Books of Note – June, 2025
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“Blood Run” by Jamie Freveletti An internationally bestselling author, Freveletti writes the multi-award winning Emma Caldridge Series. Emma Caldridge is a brilliant biochemist who enjoys extreme distance running. She uses both skills while undertaking missions around the world that would reduce the ordinary person to a puddle of fear and mumbling.
In “Blood Run,” Caldridge is tasked with delivering vaccines to villages in Africa, but the big pharma CEO accompanying her and providing the financial and logistical support for the operation, can’t be counted on. They find themselves in the middle of a war zone between brutal African factions with no way out except through even more dangerous territory. If that weren’t enough, an extra challenge involves an international terrorist who will stop at nothing to achieve his goal, complete with a target on Emma’s back. This pulse-pounding story will keep you turning the pages and wondering how in the world Caldridge will make it out alive.
“Saguaro Sanction” by Scott Graham Book #8 in the National Park Mystery Series thrusts the murder of a cousin squarely into the lives of the Bender family. Graham explores the southern Arizona National Park and its archeological mysteries while addressing the cultural impact of the U.S./Mexico border hostility.
Graham’s books are especially topical given our real-world loss of national park acreage to (IMO) misguided earlier administration policy, which chipped away at the protected lands, potentially losing ancient sites, all for the search for oil and other energy sources.
“The Silent Patient” by Alex Michaelides “Silent Patient” is an intense read, centered around a successful artist who shoots her husband in the face and never says a word after the deed, not to explain herself, not even to save herself from prosecution.
The criminal psychotherapist who tells the tale is obsessed by the case and works his way onto the staff at her psychiatric institute so that he can solve the mystery of her silence. Michaelides delivers shocking revelations, clever twists in the plot, and characters so well-drawn that they could be people we know. Don’t read “The Silent Patient” before bed, because you won’t get a wink of sleep as the pages fly by.
“Rope Burn” by Bruce M. Most Nick DeNunzio, a former Baltimore police detective turns in a corrupt cop, gets into a deadly shootout, and leaves town for parts unknown. Life on the road is not as glamorous as it might seem, and money is tight as he lives off the grid to avoid death by bad guy. When the car breaks down in Wyoming, he must stay in one place long enough to pay for the repairs, and a job finds him. He must chase down a cattle rustler/potential murderer and nobody likes what DeNunzio discovers.
“Rope Burn” is set amid the ranches of Wyoming and steeped in the reality of the disappearance of family held operations. Desperation, greed, loyalty, revenge…all play a part in this tautly written modern Western. This great first line hooked me: “It’s time you paid up for your sins, Jack.” Entertaining from beginning to end.
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