F. Paul Wilson says: "One of the great joys of reading is stumbling across a good book that neither you nor anyone you know has ever heard of. I'd never heard of Boland (though he's written a slew of books over the last quarter century) and never heard of this novel despite a starred review in PW. I picked it up because I'm interested in evolutionary genetics and the title caught me eye. I'm glad I did. I love a good science thriller and this one is a helluva read--a ballsy book that keeps taking unexpected turns. It's got a booby-trapped, centuries-old crypt with 3 lead-lined coffins, archaeological secrets, mind-boggling genetic mysteries, many murders and even a few explosions, a mysterious foundation, a relentless NIS investigator, and much more. I might have hesitated to tackle such a combustible farrago, but Boland plunges in and brings it off. As a lagniappe, I learned a few things. Recommended."
Publishers Weekly Starred Review : "Superior science thriller. . . . Boland's taut atmospherics are top-notch, and the evolutionary themes he explores are easily accessible to nonscientists." Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine: Four Stars. "A tightly written thriller."
Mystery Scene Review: "A riveting scientific suspense novel on the order of the popular Preston and Child thrillers. . . . Boland makes complicated theories about DNA and genetically linked illnesses easily understood. And in contrast to many science-heavy suspense novelists, Boland also has the ability to create three-dimensional characters. [The hero's] love life is a mess; and even brutish Luther turns out to be much, much more than your average killer. Hominid never fails to make for exciting reading." Betty Webb AT AMAZON
Publishers Weekly Starred Review : "Superior science thriller. . . . Boland's taut atmospherics are top-notch, and the evolutionary themes he explores are easily accessible to nonscientists." Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine: Four Stars. "A tightly written thriller."
Mystery Scene Review: "A riveting scientific suspense novel on the order of the popular Preston and Child thrillers. . . . Boland makes complicated theories about DNA and genetically linked illnesses easily understood. And in contrast to many science-heavy suspense novelists, Boland also has the ability to create three-dimensional characters. [The hero's] love life is a mess; and even brutish Luther turns out to be much, much more than your average killer. Hominid never fails to make for exciting reading." Betty Webb AT AMAZON
.jpg)
We forget the divine visitations. "Impressively creepy jump scares . . . bravura set pieces. . . well-crafted moments of suspense." Publishers Weekly Kathy Bell's bad day at the office is about to get worse. On the twenty-third floor, her boss has disemboweled himself with a letter opener. He feels he's on the verge of becoming something magnificient . . . an angel, maybe. AMAZON
.jpg)
Meggie Trevor's father, a free-lance troublemaker for the CIA, is missing on the Gulf of Mexico.
Clearing up his estate in Key West, Meggie makes ends meet by hiring out for security gigs. When local politico Hub Bennell asks her help guarding his small planes, she should know better. This is the town where big shots used to import anything you could smoke.
Now she's mixed up with a young pilot, a middle-aged cop, and a Cuban gun-runner with a grudge.
All in the city at the end of the road, where anything goes.
AMAZON
"Roars along like a BMW in heat." Kirkus Review
"Hang on around the corners!" Washington Times
It's not that Don McCarry is less scrupulous than the average stockbroker. He's just got a keen eye for what's possible.
When a client drags him into a desert-farming scheme outside Jerusalem, McCarry figures not much can go wrong, except kidnapping, Russian gangsters, missing millions, and Israeli cops. At least there's a pretty Sabra named Esther to distract him from business.
"A wry, intelligent Wall Street mystery." Publishers Weekly
First paperback of 1994 hardcover novel.
AMAZON
.jpg)
Best Original Paperback Nominee: Private Eye Writers of America
The President's dirty little secret is worth a man's life.
After eighteen months in a federal prison, Hayes Rutherford figures he's done with the Washington crowd. He took the fall on a Pentagon billing scandal like a good soldier--silent and alone. But when rumors ping the White House that someone is shopping an ugly movie script about the war-hero President, Hayes looks like suspect number one. Good thing for Hayes that he's working for his daughter's PI firm in Hollywood. In La-La Land, a tough old veteran might get away with shaking down the President who plans to kill him. AMAZON
After eighteen months in a federal prison, Hayes Rutherford figures he's done with the Washington crowd. He took the fall on a Pentagon billing scandal like a good soldier--silent and alone. But when rumors ping the White House that someone is shopping an ugly movie script about the war-hero President, Hayes looks like suspect number one. Good thing for Hayes that he's working for his daughter's PI firm in Hollywood. In La-La Land, a tough old veteran might get away with shaking down the President who plans to kill him. AMAZON
.jpg)
"Boland scores big with this tale of complicated money maneuvering and family strife." Kirkus Review Richard Welles, black sheep of a Baltimore investment banking family, is the firm's go-to guy for finding out more than clients want to reveal. When a Gulf Coast company involved in offshore drilling tilts toward bankruptcy, Welles discovers a hidden menace that threaten family, friends and the young colleague he loves. "Intriguing . . . He excels at rendering epiphanies and, more impressively, in the painstaking creation of a sympathetic character from a dense tangle of inner conflicts." Publishers Weekly First paperback of 1993 hardcover novel. AMAZON
.jpg)
"Deftly entertaining!" Easton Star Democrat Who is out to kill Harry Wollenschaft? Richard and Anne Welles rescue a financier's daughter from a plane crash in the Chesapeake Bay, beginning an adventure that takes them to an isolated island, Las Vegas and into the crosshairs of an enemy who will kill anyone to make his fortune. "The Welleses' prickly marital relationship adds substance. Anne, forging a strong bond with [the financier's] 11-year-old daughter, begins to break out of her shell. Distinguished by Boland's skill at keeping several plots going at once." Arizona Star
First paperback of 1995 hardcover novel.
AMAZON
.jpg)
"A mix of old-line Commies, red-diaper babies, and more recent Russian emigres . . . engaging." Publishers Weekly "Tamar Gillespie, a young artist with a disabled husband, lives in a rural Connecticut village . . . and paints dog portraits for a living. The village population includes Ultra-Orthodox Jews as well as old Communists and red-diaper babies who consider Prague Spring a betrayal. When the community board offers a run-down house to a family of Jewish refugees from the new Russia, old political feuds reappear. Historical-mystery readers who enjoy political debates will find much to appreciate here." Booklist AMAZON
.jpg)
A retired criminal, who wants nothing more than to be left alone to enjoy his ill-gotten gains . . . Charles Mistinguett would never claim to be innocent of all things, only of the charges laid against him by the French government: Murder. Extortion. Terrorism. Useful lies if agents of the state plan to execute a man without trial. "Charming thriller . . . chases across Europe and tightly written gun battles. A delight for anyone who enjoys French crime cinema." Publishers Weekly " 'I was abducted on Tuesday, the second evening of October, and became an accomplice to murder on Friday.' So testifies Charles Mistinguett. a shady financial consultant, hotelier on the Cote d'Azur, and semiretired crook. Charles is everybody's fall guy, but he's not quite ready to fall--and definitely not ready to see his mistress, daughter and son fall with him. This slick thriller combines the noirish cool of French cinema (think Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai) with an almost jaunty, witty charm (Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief and Charade). Stylishly written and cleverly plotted crime fiction." Booklist AMAZON
.jpg)
"A breezy tale of financial intrigue." Baltimore Sun
Old money knows how to protect itself from the taxman . . . and from a hungry stockbroker like McCarry. From Wall Street to Paris, McCarry is on the run . So are his girlfriend and the girlfriend's yummy sister (not that anything's going on there). McCarry doesn't know who's more dangerous: hired killers or the suave gentlemen who view treachery as a noble birthright. AMAZON
.jpg)
Meggie Trevor (Last Island South) is back, working security for the guy who wants to be Porn King of the Florida Keys. Her mother had better not find out! Mixing it up with arts patrons, amateur sex stars, a homicidal banker, and a shotgun-toting chef, she's not even sure of her friends in a town that's never been scruffier or more dangerous. Another fling with life and homicide in rowdy Key Wasted. AMAZON
.jpg)
There's no plunge-protection team to save them when stockbroker John McCarthy and his actress wife set out to solve the murder of a female hedge-fund manager. The deeper question a Harvard professor doesn't want to answer is what's holding up a fragile financial system? "Snappy mystery. Ross generates an enjoyable noir vibe with his snarky hero. He has also crafted a fine puzzle that doesn't require a deep understanding of high finance to appreciate." Publishers Weekly AMAZON
Evil in a winter landscape. The narrator of this disturbing novel has come to his estranged brother's country house with his daughter hoping for reconciliation. But John Singleton - actor, artist, philanderer - has discovered something terrible in the deep wood that surrounds him. Where wild dogs prowl but no children roam, a truth waits, ancient and hungry. Is the girl to be a sacrifice? AMAZON
.jpg)
"Fans of hard-edged spy novels will hope that this outing for disgraced Wall Street banker Patrick McCarry is but the first of many from Ross (Long Pig). When McCarry’s firm makes him the scapegoat after a hedge fund disaster, he manages to find a new position in London. Assigned to handle Chester Holt, an American looking to open a factory making engines in Hungary, McCarry learns on arriving in Budapest that his new client is actually in the arms business.
"Members of the American intelligence community fear Holt may be pouring fuel on the continually combustible Balkans. The job turns dangerous, with twists straight out of John le Carré . The narrator’s sardonic wit helps keep the tone from getting too gloomy, despite the story’s basic darkness." Publishers Weekly AMAZON
.jpg)
"Boland hits pay dirt with this sparkling first novel featuring greed, vengeance, and murder on Wall Street." Publishers Weekly USA Today: "Entertaining whodunit! Great fun!" Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine: "Very much in the Dick Francis tradition."
Baltimore Sun: "Nice plot swerves . . . a polished work." Kirkus : "A wry insider's view of stock fraud, corporate raiders, genteel brokerage houses, and Wall Street ethics. Breathtakingly plausible, both in its Wall Street manipulations and in its emotional center. A trenchant, sly first novel--and cerebral fund throghout."
Philadelphia Inquirer: "A nice job, reminding us that in the category of mean streets, Wall is up there." First paperback of 1991 hardcover novel. AMAZON
"One of the most surreal, savage and compelling crime novels I've ever read . . . wholly original in story and so witty and elegant and brutal by turns you just don't want to let go of it." Ed Gorman A year after the death of his wife, Clete Dowski has sought refuge from his grief in a quiet Florida trailer park. He hasn't begun to wonder who owns the place . . . or how they deal with nosy old men. AMAZON