Into the Fire

Rating:
Summary: don't redeem Becker
Review: I loved, absolutely loved Prayer for the Dead and Close to the Bone. I was disappointed with this Becker book. I wanted more interaction between Becker and Swann and I definitely do not want Becker to lose his edge. I like my good guys bad and I am not happy with the watered down Becker. I read this book wanting the same walking on the line protagonist, but instead I got a "I'm gonna change my ways" protagonist. I feel that this is the same way John Sandford's Prey series has changed. Don't redeem our good guys, we want them real, frustrated and walking on the line between good and evil.

Rating:
Summary: Still hot!
Review: John Becker again, doing what he does better than anyone else in the business. This time he's after two villains, one of whom is a sort of stalking horse for the brighter and more fiendish of the two. A bright and gutsy young woman is kidnapped and Becker has to go underground, literally, to flush the killer from a cavern. This book was so steamy it curled my toes and straightened my hair.

Rating:
Summary: Into The Fire
Review: This was my intro to David Wiltse's John Becker series, and I must say that even though I enjoyed the book very much, I do feel I have met variations of this oft-told tale before. Wiltse is able to wring a high emotional reaction from the reader when it comes to all the interrelationships of the various characters, but this is just another story about a jaded hero chasing a serial killer. Fortunately, Wiltse does this sort of thing well, so even a formulaic approach like this is suspenseful in his hands.

The tension between Becker, Karen, and Pegeen becomes palpable; Pegeen is an attractive FBI agent who goes from being rather surly about babysitting a Becker on edge, a Becker lured into an investigation of serial murders that leave the bones of young women rotting in underground caves, to feeling a strong attraction for Becker the vulnerable, broken man. Becker's lover, Karen, is quick to pick up on the tension between Becker and Pegeen, and it also becomes something Becker's chief nemesis, a jealous, credit-grabbing superior in the FBI, can use against him.

Meanwhile, we are introduced to independent woman, Aural, on the run from an abusive boyfriend she tried to incinerate, who finds refuge with a travelling Reverend who performs seeming miracles of the laying-on-hands variety. Aural is smart and savvy, and quickly establishes herself as an indispensable centerpiece of the slick Reverend's act. She also discovers that the Reverend, despite having one lover already, would like to lay his hands in Aural in a non-healing capacity--but Aural knows how to work people to her benefit, and proves quite adept at juggling all aspects of her new, somewhat precarious, situation. It's all good, until the Reverend realizes she overshadows him at the healer's pulpit, and decides maybe it's time he get Aural's singed ex-boyfriend to come by and corral her. Strangely enough, all these events are simply pushing Aural towards the true danger, the disturbed killer Becker hunts who has wormed his way out of prison, and who likes to take victims down into the depths of the earth, down to his own brand of burning fire...

This becomes a race-against-time novel, where before that, some of the surprise twists reminded me of a better book: Just Cause, by Jon Katzenbach. I do like the fact that Into The Fire's plot kept evolving--and that all the characters efficiently share the spotlight--but there is not a lot here that is actually new or groundbreaking. The love triangles, the trickery wrapped around who is the true fiend, the finale of the hunt, down in a pitch-black tunnel system, all insert this exciting tale into a long line of like tales.

If you read thrillers, you will likely enjoy Into The Fire, and you will no doubt recognize all the familiar trappings. It is the character interaction throughout--Becker and Pegeen, Becker and Karen, Becker and Swann, Aural versus her torturer--that keeps the fire lit. I'm tempted to call this a four-star read, but I think of other four-star reads, and I must stop short.

Rating:
Summary: don't redeem Becker
Review: Wiltse is a master of suspense and Into The Fire is proof. Another Becker book - they just keep getting better and better.