Bundu Reviews

I am not sure if it is because I have gotten older and more critical of the books I read but Dean Koontz really seems to have gone off the boil in the last year or so for me.

The Frankenstein series, I have really enjoyed with Koontz putting his own twist on the Frankenstein legend and the fight for the human race being settled in Book 3 in the middle of New Orleans. Readers saw Victor Frankenstein (Helios) dying at the hands of his own creations as his “New Race” imploded.

However Book 4 sees Helios being revived, with a new backer and a new race trying to take over a small Montana town. That means that retired cops Carson O’Connor and Michael Maddison alongside the original Frankenstein monster Deucalion, must now step up to the plate again and take on the new Helios….

Sounds pretty exciting doesn’t it…?

Except that the bloody story ends in the middle of nowhere and you now sit and wait for Book 5 to be released.

Rated the book a 2 and a half out of 5 just because it irritated me that it just ended again and I don’t like being fed drips and drabs.

If you started the series you probably want to keep on reading it but can’t say I was gripped by this most recent installment.

You can buy the book online from retailer Loot for R141 or you can click here or on the book cover above to get it from Kalahari.Net.

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Brad Thor is another new author for me and I kicked off reading his book “The First Commandment”.

The book features special agent Scot Harvarth, a former Navy SEAL and general bad-ass who appears to be a repeat character from other Thor books.

The story kicks off with a number of high-profile and very dangerous prisoners being secretly released from Guantanamo Bay under mysterious circumstances.

Suddenly Harvarth finds the people around him being killed in extremely brutal ways and he starts investigating and finds that the President of the United States has been complicit in the release of these prisoners which might tie into the attacks on him and his friends and family.

When Harvarth says he wants to go after the bad guys, the president makes it clear that he won’t permit it which means a pissed of Harvarth naturally goes looking for trouble while evading the cream of the US security services.

This was one of those books which was passable without being thrilling. If you want an armchair read to pass the time then you could do worse than this one but you know when you watch one of those really bad episodes of CSI Miami and the heroes are just too good? Well this book gives you a few moments like that!

We rated the book a 3 out of 5 and you can buy this book from online retailer Loot for R68.

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This is the follow-up to No Mercy and once again brings millionaire hostage rescue expert  Jonathan Grave into play.

Grave is looking for two kids who have been kidnapped  by some very unpleasant people who are having their strings pulled by  a high-profile US senator.

A decent paced thriller but not as strong as the first book. Dunno I just found it a little over the top and the body count clocks up which makes it a little unrealistic. But if you are looking for a bit of brain-dead entertainment then this one is not too bad.

Not as good as the first book and rated it a 3 out of 5.

You can buy the book online from retailer Loot for R59 or you can buy from Kalahari.net by clicking here or on the book cover above.

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If you ever want to pass a few hours with a crime thriller then you can’t go too far wrong with a Jack Reacher novel.

The former millitary police (MP) commander who now leads the life of a nomad wandering around the US, with just the shirt on his back, seems to have a nose for trouble.

When the bus he is travelling on is involved in an accident in freezing conditions in South Dakota, he finds himself snowed in and spending a few extra days in a small prison town.

Reacher finds himself being roped in to protect a state witness who is under pressure from a biker / drug gang who are looking to silence her. The problem is that the biker gang has a contact within the police and then hit may very well come from the people tasked with protecting her.

Not a bad read – rated it a 3 out 5 and there is an interesting twist at the end of the book which might just stun Jack Reacher fans…

You can buy the book online from Loot for R224 or you can get it through Kalahari by clicking here or on the book cover above.

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This was the first book by this author and I was quite impressed.

If you like Harlan Coben then I think you will find John Gilstrap very similar kind of read. Maybe less of the witty one-liners but the characters themselves and the story gives you a very similar feel.

 The key character in the Gilstrap novels is a high-tech private security guy by the name of Jonathan Grave. The son of a former mob boss, a highly decorated soldier and now a very wealthy owner of a security firm with connections to the CIA, Grave is the guy you turn to when the situation calls for something a little different.

But Grave operates by his own rules and when a hostage rescue goes wrong and three hostage takers end up dead, local law enforcement wants answers.

While Grave and his people are trying to clean up the mess, they find themselves dragged into a hunt for biological weapons and dealing with increasingly unsavoury people.

Rated the book a 3 and a half out of 5. Nice read, nice pace, maybe a little over the top in places but all in all I enjoyed it.

You can buy the book online from retailer Loot for just R60 (you read right!) or from Kalahari.Net by clicking here or on the book cover above.

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Jack Morgan is a war hero. Returning home from Afghanistan after being wounded, Jack is called into California State Prison to visit his father, Tom, who is serving a life sentence for extortion and murder. Before being incarcerated, Tom ran a private investigation firm called ‘Private’. Tom wants Jack to re-start the company, to make it great again, and gives him access to a $15 million dollar account in the Cayman Islands to do it with. Five years later and Jack has set up offices spanning the globe. Private’s services are much sought-after and Jack has clients ranging from movie stars to politicians

There are a couple of major cases running parallel in the story.

One involves one of Jacks’ best friends whose wife has ended up dead, another is a gambling ring that may be plaguing the NFL and thirdly there is a serial killer on the loose stalking young girls all across the state.

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I bought this book on the recommendation of a mate who reckoned that this was one of the books he had read in a long time. He is something of a conspiracy theorist amd raved about this book saying it explained some of the ills of the world.

John Perkins was supposedly what he terms an “Economic Hitman” who shaped major political and convinced developing nations to get deep into debt with US financiers and engineers. When the debts get too deep they end up owing huge favours to US political players.

Some of the issues and events he tackles includes:

A) How the defeats in Vietnam and Iraq have benefited big business
B) The role of Israel as a fortress and America in the Middle East
C) Tragic repercussions of the IMF and an Asian economic collapse
D) The current Latin American revolution and its lessons for democracy
E) U.S. blunders in Tibet, Congo, Lebanon, and Venezuela

If you are into these kind of things then the book will work for you, but if you are looking for a light read, I am not sure this is for you. One of the things I really battled with was the writing style of the author – I really battled with the style and it didn’t flow particularly easily.

Title: Confessions of an economic hitman
Author: John Perkins
ISBN: 9780091909109

Rated the book a 3 out of 5 but not sure it will be for everyone.

You can buy the book online from Loot for R125 or click on the book cover below and buy it from Kalahari.Net

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This is probably the best crime thriller I have read this year and the fact that it is written by a South African gives me an absolute kick. We really do produce top quality talent.

For those who don’t know Meyers’ books, many of them centre around detective Benny Griessel, a “dinosaur” of the old South African Police Service (SAPS). He drinks too much, is losing his wife and his finding it increasingly difficult to know where an aging white inspector is supposed to fit in to the new multi-cultural police ranks.

But that doesn’t mean that his years of experience have been forgotten and increasingly he finds himself mentoring up and coming new detectives with a mixture of results.

In “Thirteen Hours” he is stretched to his limits when a young American girl is found in Cape Town with her throat slit. Even more chilling is that video surveillance footage indicates that she was one of two girls being pursued by a group of vicious killers… the question is where is the other girl and why is she afraid to come to the police?

Running in parallel to this story is the curious death of a Afrikaans music promoter where the case just doesn’t add up to the evidence on hand.

The tension that one feels as the story unfolds is intense. Why is this girl running? Is is a drug deal gone bad or is there something more sinister?

With the killers right on her shoulder from the start of the book to the end, it is on a knife-edge and the climax is equally impressive.

Title: Thirteen Hours
Author: Deon Meyer
ISBN: 978-0-340-95359-4

If you are going to buy one crime thriller this year then Meyers’ Thirteen Hours is probably the best you are going to read. We rated a 4 and a half out 5 and would sincerely recommend it for our blog readers!

You can buy the book online in hardcover from Loot for R236 or you can click on the cover and go through to online retailer Kalahari and buy it there.

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One of our community members has reviewed two titles for us. Feel free to submit your own reviews via newsdesk@rival.co.za:

Books review by Pat. Book 1 – Leaving The World by Douglas Kennedy,

A chick book that is not a chick book. The quality of the language and knowledge of musical and understanding of the human psyche make it compulsive to read though it does get quite heavy on the literary front. The main character is a woman (Jane Howard) who as a Doctorate in Philosophy from Harvard but is screwed up by her dysfunctional parents.

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As a useless piece of trivia before I get into my latest book review, I thought I’d let the Bundublog community know that I actually worked for Wessel Ebersohn at Succeed magazine in Parktown in another lifetime.

If you want a business which embraces entrepreneurship and a team culture then Wessels’ business is it.

Having worked for him before, I was keen to try his book out. If you can support South African authors and entrepreneurs then get out there and do it!

The story revolves around Abigail Bakula, a rising star in the Justice Department in South Africa. She receives a visit from a soldier who she met when she was much younger and had watched her parents brutally murdered. Now the soldier is looking to her for assistance – a number of his colleagues who had been involved in the raid which killed her parents are now being killed.

Over the last few years, on the 22nd of October a soldier dies and there are now just two surviving members… and the second one is locked up in South Africa’s most secure prison.

Tension continues to build as the soldier then goes misssing after coming to Bakula for help and suddenly it is a race against time as the 22nd draws steadily closer.

It really was a nice South African read – you recognised the places, the moods and the mannerisms of the characters. I found there were one or two gaps in the story which I battled to follow but I was speed reading so may have missed something in it.

The “gaps” as I saw them were not that noticeable that they detracted from a very handy crime thriller.

Title:  The October Killings

Author: Wessel Ebersohn

ISBN: 978-1-4152-0074-2

You can buy the book online from retailer Loot for R159 or if you click on the image of the book below you can buy it from Kalahari.Net

Rated the book a 4 out of 5 and would sincerely recommend it for anybody looking to support South African talent!