades that emerge from her hands as weapons. Sumi can transport people and objects from one place to another.North of them the village of Kestapoli where a woman named Tisa can create figures out of shadows that do her bidding resides. She encounters a new companion Olona, an organic mechanic who builds prosthetic body parts. The four characters end up ostracized and isolated from the oppressive regimes that surround them. They have to go on the run and into hiding. If only there was a resistance group made up of humans and Shifts, that fight these regimes perhaps in Teshon City. Meanwhile, at Gunge there is a colony that could serve as a warning for the avaricious and cruel Messiah. They absorbed the Mantis Glands and also everything else from the Shifts including their bodies.

This is the volume that is larger, larger in setting, larger in powers, larger in scope, and larger in conflicts and consequences. Instead of focusing on the core characters in and around Teshon City, it focuses on some new characters in new places.

We get to see more of the world that surrounds the entire series and the people who reside in these different locations. Xin for example is a savage militarized wasteland whose residents have to fight for survival. Kestapoli by contrast appears more picaresque, almost reminiscent of a Medieval village but many of its residents are just as cruel and intolerant towards Shifts as the Xinian military are. This focus on surrounding communities reveals that the conflict against the Shifts is a universal one that is seen in several countries, villages, cities, and cultures.

Along with the expansion, this volume emphasizes the darker aspects particularly with the character’s physical and psychological states. The book is very upfront with how child soldiers are formed with the violence, regimentation, and forced executions faced by Sumi and Harakin. Their superiors are intentionally cruel and sadistic as one would expect a militaristic society to be. 

However, there is something just as threatening, maybe even more so from the people of Kestapoli. It doesn’t take much to turn this seemingly normal peaceful community into a bloodthirsty volatile mob that will turn on their own as Tisa discovers with her bigoted parents. We expect nothing resembling empathy or loyalty from Xin so we are not disappointed when none is shown. But the rejection from Tisa’s family hits the soul because these are people who should have loved her but instead do not accept her as she is.

The darkness is also felt in the more physical attributes. In previous books, the Shift’s powers were amazing and would probably be ones that Readers wouldn’t mind having. Who wouldn’t want to fly from one place to another or use superior strength to lift heavy objects? On a hot day wouldn’t it be fun to use your ice giving powers to cool yourself off or use fire on a cold day? Yes the Shifts have the potential to be dangerous but when they are used as weapons, it’s accidentally as Nanyani shows in the last book.

In this volume, the Shift abilities are not only strong but powerful and potentially destructive, facts acknowledged by those who lead them. Sumi and Harakin are forced to use their powers to kill in very graphic ways. In one chilling chapter, Sumi observes various prisoners and obeys her commander’s orders to kill them. She does so by using her transportation abilities to move their hearts and other organs from their bodies and crush them while the remaining body parts explode. Shifts are born with these abilities and can’t always help or control what they do with them but there are those who will exploit those abilities for their own ambitions.

By far the most graphic, stomach churning, and unforgettable aspects of the book are the Gunges. They are creatures from nightmares, are no longer human, and have metamorphosed into complete monsters in body and personality. Some have extra arms and legs growing out from their torsos. Others are covered with eyes that belonged to their victims. Others’ throats retain different voices of those that they absorbed going from low bass to high soprano in one conversation. One character has absorbed so many Mantis Glands that he is a large misshapen gelatinous blob of various body parts merged into one form that can barely move. It’s not a place to let the imagination dwell too much if they don’t want to have trouble sleeping afterwards. 

The expansion and the darkness cover the book so much that when the plot returns to Teshon City and the original characters, the book changes. The original characters and setting are missed and it's great to see them back again. It’s also wonderful that Sumi, Harakin, Olona, and Tisa are in a place with a diverse group of friends and allies that welcome and accept them. 

However there are some concerns. Among them is that the meeting between old and new characters happens so late in the book. We have gotten so used to this new environment that returning to the old one is almost jarring and abrupt. Yes, we expected the groups to meet. That was a given but when it happens it does almost as an anticlimactic afterthought instead of a natural progression. Perhaps they could have just given this book to the newcomers and have them meet the older characters at the very end, during the last couple of chapters. That way their new acquaintanceship can be fully explored in Part Four.

The other issue concerning the meeting of worlds is what happens to the action afterwards. The meeting is abrupt but so are some of the following chapters which deal with many of the fights and battles. The conflicts are anticlimactic and move too fast. This is especially egregious when some of the characters that confront and vie against each other have been around since the beginning. The confrontations have little build up and require more resolution and follow through to make a more gradual approach. Instead it feels like, “That’s all after three books? That’s all there is? What happens in the next two books?” 

The expanded universe, new characters and the darker atmosphere are the best aspects of this volume and the reunion with older characters is a nice return, but the third book probably needed more work to make this volume stand out from the previous two.

New Book Alert: Saratoga (The Illustrated Colonials Book 3) by Tom Durwood; YA Series About Enlightened Young Royals Has A Satisfying Ending

 New Book Alert: Saratoga (The Illustrated Colonials Book 3) by Tom Durwood; YA Series About Enlightened Young Royals Ends On A High Note

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: So this is it.

We come to the last final volume in Tom Durwood's The Illustrated Colonials series. We reach the final adventures of Jaiyi Mei Ying, Prince Mahmoud, Sheyndil, Leo, Will O., And Gilbert du Motier and it ends on a high note. While the first book, The Pact is my personal favorite, Saratoga brings the characters forward allowing them to adapt and accept their roles in a new world. The teens are now ready to leave their youth, ascend into adulthood, and become the leaders that they were trained to become. 

The plot mostly focuses on Prince Mahmoud who apparently ties with Mei Ying as Durwood's favorite characters in the ensemble (since they receive the lion's share of attention in both this and Home Fronts). 

Mahmoud travels to the future United States to deliver documents of alliance and finance to Gilbert who is busy filling the role history and popular culture (such as a famous Tony Award winning Broadway hip hop musical) have bestowed upon him as "America's favorite fighting Frenchman," the Marquis De Lafayette.

 After enduring a very uncomfortable sea voyage Mahmoud encounters loyalist spy, Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne, a meeting that ends with him being kidnapped. Mahmoud manages to make his escape and is caught in the middle of the Battles of Beckman's Mill and Saratoga.

Meanwhile, Leo's military strategy and Will's business contacts end up becoming quite fruitful for them as people come directly to Will to work for him. Unfortunately, on his way to travel to Boston Harbor to join his buddies, Leo is threatened with a duel and subsequently betrayed. Sheyndil and Mei Ying take their lessons to the home front to battle local opposing forces with the same drive and dedication that their male counterparts possess.

It would be nice to see the Enlightenment Six reunite perhaps on American soil. One of the gifts that the first volume had was the ensemble cast. These were kids from different countries with diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, economic status, goals, and roles in society. Each one grew and adapted, becoming a close group of friends and better individuals. It would have been a nice payoff to see them reunite physically, perhaps in the United States during the American Revolution or back in Alsace-Lorraine after the war ended. Instead, they spend the book apart and only a few see each other again.

However, it also makes sense that Durwood would do this approach. It gives a chance for the characters to make individual contributions, using their various talents and contributions in their own way. Many of those contributions are made within their own countries but lead to the ultimate goal of uniting each other. They also are able to evolve into leaders on their own merits.

The one who benefited the most from this approach was certainly Mahmoud. I was not kidding when I speculated that he is probably Durwood's favorite character. He certainly has shown the most development in the three volumes.

In the first book, The Pact, he was a spoiled arrogant Prince certain of his own place as a royal and put everyone around him into little boxes of nobles, slaves, etc. Through his education, he learned different philosophies and looked at a larger world around him.

The second book , Home Fronts, featured Mahmoud verbally sparring with his family in Ottoman Turkey when he realizes that he has changed but they have not. His philosophies are spoken and theoretical. They are not yet practiced.

Saratoga is the completion of Mahmoud's journey. He is finally able to physically put what he learned into practice and become an accomplished freedom fighter. Throughout this book, he is able to use his strength and intelligence to outfight and outwit his enemies. He proves to be clever at escaping from captivity and active as he fights in battle. He has clearly changed a lot and it is wonderful watching him grow so much into a hero.

The other reason that it makes sense for the characters to have their stories come to an end on their own is to emphasize the international concerns of The Illustrated Colonials series as a whole. While part of the series is set in North America and the covers show an emphasis on the American Revolution, the series expands on that by taking on international concerns in France, China, Russia, The Netherlands, Germany, and Turkey later expanding into The United States and Africa. This is very important as it shows oppression and tyranny wears many faces and that there are many people who suffered under it. There were also people who fought against it and shared the same values of equality and loyalty. This isn't just an American struggle, it's a global struggle.

Of course, as with many final volumes, there is great loss. Some characters don't make it, leaving many tears from friends, family, and a few from the Reader. Some ascend and become well known in their own right. Years later, one character acknowledges the other's roles in the world that they helped to create. It is a very satisfactying ending as the character is addressing a college of young people, thereby recognizing the leadership that their friends took and passing the mantle to the next generation. 

Saratoga is a terrific ending to a wonderful YA series. Hopefully, young people will discover and read it, love the characters and setting, and maybe just learn a thing or two about friendship and equality along the way. 

New Book Alert: Alejandro's Lie by Bob Van Laerhove; An Honest and Absorbing Look At Imprisonment and PTSD In A Latin American Dictatorship

 New Book Alert: Alejandro's Lie by Bob Van Laerhove; An Honest and  Absorbing Look At Imprisonment and PTSD In A Latin American Dictatorship

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: M.G. Claybrook's satirical children's book for adults The Voyages of Gethsarade has the biting but very true line, "All revolutions begin the same way by not being paid."

Gethsarade, Claybrook's furry squirrel musician-turned-folk-hero protagonist, would find a revolutionary partner in Alejandro Juron, who would share that same sentiment. Alejandro is the (human in this case, not squirrel) protagonist of Alejandro's Lie, Bob Van Laerhoven political thriller about revolution in a Latin American country. It shows what happens when the marching, protests, and rebellions stop and the rebel is left older and alone with their thoughts.

It is 1983 in Valtaigo, Terreno, a fictional Latin American country. Alejandro has just been released from a prison that is so notorious that it is nicknamed The Last Supper, because "supper was the only meal that they gave you on your execution." Alejandro was the guitarist in the folk band, Aconcagua, led by the fiery and charismatic Victor Perez. 

Alejandro struggles to adjust to life on the outside, refamiliarizing himself with places like the 'pigsty', Vaitago's slums and living under the military junta that has strict control over Terreno (with funding from the United States). He reunites with old friends, like Cristobal Vial, a former firebrand playing it safe as a university librarian and makes new friends, like Beatriz Candalti, a feminist who is separated and planning to divorce her abusive husband.

Alejandro's imprisonment has given him PTSD and a bitter cynical outlook. He also feels guilty about his own motives for becoming a musician/revolutionary and his actions that led to Vincent's arrest, imprisonment, and death.

Alejandro's Lie is an absorbing look at how a dictatorship affects the people and places surrounding it. Terreno is a fictional location but the impact of living under a tyranny can be clearly felt in the real world. This impact has been experienced by people from real Central and South American countries that have been ruined by dictators who have used various political leanings from Capitalism to Communism and backing from more powerful countries as means for control. 

One character describes the situation in Terreno as "The wealthy are dancing the rumba in luxurious nightclubs, the poor grab leftovers in the garbage dumps….Terreno is a country of contradictions a d teeming with underground parties and resistance groups…rebel groups are smuggling in arms from Cuba...the middle class hesitates; the oligarchy has resolutely sided with the junta." It's a world that has been teetering on an abyss for a long time and barely needs a slight push before it falls off.

Alejandro's Lie is the type of book in which the author avoids making the setting beautiful to focus on the ugliness surrounding the characters. There are some detailed descriptions of nature, particularly when Beatriz flies a plane to a mountain location. However, they are very few. Most of the action is in Valtaigo, possibly a deliberate move by Van Laerhoven. The focus is on the dictatorship, so much so that everything in the country is centered around it. Even nature's beauty is tainted by the corrupt people in charge who want to destroy it. Terreno is a country filled with loss, regret, guilt, and forced complacency.

Those feelings overwhelm Alejandro as soon as he leaves The Last Supper and exacerbates his already growing PTSD. He suffers through the nightmarish memories of his imprisonment including starvation, torture, and manipulation. After leaving prison however, his experiences get worse. 

Alejandro left a country that was devastated by a dictator. What he finds is a ruthless government still in power. The people's rights have only diminished further. Unfortunately, it has been so long that most people have lost the will to fight. There are some resistors, as Beatriz is involved in just such a cell. But they are the minority. Most people such as Beatriz's father and at times Cristobal have traded rebellion for conformity and are less concerned with ideologies and more worried about survival. It makes one wonder what the point of rebellion is if the people aren't going to follow through on it.

The complacency of the people and his own dark memories drive Alejandro. He questions everything, even his own motives for joining Ancocagaua. His motives for becoming a folk musician and betrayal of Victor eat away at his soul. He believes that his own motivations to join a political folk band had more to do with fame, money, and sleeping with willing women than it did with singing against the system. This puts a more cynical and world weary outlook at the  rebellious idealistic image that others saw in him. Alejandro also has to contend with his mental anguish over Victor's imprisonment and his blame in turning Victor in not for political reasons but because he had an affair with Victor's wife.

Alejandro recognizes the lie within himself and can't do anything to ease that remorse. He turns to music, drink, old friends, even a stint as a professional barrio wrestler to earn money. But these things only make the void in his life worse. The only emotion that he has left is rage for an old enemy. This rage causes him to engage in a pretty reckless plan to seek vengeance and retribution.

Alejandro's Lie is a book that explores the long term impact that a dictatorship and imprisonment has on the soul and how they lose everything: their home, families, lovers, strength, and fighting spirit. Truth be told, Alejandro's Lie is a somber but still intriguing and completely honest book.

Weekly Reader: The Illustrated Colonials: Home Fronts by Tom Durwood; The Colonial Six Come Home Enlightened But Are They Ready?

 Weekly Reader: The Illustrated Colonials: Home Fronts by Tom Durwood; The Colonial Six Come Home Enlightened But Are They Ready?

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: On the last exciting episode of Tom Durwood's The Illustrated Colonials,six teens from around the world were recruited to attend the School for Young Monarchs in Alsace-Lorraine. They were Jiayi Mei Ying from China, Prince Mahmoud from the Ottoman Empire, Sheyndil from Russia, Leo from Germany, Will from the Netherlands, and Gilbert du Motier from France. Despite their class and social differences, the sextet learned the school's values of enlightenment, liberty, and equality. They used their talents in commerce, leadership, engineering, military strategy, agriculture, and scholarship research to promote those ideals. Through their education and friendship, they formed a tight bond. In the face of old enemies, they defended each other and formed a pact to always be there for each other. If one is in trouble, the other five will come to their aid.

In the second volume, Home Fronts, we experience their lives before and after their education. One of the characters is examined before they enter the school. Afterwards, the characters return to their homes and are met with suspicion and praise.

Mei Ying's early story fills in some blanks that the previous book left out. In the previous volume, we experience the moment when the other five hear about the school and discover their motives for attending whether by family pressure, patronage, or just looking for something to do. In Mei Ying's introductory chapter, we see her disinherited by her grandfather. But we don't learn about how she knows about the school or what motivates her to attend. In fact when some of the other characters enroll,they already hear about "the girl from China" who is attending.

Mei Ying's section in Home Fronts shows her with all of her arrogance and strength, both of which are detrimental and helpful to her subsequent studies. She is reluctant to cooperate with Westerners. ("Why must I learn to speak German and French?," she complains."When will that become useful?".) At times, she develops a diva-esque attitude such as when after getting in a bad mood, she howls that China does not outlaw moods.

However, Mei Ying shows a lot of courage and strength even before she joins the school. In one chapter, she faces a pack of wolves practically single-handed. (One of my favorite illustrations is an almost anime style drawing of Mei Ying facing against the wolves.) When she learns of an attack on a village by mercenaries, she curses the man who led them there by telling him that his cowardice will be known. This glimpse of Mei Ying's pre-school life reveals a lot about her character and what she needed to learn before being accepted as one of the gang.

Besides  Mei Ying's prologue, we also see the kids return to their home countries and try to fit what they learned into the worlds in which they were raised. They quickly learn that it's all well and good to gain new perspectives and to learn new things and put them into practice. But it's hard when the people aren't ready to accept the new way of thinking.

The subsequent return to their home countries is mostly experienced by Prince Mahmoud. He raises many eyebrows when he first arrives. He tells the servants to stop prostrating themselves on the ground. He tells them that they are human and have free will. This is not the spoiled brat from the previous volume who insisted that servants were happy just being servants and would not even think of the word "slaves."

To put his respect for the servants to action and not just hollow words, Mahmoud uses his new found talent in engineering to improve the piping in the servant's quarters so they can enjoy hot baths.

The distance between Mahmoud and his upbringing is painfully illustrated during a conversation between the young Prince and his father, The Sultan. After the Sultan asks what he learned among the "Franks."(Westerners), he goes into a well worn tirade about his kingdom that Mahmoud heard many times before. However, the Prince realizes that his father is shaped by Ottoman Anti-Western views that he has held onto without really wondering, reading about, or questioning them. Where once Mahmoud may have thought of those words as wise, he now sees them as trite. Where he once saw his father as a heroic man beyond reproach, he now sees a man who if not wrong is certainly misguided. 

Mahmoud sees that he changed but the world around him has not and he is uncertain about what he should do about it.

As for the others, well they also learn some new things which challenge their former roles in society. Sheyndil was once a meek peasant who believed that she was not permitted to have a voice. Now she is willing to physically fight and verbally spar against assailants, including Russian soldiers who in the past would have bullied her without a second thought. 

Will was once the much derided second son passed over in the family business for his older brother, Casper. However, the business acumen that he learned and the contacts that he made (particularly with a certain Ottoman Prince and a Chinese woman whose family practically owns the Yunhe canals and harbor), he is able to save his family from trade routes being cut off and potential bankruptcy.

As for the pact that they had made, well one of their own gets in trouble. The final pages show that soon it will be time for the other five to spring into action and honor that vow.

Home Fronts builds on the concepts that began in the first book and shows how the characters evolved. It also shows a world that is on the brink of evolving with those characters, whether it is ready or not.