Review/ Virals by Kathy Reichs

Tory Brennan, niece of acclaimed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan (of the Bones novels and hit TV show), is the leader of a ragtag band of teenage "sci-philes" who live on a secluded island off the coast of South Carolina. When the group rescues a dog caged for medical testing on a nearby island, they are exposed to an experimental strain of canine parvovirus that changes their lives forever.  As the friends discover their heightened senses and animal-quick reflexes, they must combine their scientific curiosity with their new found physical gifts to solve a cold-case murder that has suddenly become very hot--if they can stay alive long enough to catch the killer's scent. Fortunately, they are now more than friends--they're a pack. They are Virals. (Publisher's comments from Amazon)

 As a big fan of the TV series Bones, when I first read the summary for Virals I was pretty sure that I would like it. I was wrong...I loved it. Virals is a riveting adventure that pulled me in and had me reading all 446 pages in one sitting. I am hooked and I want more.

Tory narrates this fast paced story and is the leader of a group of three other boys all living on a South Carolina island owned by S.C. University. She is smart, confident, and filled with curiosity. Plus, she has a way of talking the guys into doing things they might not ordinarily do.When the four teens stumble across an old dog tag, an investigation into its owner changes their lives forever and nearly gets them killed.

Reich’s plot is multi-layered and the mystery of the disappearing girl is only one part of the complex plot that had me flying through Virals' pages. Tory was a terrific narrator, and Reich’s dialogue made not only Tory come alive for me but Ben, Shelton, and Hi too. All four of the characters are smart in varying ways, but not so geeky that they are over the top. As the mystery unfolds, the four also begin to realize that they each are developing unusual physical abilities turning their friendship into something more.

Virals is the first of what I hope will be a great new YA series, where each of the characters Reich has introduced are involved in solving more mysteries. This is definitely a book that I will be recommending not only to my students, but as an addition to next years book battle list. Virals is due for release  November 2, 2010.

Source: Received ARC copy from Traveling ARC Tours

About the Author:

Kathy Reichs’s first novel Déjà Dead catapulted her to fame when it became a New York Times bestseller and won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First Novel. Her other Temperance Brennan novels include Death du Jour, Deadly Décisions, Fatal Voyage, Grave Secrets, Bare Bones, Monday Mourning, Cross Bones, Break No Bones, Bones to Ashes, Devil Bones, and 206 Bones, Spider Bones (August, 2010). Dr. Reichs is a producer of the hit Fox TV series, Bones, which is based on her work and her novels. Virals is Reichs' first YA novel.

From teaching FBI agents how to detect and recover human remains, to separating and identifying commingled body parts in her Montreal lab, as a forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs has brought her own dramatic work experience to her mesmerizing forensic thrillers. For years she consulted to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina, and continues to do so for the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Québec. Dr. Reichs has travelled to Rwanda to testify at the UN Tribunal on Genocide, and helped exhume a mass grave in Guatemala. As part of her work at JPAC (Formerly CILHI) she aided in the identification of war dead from World War II, Korea, and Southeast Asia. Dr. Reichs also assisted with identifying remains found at ground zero of the World Trade Center following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Dr. Reichs is one of only eighty-two forensic anthropologists ever certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology. She served on the Board of Directors and as Vice President of both the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, and is currently a member of the National Police Services Advisory Council in Canada. She is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.

Dr. Reichs is a native of Chicago, where she received her Ph.D. at Northwestern. She now divides her time between Charlotte, NC and Montreal, Québec. (From Kathy Reichs' website)

In the Middle Monday/Review of IQ Book Two: The White House by Roland Smith

Book Two takes us on another thrilling caper, this time to the White House where Q and Angela continue their quest to uncover the truth behind the supposed death of Angela's real mother - a former Secret Service agent - while trying to differentiate the "good guys" from the "bad guys."

Last summer I read Roland Smith’s first book in the IQ series, IQ Book One: Independence Hall and was so excited about the book that I immediately put it on the 2010 Area Wide Book Battle. Since then, I have been anxiously awaiting book two in the series IQ Book Two: The White House.  Once again, Smith has written an exciting edge-of-your seat adventure that grabs the reader and doesn’t let go until the very end.

Book Two in the series takes up where book one left off. Quest Munoz (Q) and his step-sister Angela have arrived at the White House with their rocker parent’s band, and the secret service staff that is protecting them. Q and Angela are both great characters. I loved how the two of them interact with each other and the various secondary characters in the book. I was particularly fond of a new character in this book Willingham, the president’s kid, (PK) for short. He is quite intelligent and keeps Q and Angela on their toes throughout the book. Roland also gives a lot more background information about Anglea’s mother, Malak, a former Secret Service agent, who in book one made a startling appearance at the very end; startling because she was supposed to be dead. Malak’s role in book two is much more significant because she is undercover posing as her twin sister and is trying to discover the head of a terrorist cell. The setting takes place primarily at the White House and various locations around D.C.  This was a very fast read as I finished it in one sitting.

I do have a couple of problems with the book, however. First, if you have not read book one, then the beginning of book two will be difficult to understand. It took me a while to get into it even though I read the first book.  The other problem is that the ending is a cliff-hanger, which means that I will probably have to wait another year before finding out what happens next.

IQ Book Two: The White House is definitely a book that will appeal to the middle school audience because the plot moves at a break neck pace and the characters are likable. I would, however, recommend that anyone reading this series read book one first.

Review/ Heist Society by Ally Carter

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her to the Louvre...to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria...to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own--scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving the life for a normal life proves harder than she'd expected.

Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring her back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has good reason: a powerful mobster's art collection has been stolen, and he wants it returned. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat’s father isn’t just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help.

For Kat there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it’s a spectacularly impossible job? She’s got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family’s (very crooked) history--and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way. (Publisher's comments from Powell's Book)

The Heist Society is a totally fun and refreshing respite from many of the YA books I have been reading. The reason? Well, for one, the plot is rather unique. There are no vampires, werewolves, or faeries, it does not revolve around the mean girl scene, and romance is not the driving force behind the storyline. Instead Ally Carter combines her “love of con movies” and “fascination with bad guys who are the good guys” and gives her readers Kat, a member of a long-standing family of thieves, whose desire to escape the world she was raised in suddenly becomes complicated by her devotion to her dad. Added to this conflict, Carter provides a very scary bad guy, Arturo Taccone, historical references to Nazi lootings of masterpieces, and a mythical master thief, Visily Romani. When all these elements collide, you have an exciting adventure with an ingeniously crafted heist.

In addition to the unique plot, Carter’s characterization is beguiling. Kat the spunky main character is intelligent, loyal, with an intriguingly rational mind. One of the traits I liked best was her spontaneous banter and wit. Carter used carefully crafted dialogue to highlight this trait throughout the story. Hale, who is a bit of an enigma, is an alluring characters too. He is humorous with a roguish appeal that is hard to resist. Although Kat and Hale have only known each other for a couple of years, the ease in their repartee was a red flag that some deeper feelings were yet to be explored, and definitely something to look forward to in an upcoming sequel.

While on the surface Heist Society is about thieves, and may incur criticism about the morality of glorifying stealing, my answer to such criticism is that the story is really about family loyalty, and righting wrongs. Sadly, in our world, not everything is simply good or bad. Sometimes good people do bad things for the right reasons, which is exactly why I believe Carter created Visily Romani’s as the impetus that set Kat and her band of merry thieves off to right the wrongs of Arturo Taccone.  For me, this was a stroke of genius that made the Heist Society a Robin Hood tale with a twist. Carter definitely has a lot to work with, and I expect that the Heist Society 2 will bring back Visily Romani, and find Kat and her friends off to right more wrongs.

Source: Book Purchased

Recommend Me Friday

Recommend Me is a weekly event hosted by  Kate at The Neverending Shelf. It's a chance to highlight your favorite reads. It could be a book you just read or one you read years ago

Death Watch by Robb White

Published: 1973

Genre: Adventure, Action, mystery

ISBN: 9780440917403

Age Level 12-17

I read Death Watch by Robb White several years ago and still recommend it to my students because it had such a huge impact on me. While this is not usually a genre I am immediately drawn to I do enjoy suspense novels, which White’s book most definitely is. I have to admit that I found this book impossible to put down and that it left me thinking long after I had read the last paragraph.

White spends very little time on his exposition. Within the first forty pages, he introduces the two main characters, the setting, and the problem, and the problem was so totally unexpected that once revealed I was hooked. Ben, the protagonist is guiding a big city hunter named Madec through the desert. Madec is after bighorn sheep. The problem occurs when Madec shoots at what he believes is a sheep. Unfortunately, the sheep turns out to be an old man. While this, in and of itself was unexpected, the truly surprising event occurs after the two main characters realize the man’s dead. Instead of going back to town and telling the police about the accident, Madec shoots the man again with Ben’s rifle, takes Ben’s clothes, gun, and water then drives away in his jeep. Horrible as this all sounds, it doesn’t stop there. Madec wants to insure Ben’s dies, so Madec using the sight of high powered .358 Magnum Maser,  proceeds to watch Ben to make sure he doesn’t manage to survive. Pretty amazing for the first 40 pages!

I have to admit that this book kept me riveted to the page. White did a terrific job describing the California desert setting, which of course was extremely important to the plot. He also did an awesome job at characterization.  Both Ben and Madec were completely well rounded and dynamic in their opposition of and to each other. Madec was easy to hate as the antagonist.  However, I have to admit that I while I was horrified that a person could be so evil, I also found myself feeling a sense of awe at the man’s intelligence. But it was Ben’s smarts that I really revered. His survival depended on being able to outsmart Madec. While as an ardent reader I naturally assumed that Ben would win, White's ending was as unexpected as his beginning.

So, if you think you might like a fast paced book with lots of surprises and loads of suspense, then I can guarantee Death Watch will not disappoint.