Rating: 
Summary: A page turner
Review: A thrillingly good read that combines everything so neatly together - (macho) computer war games, female detective and CIA analyst, several murders - all tied up together so perfectly, with invisible seams. This book begs you to read it in one go.
Rating:
Summary: An exciting and suspensful read for murder mystery lovers.
Review: Bonnie Ramthun's Ground Zero is a great read for those of us that enjoy mystery novels with technical and global consequences. The novel does an excellent job keeping the reader riveted to three or four subplots that are tied to the main mystery, the murder of the despicable and deceiptful Terry Guzman. The attention to detail and the insigths into the main characters psyches, desires, and fears is great. I would highly recommend this book to not only fans of technical and defense-related thrillers but also to readers that enjoy a good "whodoneit".
Rating: 
Summary: Ground Zero
Review: Finally, a great thriller with a strong woman character! Excellent effort on a first novel. I am anxious to read Earthquake Games. Well done, Ms. Ramthun.
Rating:
Summary: Keep writing Bonnie
Review: I picked this book on the discount shelf because it was cheap and had an interesting cover. I'm almost finished and can't wait to get to the next book of Bonnie's. You want hi-tech action, you better read this one. Great characters, all believable, fun to read about. Norm McDonald, Orem Ut.
Rating:
Summary: Delightedly surprised
Review: I was introduced to Bonnie Ramthun through an interview I read in a local paper and checked with my neighborhood library to see what a Cheyenne girl knew about writing suspense novels. The further I read, the faster I read...and suddenly it was morning and I had finished the book. Far too many mystery writers get so tied up with flowery phrases that the reader loses track of the story. This lady just flat tells a story and tells it in such a way that you feel like you're a part of it. Today, I picked up her second book, and plan to spend the night with it. She said in her interview that it takes her about 2 years to write a book. Her third book is now on the shelves and I'm already looking forward to 2005. Eileen Reed isn't quite Detective Bosh (Michael Connelly's chief protagonist), but she's close enough to keep me reading.
Rating:
Summary: Delightedly surprised
Review: I was introduced to Bonnie Ramthun through an interview I read in a local paper and checked with my neighborhood library to see what a Cheyenne girl knew about writing suspense novels. The further I read, the faster I read...and suddenly it was morning and I had finished the book. Far too many mystery writers get so tied up with flowery phrases that the reader loses track of the story. This lady just flat tells a story and tells it in such a way that you feel like you're a part of it. Today, I picked up her second book, and plan to spend the night with it. She said in her interview that it takes her about 2 years to write a book. Her third book is now on the shelves and I'm already looking forward to 2005. Eileen Reed isn't quite Detective Bosh (Michael Connelly's chief protagonist), but she's close enough to keep me reading.
Rating: 
Summary: interesting context, average story
Review: It's a story about a very secretive world within the U.S. military. The glimpses into this are the most interesting parts of the book. That's really what the story hung on for me. In this context, a murder occurs and we have a murder mystery. It's a "locked room, no one alive inside" story, although the solution isn't particularly ingenious or stunning. As said in other reviews, the love attraction doesn't seem realistic (or meaningful), and the biggie for me was its "I've watched too many action movies" or "I wanna sell this to Hollywood" feeling. I really hope the author has more ideas and she finds her own voice. Good luck to her.
Rating:
Summary: interesting context, average story
Review: Listening to Coast to Coast with Art Bell one morning, I heard Bonnie as a guest. She was smart, funny, and seemed to have a good head on her shoulders. So, I purchased Ground Zero and Earthquake Games. I thoroughly disliked BOTH of these books, although Earthquake Games is a bit more mature. First: the books contain too many coincidences that solve issues in the plot or build the plot. Another review mentioned 'made for TV' and that is a good explanation. The plot should be a natural progression of events leading to a logical conclusion. The only thing logical about the conclusion is that you know something will coincidentally happen at the exact right moment to solve everything (which makes anything the characters purposefully do anti-climactic). Second: and this is a style issue, but occasionally she will introduce a new word or concept and then she tends to use it many times in the same paragraph. Third: character descriptions are cookie cutter in the sense that the style of introducing them is the same for most characters; i.e. character name, character description, and brief life summation. Varying the approach and building the characters would help greatly! Also unimportant characters often have their life story summated. If the character has very little to do with the story, I do not need to know that much about them. Finally: If you want a story that revolves around food and coffee, these books are for you. Honestly, very few pages go by without someone eating a meal or a snack, or someone drinking the 'best damn cup of coffee' they've ever had. While everyday events can help to humanize a story or character, they do very little to forward the plot and should be used sparingly AND only when important to the plot. If a character contemplates life or a problem over a cup of coffee, then that might be an important event. But when every time someone drinks a cup of coffee or eats a meal and it is marked with its description then the point no longer carries the same weight. I don't usually write negative reviews, but I think that the concepts behind these two stories are very strong. When her next book is published I will read it for two reasons; one is to enjoy an interesting concept and the second is to see if she continues to grow as a writer. I hope she does because she has the intelligence.
Rating: 
Summary: Not recommended.
Review: They say all first novels are autobiographical, and this one is probably no exception. But with this, her first novel, Ramthun shows that she has all the tools necessary to write first-rate mystery/thrillers. Her plotting, characterization, and dialog are all solid, and she's turned out a more than credible first effort. It's a fast read, and leaves you looking forward to reading other books by this author. Relative to other first novels, this one deserves five stars. But even in comparison to good novels by experienced writers, it deserves the four stars I've given it. If Ramthun improves, as many first-time novelists do with their second and subsequent books, she will be a writer to be reckoned with.
Rating:
Summary: Fine first novel
Review: This is a combination detective story, police procedural, and thriller. At an Air Force base in Colorado, an impossible crime is committed when a woman is murdered in a way that eyewitnesses and film prove could not have been accomplished. Thus, Eileen Reed of the Colorado Springs police has not only to discover whodunit but how it was done. At the same time, espionage at the base is being investigated separately, and this investigation is equally fascinating. Excellent in many respects, the novel has great narrative drive that kept me reading eagerly on, and the technical aspects never get in the way of that narrative drive. The weaknesses: The detective's falling in love with a suspect has become a cliché that not only bores but irritates, the supposedly obligatory sex scene could easily have been dispensed with, and the solution to the impossible crime reminds one of the earliest locked-room-crime stories. Ramthun's second novel has been published, and I certainly plan on reading it.
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