Altar of Eden: A Novel

I’ve seen the teasers for Alter of Eden here at onlinebooktips.com for quite some time before it became available, and suddenly, out of the blue, the amazon vine program offered me (for the first time) a copy of a Rollins book before it was released. Being the slow reader that I am, I didn’t finish it until it actually came out, but I had a good head-start, which I am very grateful for. Being a James Rollins fan now sure makes waiting for the NEXT novel sometimes difficult, but 2009 has been quite a busy year for him. By my count, he’s given us ‘The Doomsday Key’, the first ‘Jake Ransom’ and now ‘Alter of Eden’ in an 11th hour final pitch. Fine with me. All things considered, I’d rather wait for a great novel than be semi-satisfied by churning out one sub-par novel after another like some factory Read more »

Run for Your Life

James Patterson published his first thriller in 1976 and since then has become one of the best-known and bestselling writers of all time, with more than 140 million copies of his books sold worldwide. He is the author of the two most popular detective series of the past decade, featuring 12 Titles in Alex Cross Series - Cross, Along Came a Spider, Kiss the Girls, Jack and Jill, Pop Goes the Weasel, Cat and Mouse, Four Blind Mice, Violets Are Blue, Roses Are Red, Mary Mary, Big Bad Wolf, London Bridges and the Complete Women’s Murder Club Series (1st to Die, 2nd Chance, 3rd Degree, 4th of July, 5th Horseman, 6th Target and 7th Heaven, First Edition Hardcovers Volumes 1-7), and he has written numerous other #1 bestsellers.

This is the first James Patterson book that I have read in awhile and I am glad that I waited. This book was a non-stop thrill from start to finish, and I can’t wait to read the rest of his books that have been collecting dust on my bookshelf for too long. Read more »

The Tourist

Writer Olen Steinhauer has some fun with his spy terminology. A “tourist” is a black ops CIA agent who travels the world on a tourist visa. “Tourists” work directly for a “tour guide” at the “department of tourism.” Clandestine operations are reported to Langley in “tour guides.”

The day before 9/11, a CIA embassy officer goes missing while trying to make an expensive purchase of some valuable intelligence information. The Department of Tourism, fearing the worst, sends a “tourist” to locate the missing CIA embassy operative. Read more »