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Mystery/Thriller Book ReviewsPage One of FiveKing Con by Stephen J. CannellAvon, May, 1998.Paperback, 407 pages. ISBN: 0380728176. Ordering information: Amazon.com. | Amazon.co.uk 
Beano X. Bates has reached the pinnacle of his profession,
having earned the title of King Con which is given
only to the very
best con artist of a generation. With his great
looks and killer charm no one can resist Beano Bates
when he's pitching a mark. But Beano's whole life changes
when he makes the mistake of cheating notorious
mobster Joe "Dancer" Rina at cards and earns a vicious beating for
his trouble. When his beloved cousin Carol is brutally
murdered by Joe Rina's brutish brother Tommy before she can
testify against the mobster, Bates vows to
do whatever it takes to bring Rina down -- including
joining forces with Federal prosecutor Victoria Hart, whose
career is in a shambles after Carol's murder occurred while
she under Hart's protection. The
unlikely pair set off on a cross-country venture which
will take them from the casinos of Atlantic City to the
sundrenched Bahamas and the northern coast of California
as they set up a long con which will play upon the Rina
brothers' greed to take them down in a Big Sting
which will result in Tommy testifying against his
own brother about the pair's illegal activities.
Fans of nonstop action and pure entertainment got a real treat when Stephen J. Cannell decided to take time out from his prolific television career (The Rockford Files, The A-Team, The Commish, Silk Stalkings etc.) to write novels. In his third book, Cannell takes on the world of the Big Con in a modern day version of The Sting. Cannell's energy and enthusiasm for his characters and his story is contagious. With a charming hero with a heart, a brilliant, gutsy heroine who finds out there is more to life than prosecuting criminals and a breathless pace, King Con is an exciting, hilarious journey into the high-stakes world of the confidence game that you won't want to end. Dust by Charles PellegrinoAvon, Mar., 1998.Hardcover, 359 pages. ISBN: 0380973081. Ordering information: Amazon.com. | Amazon.co.uk 
Imagine all the insects are gone. Sound
peaceful? No cockroaches. No mosquito
bites. No ants at your picnic lunch. Dust,
a novel by scientist and
underwater archeaologist Dr. Charles
Pellegrino, shows us what life would be like in
an insect-free
world that arises out of an anomaly of
nature -- and it is hardly a blissful or peaceful
world. Swarms of millions of mites, called
motes, have emerged on the Atlantic coast
and are devouring every living thing in their
path, including humans, down to the bone,
and this is just the start of the problem. Because
the insects have disappeared, the shock to the Earth's
food chain is immense; animals are starving and diseases are
spreading.
The effect on the human race is catastrophic
and Pellegrino graphically illustrates the effects upon life on
the planet Earth as a whole as well as
through the lives of individuals. The main characters
in the book are realistic:
paleobiologist Richard Sinclair who struggles
to find a solution to the apocalypse and Jerry
Sigmond who becomes a Hitleresque leader
of a revolutionary group that attempts to take
control during the turmoil.
Dust is an action-packed adventure full of chaos, scientific thought and discovery with death and destruction on an Armageddon-like scale. An exciting scientific thriller that places Pelligrino on the same plateau in this genre as Michael Crichton and Richard Preston. Mystery Reviews Page Two | Page Three | Page Four | Page Five Return to Book Reviews Index ** To visit the archives of mystery books reviewed in The IWJ, please click here. |