2025 Reviews – Page 9 – Rosepoint Publishing

Into the Storm by Rachel Grant #BookReview #TuesdayBookBlog

Evidence: Under the Fire Book 1

Book Blurb:

National Excellence in Story Telling Contest Winner ・ Daphne du Maurier Award Finalist ・ HOLT Medallion Contest Finalist ・ National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award Finalist

As a storm rolls in, a team of elite Navy SEALs arrives at a remote lodge for a wilderness training exercise that becomes terrifyingly real…

Xavier Rivera planned the exercise down to the smallest detail, but he didn’t plan the arrival of archaeologist Audrey Kendrick—a woman he shared a passionate night with before betraying her in the worst way.

As the storm is unleashed on the historic lodge it becomes clear the training has been compromised. Trapped by weather, isolated by the remote wilderness, and silenced as communication with the world has been severed, unarmed SEALs face an unexpected and deadly foe.

Audrey and Xavier must set aside their distrust and desire and work together to save a team under fire and survive in a battle against the wild.

My Review:

Holy cow! Here I am again, swimming against the positive current of all those readers who apparently loved the book. Somehow, when I read the blurb, I expected an atmospheric adventure in the remote northwest park where archaeologist Audrey Kendrick was overseeing the proper examination of native artifacts. This became a clash with Navy SEAL Xavier Rivera with whom she’s had…ahem!…previous experience.

Xavier was apparently tapped to plan a serious training session with his men, no detail overlooked (except for the weather), and neither performed a final check that all was as planned.

Not my fav…insta love. Sex scenes. Repeating over and over their history, all the plans she’d made to give him the big news. There were multiple POVs, which didn’t bother me so much until it came back to the same discussions previously hashed over and over and the betrayal suffered.

I enjoyed descriptions of the park, the mountain, the lodge and local native inhabitants as well as the survival maneuvers and strategy. Not so much the military fatalities and definitely a little tired of the old Russian bad guy cliché.

These are not characters with whom I could engage. Tiresome to keep being told she was pregnant. YES! We know! And she did all this pregnant in her first trimester! Hoorah!

The storyline was paced at different levels, the writing interesting (I can do without the graphic sex scenes). And really, the whole thing is predictable, including the conclusion. BTW, you can kiss your Naval career goodbye, Xavier.

If you like more romance than adventure, you might well enjoy this hot little number. I’m not sure I’ll try another Grant novel.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Rating: Three Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Military Thrillers, Action & Adventure Romance
Publisher: Janus Publishing
ASIN: B09HZF3DFH
Print Length: 411 pages
Publication Date: October 7, 2022
Source: Local Library

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: USA Today bestselling author Rachel Grant also writes thrillers as R.S. Grant. She worked for over a decade as a professional archaeologist and mines her experiences for storylines and settings, which are as diverse as excavating a cemetery underneath an historic art museum in San Francisco, survey and excavation of many prehistoric Native American sites in the Pacific Northwest, researching an historic concrete house in Virginia (inspiration for her debut novel, CONCRETE EVIDENCE), and mapping a seventeenth century Spanish and Dutch fort on the island of Sint Maarten in the Caribbean (which provided inspiration for the island and fort described in CRASH SITE).

She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her archaeologist husband and demanding cat.

Take the books outside to read — Spring reading on park bench sticker compliments of Freepik.com

Milkman: A Novel by Anna Burns #AudiobookReview #ThrowbackThursday

Editors’ pick Best Literature & Fiction

National Book Critics Circle Award Winner – 2018

Book Blurb:

In an unnamed city, middle sister stands out for the wrong reasons. She reads while walking, for one. And she has been taking French night classes downtown. So when a local paramilitary known as the milkman begins pursuing her, she suddenly becomes “interesting,” the last thing she ever wanted to be. Despite middle sister’s attempts to avoid him―and to keep her mother from finding out about her maybe-boyfriend―rumors spread and the threat of violence lingers. Milkman is a story of the way inaction can have enormous repercussions, in a time when the wrong flag, wrong religion, or even a sunset can be subversive. Told with ferocious energy and sly, wicked humor, Milkman establishes Anna Burns as one of the most consequential voices of our day.

My Review:

Yet another example of my apparent lack of appreciation for genius literary fiction. I was ready to DNF in…about ten minutes and several times after that. Yes, an audiobook and even if I hadn’t ramped up the speed, the author would still have been barreling through this book in it’s entirety without taking a breath.

What did I get myself into?

I was determined to finish it because it was to be on my list of Irish authors for this year’s Reading Ireland Month, the #Begorrathon, hosted by Cathy at 746 Books. Sorry, but I just couldn’t fathom this one.

Sheltered as we’ve been living in the States and only remotely getting news second or third hand, and at a time in my life when I was dealing with babies, I was far removed from what was going on “over there” except that “our boys” were still in ‘Nam and we wanted them home.

The protagonist here is a teenager, grappling with all the angst of teens the world over with the extra burden of an oppressive religion, an almost permanently hysterical mother, her education, and her lack of lining up a proper marriage.

What threw me at the beginning was the lack of names as everyone was referred to as (for instance) Almost Boyfriend, Third Brother-in-Law, Second Sister, etc. And the Milkman, wasn’t.

It’s a non-stop monologue that takes a single thought and multiplies it to all the possibilities that could result from the original thought and end with the worst scenario.

The only character I came close to engaging was Third Brother-in-Law and I couldn’t tell you why. I still didn’t know him any more than any of the main or support characters but the mother was the absolute worst.

A constant run-on self-dialogue that didn’t end and sometimes jumped into other persons, other scenes or situations, making it all but impossible to keep up with where we were now. Or why did we care?

This is supposed to be humorous—sorry—I didn’t find much funny with the horrible things going on (particularly the scene involving the dogs). No plot. No progression in the storyline. Oh, wait. No storyline. Everyone is paranoid, gossip runs rampant in an effort to…destroy(?) each other. A lot of narrative, nothing is settled. And then it ended.

SOOOO much philosophy! Dispensed, analyzed, regurgitated.

I’ll tell you what: Read the reviews on Goodreads. They should have gotten the awards!

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Publishing: Two point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Political Fiction, Literary Fiction
Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC
ISBN-10: ‎ 1644450003
ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1644450000
ASIN: B07JJJTT29
Listening Length: 14 hrs 11 mins
Narrator: Bríd Brennan
Publication Date: Reprint edition – December 4, 2018
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Milkman – Amazon-US
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: Anna Burns was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She is the author of two novels, No Bones and Little Constructions, and of the novella, Mostly Hero. No Bones won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize and was short-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction. She lives in East Sussex, England. Author photo credit Eleni Stefanou

#ThrowbackThursday

First Pub on the Right by David Irish Anderson #BookReview #Motorcycles

“Driving a car is like watching a movie, while riding a motorcycle is like being a part of it.”

Book Blurb:

With the quick wit and dry humour of a true Irishman, David “Irish” Anderson documents his epic eighteen-month motorcycle adventure from Ireland to South Africa in this captivating travel memoir.

What begins as a lofty idea in a pub becomes a reality after six years of planning when Irish and his wife purposely set out with their two heavily loaded motorcycles. Somewhere along the way, Irish loses his wife, but amidst the heartbreak, turmoil, and challenges on the long and often bumpy road, he gains a whole new perspective on life.

Follow his exciting journey as he does what you’re absolutely not supposed to do when you see an elephant, involuntarily exfoliates himself during a desert sandstorm, and receives plenty of well-meaning but impractical advice from strange characters.

With a telling eye for detail, Irish artfully captures the characteristics of each country he visits, the encounters with people he meets, the difficulties he faces, and the joy of discovery that comes with travelling to unfamiliar places, providing the reader with a rich tapestry of experience.

My Review:

Yes, of course, I was caught by the photo of the BMW GS on the cover. And while that is not the model of the bike I rode, mine was a R1200C—gorgeous bike—I’d have never attempted this ride. Much less ever had the money for it. It’s hard not to get pangs for the saddle though when you no longer ride.

Then, bonus: The author is from Ireland and I can include this book in Reading Ireland Month, or as we call it, #Begorrathon, an annual event hosted by Cathy at 746 Books. And, too, had to laugh at the title as we often heard from the CE that we’d (finally!) stop at the next café on the right. Hot, tired, hungry, and totally exhilarated by a sweet ride and creating life-changing memories.

This man, however, and at the beginning, his wife, undertook to ride from Cork, Ireland to Cape Town, Africa. Six years in the planning still SOOO much unexpected in the execution that I couldn’t fathom why, first, the money didn’t run out.

Not entirely without experience in long distance traveling overland on a motorcycle since both journeyed through South America, this was still more ambitious. In the end, he traveled forty countries in eighteen months for a total of 39,047 miles.

Virtually impossible to fix an itinerary with a ride of this magnitude, the routes were kept rather loose. It should be noted, of course, that this man also had extensive worldwide knowledge of rafting colleagues, a huge network of acquaintances and friends, having worked or lived on virtually every continent of the planet. For this trip, he’d be doing a lot of wild camping and there was always a question of available fuel.

Irish settled on a BMW 800GS, while his wife chose the BMW F650 as she insisted on riding her own for this trip rather than “two-up” as they did in South America. As they each divvied up necessary equipment, I wondered how he managed the equipment she’d carried at the beginning.

I loved the account of so many places the CE and I have been fortunate enough to see and lived again the scenery, beauty, and welcome of the people this time vicariously on a bike rather than the tour bus. The description of the City of Split on the Dalmatian coast was of particular interest since that’s where our “Croatian son’s” family was living his first time back home following the Balkan War.

The loss of his wife was sudden and heralded a period of heavy introspection and downtime. It seemed the timbre of his voice changed subtly after that to more a chronology than storyline. I was definitely surprised at the turn of events but it turned on a philosophy gene that he continued to explore and engage the rest of the book.

He spoke of “experience overload” which was a familiar occurrence back then. As with most riders, he eventually found an appropriate name for his bike and likened “her” not as a machine but more a part of him as a sentient being with whom he’d shared a magnificent and healing experience.

The narrative exposed a raw personal side of the author and his eventual acceptance of his new life as much as the people and countries in which he rode. He faced a lot of obstacles, many of which would have some giving up. It was by the completion of the trip, however, that he managed to come to terms with everything that happened along the way and to find his way forward.

A travelogue as well as a diary of a motorcycle odyssey, you don’t have to love riding to enjoy the experience of the book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Rating: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Motorcycles, Travel Writing Reference, Travelogues & Travel Essays
Publisher: Pure Ink Press
ISBN: 979-8987586631
ASIN: B0DWBJCFQC
Print Length: 346 pages
Publication Date: February 4, 2025
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: David “Irish” Anderson has been an outdoor educator and adventure guide for over thirty years. Originally from Ireland, he has lived and worked on every continent, including Antarctica, while pursuing his passion for exploration and discovery. He caught the motorcycle travel bug at a young age and has spent more nights sleeping under the stars than he can possibly remember. Irish currently lives in Queenstown, New Zealand, where he divides his time between guiding, writing, and planning more shenanigans.

Sunday explorations — AI generated graphic courtesy Freepik.com

The Greatest Band That Never Was by Jeff Meshel #BookReview #RockMusic

Book Blurb:

First Shelly imagined a musical legend.
Then she brought it to life.
Careful what you wish for, Shelly.

2006, dawn of social media. Paralegal Shelly Griffin is 43, single, stuck in small-town dead-end Rust Belt, Ohio. When she discovers a song by Decapede about a dying local beer, she inadvertently triggers the first-ever viral clip on the internet and finds herself leading a frenzied search for the long-forgotten band.

The Greatest Band that Never Was is a saga of overnight celebrity, lives turned upside-down and recreated, found family, local pride, with one indomitable woman changing lives with her dream. And driving it all, the magic of Rock & Roll.

His Review:

A long-standing brewery in Ohio is struggling to stay afloat. Creston Gold used to be a brand that everyone reached for. That was nearly 40 years ago. Allie Bauer is barely able to make ends meet and the production is less than ¼ of the former levels. She cannot afford workers and is about to lose everything.

Shelly Griffin meets the woman and decides to write a story to help boost sales. Her investigation leads her to the decision that she is going to save Allie and the brewery. She is on a one woman crusade to increase sales, rejuvenate the brand and bring it back into a regional juggernaut. Her father wants to publish the story of the declining brewery and encourages his daughter to pursue the project.

How can a person increase sales rapidly? Shelly decides that a regional music venue will do the trick. The musicians need to be local and she remembers her mother telling her a story about a band that fell apart nearly 40 years ago. Shelly decides this will be the answer. She sets out to find the members of a band her mother loved called Decapede. Her first lead is Sam, who lives as a hermit in the forest!

Two young and very talented musicians started with Decapede and they have serious talent competitions. They both also have a very real attraction to Sherry’s mother, Beverly! Can the band be resurrected? The story develops as a herculean effort to put the two back together again! Enjoy the adventure! 4.5 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. Any opinion expressed here is my own.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Rock Music, Small Town & Rural Fiction
ISBN: ‎ B0DP3HFYQF
ASIN: B0DNNF2G9L
Print Length: 764 pages
Publication Date: January 14, 2025
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble

The Author: Jeff Meshel grew up in Ohio. As a young music journalist, he interviewed Simon & Garfunkel, Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa and many others. He saw The Beatles live, spent a weekend with The Grateful Dead, got soaked at Woodstock, and left the US after Kent State for Israel, where he has lived happily ever after.

He has worked as a playwright (in Hebrew) and director, lyricist, librettist, singer, blogger (Song of The Week@ jmeshel dot com) and creator of the a capella rock orchestra Vocalocity. He lists his vocation as ‘Music Promulgator’, as if that’s a real thing.

The Greatest Band that Never Was is his first novel.

Enjoy your day!

AI generated Graphic courtesy Canva.com

(*Freepik.com)

The Builders (Open Door) by Maeve Binchy #BookReview #ReadingIrelandMonth25

Reading Ireland Month (or the #Begorrathon as it is affectionately known) will return for the tenth year in March 2025. This will be my fifth year. It is hosted by Cathy at 746 Books. Cathy is a supporter of everything Irish and a promoter of Irish culture. She has an amazing list on her page for suggestions of what to read and listen to. Check out her page and sign up!

If you post, tweet or use instagram, please use the hashtags #readingirelandmonth25 or #begorrathon25

I am slow this year putting together a list of reading material, but hoping to read several as well as listen to more. I am also looking for a movie to watch and will try to include a quick bit from Marc Gunn, my favorite musical Celt Father.

I jumped the gun and read Melanie Forde’s new novel, Guardian of the Crossroads and Carlene O’Connor’s novel You Have Gone Too Far in February, but you could still check them out.

In the meantime, consider this my first for the annual celebration, a novella, short, fast read by Maeve Binchy. The last one I read by this author was in March of 2023, A Week In Summer, a real short story.

Book Blurb:

Original short fiction by a beloved best-selling author on her best topic relationships. Charming novella from a masterful writer on the power of family secrets. Nan Ryan lives by herself at 14 Chestnut Road. When builders arrive to fix a deserted house next door, everyone expects the worst. But when the handsome workman looks to Nan to help unravel the mystery of the previous residents’ disappearance, a strange relationship develops. With family dynamics and crooked developers in the wings, things are about to get very messy…

My Review:

Written to promote adult literacy in Ireland, Binchy manages to develop engaging characters and wring as much emotion from them as possible in less than one hundred pages. Nan Ryan lives alone, her children with lives of their own, manage visits that are little more than welfare checks and then gone. Then a crew arrives to fix up the house next door that was deserted a couple years ago.

The foreman of the team, Derek Doyle, pops in for tea and as a relationship develops, Nan changes her family dynamics. The relationship between her three children has been somewhat strained. As her interest and activity in Derek develops, however, an interesting paradigm impacts all the characters.

And I applauded the change.

While I wasn’t too sure about the conclusion, it was a happy little ending, even if a bit fast and tidy. If you are a Binchy fan, you can read it on your commute home (unless you’re driving, of course).

Rosepoint Rating: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Two-Hour Travel Short Reads, British & Irish Literary Fiction, Romance Literary Fiction
Publisher: GemmaMedia
ASIN: B002A7WVNU
Print Length: 93 pages
Publication Date: May 1, 2009
Source: Local Library

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK

The Author: Maeve Binchy was born in County Dublin and educated at the Holy Child convent in Killiney and at University College, Dublin. After a spell as a teacher she joined the IRISH TIMES. Her first novel, LIGHT A PENNY CANDLE, was published in 1982 and she went on to write over twenty books, all of them bestsellers. Several have been adapted for cinema and television, including TARA ROAD. Maeve Binchy received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the British Book Awards in 1999 and the Irish PEN/A.T. Cross award in 2007. In 2010 she was presented with the Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award at the Bord Gáis Irish Book Awards by the President of Ireland. She was married to the writer and broadcaster Gordon Snell for 35 years, and died in 2012.

March is #ReadingIrelandMonth

Rosepoint Publishing Reviews – February Recap – March Holds a Spring Promise

Rosepoint Publishing Reviews - February Recap

I loved it for a while, but alas, the AI freebies are over (used my free credits) both on Canva and Gemini. Now I’m back to sampling Freepik—without much luck. The background of the bookcase below is a sample, but obviously not very close to my description of the picture I’d envisioned. Must admit, Gemini came closer to creating the images I wanted, but it too is bye-bye. I used to try to use only those pictures I originated, my pictures or designs. That’s no longer working. Got a source you like? What is your favorite go-to for images?

February is a short one and it flew by. I used to love March. Spring. Warmer weather. New growth, babies. Promise. Of course, for me, it’s also birthday month and as usual the body is saying one thing and the mind another. It’s a clash of wills but it may be the body who wins and both the CE and I are beginning to make more of those dreaded trips to the doc. We used to joke we’d need a car only for groceries and doctor visits. Ugh. Not so funny anymore, but that’s where some of our reading time went.

I’m still using Goodreads to find good audiobooks, as well as blogger buddy suggestions. My library has most of what I look for but it’s amazing the number of books that are on waiting lists despite having numerous copies. Of course, I still find books at NetGalley, as well as author and publisher requests.

We managed ten reviews between us in February that included four audiobooks. As always, the links on titles are to our reviews that include purchase or source information.

Rosepoint Publishing Review - February Recap — Background bookcase courtesy Freepik.com AI

You Have Gone Too Far by Carlene O’Connor
The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne (audiobook)
This American Woman by Zarna Garg
Connie: A Memoir by Connie Chung (audiobook)
From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough (audiobook)
Valley of the Wolves by Brock Farrow (CE review)
Guardian of the Crossroads by Melanie Forde
To Catch a Spy by Mark ONeill (CE review)
Gathering Mist by Margaret Mizushima
Audition by Barbara Walters (audiobook)

Favorite Book of the Month

WOW, it was a tough one this month! A number of them could have been five-star reads from either of us, but despite a small issue that may have knocked off a half-star, the story was still outstanding. Included in the month—several memoirs! In particular though, This American Woman—super, Guardian of the Crossroads—excellent, and Gathering Mist—love the dogs—really ticked off all the boxes. Zarna Garg has an amazing view of issues—some alien to mine but always with a sense of humor. Melanie Forde definitely pushed outside of her familiar family sagas. This one deeper, darker than I’d seen before and it worked, leaving me slack-jawed. Most readers have sampled Margaret Mizushima’s books. Always good, fast paced, and informative. So which one gets the coveted Rosepoint nod?

Favorite for February – Guardian of the Crossroads by Melanie Forde

My Reading Challenges page…

My Goodreads Challenge is currently at 33 of a 2025 goal of 125. No, keeping up with my Challenge page wasn’t a New Year’s resolution. I’ll get to it…

Welcome to my new subscribers! So glad you joined this group. I hope you found a book or two that appealed to you here, and I’m always looking for your suggestions! And to all my readers, have a beautiful March!

It's so hard to choose! — Gemini-generated AI image

Gathering Mist by Margaret Mizushima #BookReview #TuesdayBookBlog

A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery

Rosepoint Rating: Five Stars

Book Blurb:

Secrets hide within the fog deep in the mossy forests of the Pacific Northwest in this ninth thrilling installment in award-winning author Margaret Mizushima’s Timber Creek K-9 mystery series.

Deputy Mattie Wray, formerly Mattie Cobb, is summoned to Washington’s Olympic peninsula for an urgent search and rescue mission to find a celebrity’s missing child. With only a week left before her wedding, Mattie is hesitant to leave Timber Creek, but her K-9 partner Robo’s tracking skills are needed.

Dense forest, chilling rain, and unfriendly locals hamper their efforts, and soon Mattie suspects something more sinister than a lost child is at play. When one of the SAR dogs becomes ill, her fiancé, Cole Walker, suspects poison. Fearing for Mattie’s and Robo’s safety, Cole joins the search and rescue team as veterinary support.

Secrets that have lain hidden within the rugged terrain come to light, and when it is uncovered that the missing child was kidnapped, the search becomes a full-blown crime scene investigation, forcing Mattie, Robo, and Cole into a desperate search to find the missing child before it’s too late.

My Review:

I love mysteries and crime thrillers and throw in an awesome service dog and I’m there. This is one of my favorite K-9 series and this installment becomes a page turner very quickly.

With one week to go before her wedding to Cole, a veterinarian, Maddie is called in to fly to the northwest in Washington state to find a missing child. The change in climate is a shock, cold, windy, and buckets of rain with the attendant saturated soil and underbrush and difficult not only for ground trackers but scent trackers as well. The atmospheric description really sets up the scene and becomes a strong integral part of the plot.

This is one reason I enjoy these books so much. You learn so much about canines, their atheleticism, and learning capacity. It’s such a part of the prep for search or take down, however, the info is easily slipped in and just adds the wow factor rather than slowing the pace.

When one of the other search dogs becomes sick, it’s apparent that he might have been poisoned and Cole makes arrangements to join her. Together with the search teams and local search and rescue, they form the grid and begin methodically canvassing the area which includes interviews with off-the-grid residents.

The tension ramps up as the search intensifies. There are a number of support characters and the parents present a divided and suspicious countenance. The story turns to a darker subject than I ever remember being used before and the climax is hard and fast.

The writing style throughout is engaging with no slack in the storyline. Robo shines as a masterful SAR dog, intuitive, smart, and protective. Love the action scenes. Heartily recommended.

Book Details:

Genre: Police Procedurals, Women Sleuths
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
ASIN: B0CRTG7JRQ
Print Length: 252 pages
Publication Date: October 8, 2024
Source: Local Library

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: Margaret Mizushima writes the award winning and internationally published Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries. She serves as past president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and was elected 2019 Writer of the Year by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. Active in the writing community, she is also a member of Sisters in Crime, Northern Colorado Writers, and Women Writing the West. She and her husband recently moved from Colorado to a home in the Pacific Northwest. Find her on Facebook/AuthorMargaretMizushima, Twitter @margmizu, Instagram @margmizu, and her website http://www.margaretmizushima.com.

#TuesdayBookBlog

To Catch a Spy by Mark ONeill #BookReview #HeistCrime

Book Blurb:

“A worthy sequel to the classic.” ― Harlan Coben

Estate approved sequel to the novel To Catch a Thief by David Dodge and 1955 Academy Award-winning film by Alfred Hitchcock

It’s been a year since John Robie, notorious Riviera jewel thief, proved his innocence by catching a copycat burglar. And it’s been a year since John has seen Francie Stevens, the adventurous socialite who not only saw through his disguise, but helped him catch the copycat. Now Francie is returning to the Riviera for its first-ever Fashion Week as a model for a top French designer, and John plans on rekindling their romance. But there’s a problem. While helping a friend, John chases down a mysterious courier, whose ruthless associates now want John dead. To make matters worse, when Francie arrives, she has a boyfriend in tow, and tells John that she wants nothing to do with him.

John has to figure out why he’s a hunted man, and why Francie is acting suspiciously. Digging deeper, he discovers a spy ring with evil intent. As John works unofficially to gather evidence, a question begins to haunt him―could Francie Stevens be a spy? With his enemies closing in, John turns to his cat burglar skills to try to save his life and expose the traitors. To survive, he has to catch the spies before they catch―and kill―a retired thief!

His Review:

John Robie is a very accomplished individual. He has trained as an acrobat in the circus and has maintained his climbing abilities throughout his life. He is an ex-patriot living on the French Riviera and has honed his craft as a jewel thief. He frequents the posh hotels and other places where the rich and famous go to play.

Francie Stevens is a young lady learning the modeling trade. She is very lovely and picks up the business fairly well. Some of the designers decide to use her in the upcoming fashion shows and she is quickly becoming famous. Many designers wish to engage her to promote their designs. She is new to the business and eager to please.

Francie has an off/again, on/again affair with John, and although they seem to hit it off, they soon part ways. She is lured by wealthy designers who want her to help with their clandestine activities. She does not know she is being used, but many of the designers are engaged in many nefarious activities. Francie is unknowingly drawn into this world and she is dragged into the world of espionage.

This story is well written and follows the format of a story written nearly a century earlier. The plot has many twists and will keep any reader glued to the outcome. The characters are particularly well developed. The French Resistance during WWII honed the skills of many of the participants. Enjoy! 4.5 stars – CE Williams

I read To Catch a Thief by David Dodge in January. While this author has been given approval to write this sequel by his estate and did an admiral job, there was a certain writing style to the original by David Dodge that I just didn’t quite find in this novel. The book will catch and hold your interest and attention but if you’ve read the original concept, (especially recently) might note a perceptible difference.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. Any opinion expressed here is my own.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Heist Crime, Heist Thrillers, International Mystery & Crime
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
ISBN: ‎ 146422501X
ASIN: B0D1XMV53C
Print Length: 366 pages
Publication Date: April 1, 2025
Source: Publisher and NetGalley