The Disappearance of Alice Creed DVD MA15+

Voted number 68 in the ABC's "At the Movies" 2010 viewers poll, this British thriller movie about the kidnap of a young woman has plenty of twists and turns to keep you riveted. With just a cast of three, it includes an increasing favourite of mine, Eddie Marsan (second mate Stubb in "Moby Dick" and Mr Pancks the rent collector in "Little Dorrit")

Debra @ Engadine Library

The Disappearance of Alice Creed DVD MA15+

The Snowman by Jo Nesbo.

The Snowman by Jo Nesbo is a complex,intellectually satisfying plot with many twists and turns.

It tells the story of a rugged, loner,tormented detective by the name of Harry Hole, as he becomes embroiled in a sinister serial killer case.

The first snow fall in Oslo heralds a series of gruesome murders....its victims....married women with children.

The killer strikes on the day of the first snow and builds a snowman at the murder scene....facing the victim's home with the victim's clothes and body parts incorporated in the design.

An ex girlfriend and a psychotic female colleague contribute to this novel as a spine-chilling thriller with a taut pace that never lets up!

Go ahead.....read it if you dare!

The Snowman by Jo Nesbo.

The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller

I really enjoyed reading this recent addition to the young adult collection. It explores the idea of reincarnation to add to the murder mystery plot.  Haven Moore has visions of a previous life as a girl named Constance, whose love for her soul mated Ethan ended in tragedy.

     

Haven is drawn back to New York and begins a dangerous search to uncover the meaning of her visions and at the same time is in incredible danger as she uncovers secrets from the past. Who can she trust as many of the villains from the past have reincarnated into trusted members of her community.

  

The plot was intriguing and kept me guessing till the final page.

              

Steph

The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller

Think Twice - Lisa Scottoline

Bennie Rosato and her identical twin Alice Connelly are back in Lisa Scottoline’s newest thriller Think Twice. Like her previous novels this is a real page turner that will keep you reading until the wee hours of the morning. Alice, in and out of trouble all her life, has passed the point of no return, is on the run and waging a dangerous personal war. If you have read any of Scottoline’s previous novels you will know that the trouble is all of Alice’s own making.

But Bennie is fighting for her very life after being buried alive by her manipulative and scheming sister. As she scratches and claws for every breath, Alice is busy taking over her successful sisters’ life, impersonating her at work and seducing her boyfriend. In an act of unnecessary evil, she arranges for Bear, Bennies’ beloved dog, to be put down.

Mary DiNunzio is obsessively focused on making partner in Bennies’ law firm. So when her best friend Judy Carrier begins to suspect the truth about Alice, Mary refuses to listen and they have a falling out. In a strange way Alice’s time at the law firm does have an up-side. We might see a different Bennie in Scottoline’s future novels, as she realises holding the people in her life at arm’s length allowed Alice to step into her life so easily.

Deborah - Menai Library

Think Twice - Lisa Scottoline

Nightfall / Stephen Leather

“You are going to hell, Jack Nightingale”

These are the words that continue to haunt the character Jack Nightingale in this latest thriller from Stephen Leather.

After just plowing through Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and struggling through the seemingly endless speculations of the state of Russian agricultural practice and the nature of the serfs, I wanted something as different as possible. This book definitely supplied it.

Jack Nightingale’s world falls apart when he is contacted by a lawyer about an unexpected inheritance. It turns out he was adopted. Unfortunately his natural father was a practitioner of black magic, who sold Jack’s soul to the devil in return for power and riches. Sadly for Jack the riches are gone. All that remains is a video detailing his father’s suicide and a warning that he has just three weeks before the devil is due to claim his soul.

At first he reacts as any normal person would, with scepticism. But then the people around him begin to die in horrible ways and it is a race against time to find a way of breaking the contract.

This is a suspenseful, fast paced and surprisingly credible read. And no mention of agriculture.

- Kaye

Nightfall / Stephen Leather

Taken

I watched this DVD on the recommendation of one of my travel mates and I'm glad I watched it while flying home, rather than flying in to Nepal.

Taken tells the story of an ex-CIA agent, whose daughter is kidnapped while travelling, drugged and sold into the international sex trade. While it is essentially a thriller, the film gives an insight into this terrifying practice. It adds an emotional humanity to a very serious issue that we only occassionally read about in our daily lives. There are several chilling scenes, one of which involved a number of drugged western women tied to beds in appalling conditions. It was enough to make this viewer feel nauseous and I found myself happy to see vengenace being taken on the perpetrators.

Liam Neeson plays the father who uses his skills as an agent to get his daughter back. Neeson plays the role of worried, angry father well though (lets face it), he is starting to look a little worse for wear and this made some of his fighting scenes seem a little far-fetched and unrealistic. Maggie Grace, who plays the daughter seemed to be overacting the role of a 17-year-old and at times I felt like her character just didn't have enough depth. For example, she just doesn't seem to be as traumatised and abused as the other girls in the film (not that I'm a saddist, I just like realism).

Nevertheless, I thought it was a great movie in that it raised a lot of thought about the sex trade and the dangers of travelling.

Taken