Prince of Fire by Daniel Silva

Enjoyable but the weakest book in the series. The author spends a lot of time giving history lessons rather than focusing on plot. PW Now Allon is back in Venice, when a terrible explosion in Rome leads to a disturbing personal revelation: the existence of a dossier in terrorist hands that strips away his secrets, lays bare his history. Hastily recalled home to Israel, drawn once more into the heart of a service he had once forsaken, Allon finds himself stalking an elusive master terrorist across a landscape drenched with generations of blood, the trail turning on itself until, finally, he can no longer be certain who is stalking whom.

The Gods of Guilt by Michael Connelly

Excellent. PW Mickey Haller gets the text, "Call me ASAP - 187," and the California penal code for murder immediately gets his attention. Murder cases have the highest stakes and the biggest paydays, and they always mean Haller has to be at the top of his game. When Mickey learns that the victim was his own former client, a prostitute he thought he had rescued and put on the straight and narrow path, he knows he is on the hook for this one. He soon finds out that she was back in LA and back in the life. Far from saving her, Mickey may have been the one who put her in danger.

King and Maxwell by David Baldacci

Very enjoyable. Book 6. PW It seems at first like a simple, tragic story. Tyler Wingo, a teenage boy, learns the awful news that his father, a soldier, was killed in action in Afghanistan. Then the extraordinary happens: Tyler receives a communication from his father...after his supposed death. Tyler hires Sean and Michelle to solve the mystery surrounding his father. But their investigation quickly leads to deeper, more troubling questions. Could Tyler's father really still be alive? What was his true mission? Could Tyler be the next target? Sean and Michelle soon realize that they've stumbled on to something bigger and more treacherous than anyone could have imagined. And as their hunt for the truth leads them relentlessly to the highest levels of power and to uncovering the most clandestine of secrets, Sean and Michelle are determined to help and protect Tyler - though they may pay for it with their lives.

Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews

Enjoyable. PW In today's Russia, dominated by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, state intelligence officer Dominika Egorova struggles to survive in the cast-iron bureaucracy of post-Soviet intelligence. Drafted against her will to become a "Sparrow" - a trained seductress in the service, Dominika is assigned to operate against Nathaniel Nash, a first-tour CIA officer who handles the CIA's most sensitive penetration of Russian intelligence. The two young intelligence officers, trained in their respective spy schools, collide in a charged atmosphere of tradecraft, deception, and inevitably, a forbidden spiral of carnal attraction that threatens their careers and the security of America's valuable mole in Moscow. Seeking revenge against her soulless masters, Dominika begins a fatal double life, recruited by the CIA to ferret out a high-level traitor in Washington - hunt down a Russian illegal buried deep in the U.S. military and, against all odds, to return to Moscow as the new-generation penetration of Putin's intelligence service. Dominika and Nathaniel's impossible love affair and twisted spy game come to a deadly conclusion in the shocking climax of this electrifying, up-to-the minute spy thriller.

Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil by Donald Thomas

Enjoyable short stories featuring Watson and Holmes.

Dead Run by P. J. Tracy

Drags and unrealistic but the characters are quite likable. This the third book in this series is the weakest. PW Monkeewrench founders Grace McBride and Annie Belinsky, along with Deputy Sharon Mueller, are driving from Minneapolis to Green Bay, where they believe a new serial killer is just warming up. Unfortunately, their car breaks down deep in the northern woods, far away from civilization and cell towers. A walk through the forest leads them to the crossroads town of Four Corners, where they had hoped to find a landline and a mechanic, but instead find...absolutely nothing.

McNally's Luck by Lawrence Sanders

Light and silly and I look forward to book 3 in the series.