THE BLOCK PARTY....A CUL-DE-SAC TO LEAVE YOU TAKEN ABACK (****)

 The Block Party by Jamie Day (2023)

             As much as I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I couldn't help wondering......did author Jamie Day want us to take this stuff seriously? Or  does "The Block Party" function as a sly, dry humor spoof of those plunges into uppercrust suburban dysfunction like "Big Little Lies" and "Little Fires Everywhere"?

         I only mention this because the host of troubles in the sumptuous Alton Place cul-de-sac makes those other books look like Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. And the neighbors of Alton Place, to the everlasting entertainment of their  community chatboard members,  make the characters of TV soap operas look like the Teletubbies in comparison. 

           And that's what makes this book such a fun read........you'd have to plow through 800 episodes of "Days Of Our Lives" to revel in the Mt. Everest of tribulations that author Day compactly piles into one single swiftly paced novel. On this one cluster of houses, those "sands in the hourglass" come pouring out at the speed of light. 

             In cataloguing the sheer amount of heartaches, anxieties and deep dark secrets on display,  I'm almost tempted to put them alphabetical order......

             Just name your poison and it's all there waiting for you on Alton Place. Crumbling marriages, infidelity galore, spousal abuse, drug abuse, booze abuse, (enough wine guzzled to fill several Olympic pools) ,rumored mariticide, racy photo apps, psychotic stalking, rape, emotional wounding of adolescent kids, and some serious anger mis-management issues.  That's as much as I can remember at the moment, but I'm sure I'm leaving out more than a few additional miseries and maladjustments.

              And YA readers may also want to dive into all the turmoil, since one of the gang's teen daughters co-narrates, thereby providing a bonus list of teen angst tropes......parental torment, peer pressure, forbidden sex, aching crushes, college applications, bullying, drugs, cyber-revenge....and horror of horrors... summertime grounding!

               As anyone can tell from these descriptions,  sooner or later, this ongoing melodrama kept a constant boil will not bode well for more than a few of the neighbors and come to a rip roarin', twist-revealing finale. In that regard, "The Block Party" doesn't disappoint. 

              Whether you swallow this for real or chuckle along with it as a guilty pleasure, I fully admit I had a great time with "The Block Party"......but never, ever as a neighbor, just casually visiting.....like slowing down on the highway to rubberneck a fender bender.  4 stars (****)

THE BITTER PAST.....ATOMIC SPIES MOVE FROM PAST TO PRESENT (*****)

 The Bitter Past by Bruce Borgos (2023)

             Attention all avid readers......here comes one of those books that we all hope and pray for, the kind of non-stop read we never stop searching for.

          You know the book I mean. The one that turns all the daily things we put up with .(meals, work, chores, sleep, TV news, etc. etc.) into annoying distractions........annoying and distracting 
because they're keeping us from feverishly turning pages of this book to see what happens next.

           Yes..... it's that kind of book.

            This one pushed all kinds of buttons for me. I've always loved stories set in the arid, lonely and forbidding deserts of the American Southwest.  And that would  also account for why I'm additionally obsessed with the mid-40's to 1950's history that unfolded amidst that landscape - the development and testing of the atomic bomb. Of course that includes everything that came with it.........the cavalier test detonations that sent deadly radiation floating into the winds and the frenzy and fear about Russian spies, trained to look and sound like us while they steal our vital top secrets. 

           "The Bitter Past" throws together all of those elements in one big suspenseful package........it's a contemporary breathless thriller whose seemingly endless twists and turns have their roots firmly in the past.....back to the atomic espionage in the 1950's Northern Nevada deserts. 

           That's the mystery facing Sheriff Porter Beck as he investigates the beyond horrific torture and murder of an elderly retired FBI agent. And he finds himself both perplexed and entranced by his most unlikely ally in his hunt for the killer -FBI agent Sana Locke, stunning to behold, but sitting on any number of secrets of her own. 

             Flashbacks to 1957 also unfold, where a deep cover Russian spy-saboteur manages to infiltrate an atomic testing site posing as an all-American security guard......even to the point of courting the daughter of the scientist in charge of of the site of a new, highly unusual test. 

              Put all of this together and you've got a mystery-suspense-action-adventure thriller guaranteed to make you want to put off everything I listed earlier.....meals, work, chores, sleep, shopping, etc, etc.   When the plot twists start poppin', they come at you like a literal hailstorm of surprises......and in the rapidly steamy banter of Beck and Locke, there's laugh out loud wit, a duel of  two suspicious minds, and all the simmering sexual combustion that comes with them.  

            Since I've now given what I think is pretty accurate description of a 5 star read, I'll end the review right here....except to mention thriller fans need to jump this one to the very top of their TBR's. Enough said?

FUNERAL DAZE....A SURBOARD WHIZ AND A 12 YR OLD MORTICIAN BRING LAUGHS, TEARS AND THRILLS (*****)

 Funeral Daze by Dorian Box (2023) (*****)

             Writing this review, I find myself breaking out into a wide grin just remembering how much fun I had reading it....and how much it left me clamoring for more adventures for its lead characters.....

           I could never imagine telling anyone that some book would make them laugh out loud and bring them to tears all the way through......sometimes simultaneously.

            "Funeral Daze" did that for me.....all the way through. And I always considered myself a pretty tough audience for any author who tries that 'laughs 'n tears' double whammy on a reader. 

             How could I resist the oddest and yet most lovable combination of a Guardian-and-Child matchup......Florida surfer Danny Teakwell, a grieving widower at loose ends and Jessica Jewell, 12 year old precocious force-0f-nature and skilled in all mortuary arts and sciences from being raised in her family's funeral home. 

            They first came across each other in the author's 'Psycho-Tropics', when Jessica was seven and Danny, framed by a psychopath, stood accused of first degree murder. 

             Now it's Jessica who's in peril while her parents flee from cartel gangsters who threatened them and seized their funeral home. The cartel's master plan - stuff overweight corpses with cocaine packages for easier nationwide smuggling.

               Now in hiding, Jessica's desperate parents ask Danny to look after their daughter, who's on an unstoppable quest to expose and thwart the cartel.  This does not sit well, as you might guess with the cartel's brutal chief enforcer, who favors death to eliminate all obstacles.....including children. 

              Helping out this unlikely investigative duo (and jacking up the laugh-out-loud quota)  is Fink , Danny's so-called lawyer. But then again, Fink, armed with an impossibly convoluted gift of gab, did manage to finesse a 'not guilty'" on Danny's murder charge before anyone found out Fink hadn't yet passed his Bar exam. 

               I would defy anybody to not fall in love with these characters.........as slowly and surely, the emotionally closed off Danny finds his heart warmed as he  attempts caring for Jessica, whose take-no-prisoners invulnerability masks the sweet, aching heart of an outcast lonely child.

                After finishing  "Funeral Daze",  I tried to remember the last time I encountered a book that actually delivered on its advertised promise to have you giggling while you shed a tear or two.    This one's the real deal....a genuine 5 star laugh-getter and tearjerker., and with thrills 'n chills thrown in. By far one of the most entertaining books of 2023.  (*****)

FEAR THE SILENCE....A DEAD HUBAND'S SECRET PUTS HIS WIDOW IN PERIL (*****)

 Fear The Silence by Robert Bryndza (2023) 

                One tough thing about reviewing a top notch, couldn't-stop-reading thriller like "Fear The Silence"......I don't want to run the risk of dealing too much in plot details, or else spoil the non-stop detonation of twists, surprises, nerve-wracking reversals-of-fortune and overall suspense. 

                Oh yes, this is one of those humdingers that makers you put off bedtime cause you just gotta know what happens next to the distressed damsel at the story's center. 

                 Maggie's one of those heroines living a perfect satisfied life as a doctor, happily married to Will, a former pathologist turned successful architect-house designer. Happily that is, until Will's shocking death, according to police investigators, came not from a burglar but from Will's own hand. 

                 The confounded, grief stricken Maggie travels to the sumptuous vacation home Will built for them on a remote Croatian island. Collecting his belongings at the house, Maggie comes across baffling, disturbing information that Will left for her to find.......evidence that connects him to..........well, here's where I need to firmly keep my mouth shut about anything further that Maggie, discovers and the harrowing calamities befall her. 

                 But since we already know author Robert Bryndza specializes in race-through-the-pages thrillers, you can already surmise that Maggie's put herself in the crosshairs of a powerful, ruthlessly vile villain........and her life's transformed into a rollercoaster of near fatal encounters and breathless escapes. 

                "Fear The Silence" hit all the right notes for me......a tear-along pace, an innocent lead character put through one dangerous situation after another and a fine double-whammy of a wrap-up......so that's a 5 star read for me, making my  recommendation to suspense-thriller fans very easy... ......do not pass this one up.