Sidney Sheldon and Jilliane Hoffman

I also read Sidney Sheldon's Are You Afraid Of The Dark? and Jilliane Hoffman's Last Witness in May, but I think they deserve their very own post with a short review for various reasons...

Are ou Afraid Of The Dark? got to me through the same book box The Momory Game did. Only this time I didn't know the author had hardly heard anything of him (and if so I most likely didn't pay attention). The backcover blurb sounded really interesting, but there where other books I wanted to read as well. So which books to pick and which books to put back in the box for the others? I decided I would simply start reading the book and decided whether or not I wanted to keep it while reading the first hundred or so pages. It was a bad idea - or amybe a good one? - because the next day I had already finished the book. It was such a thrilling, nerve-tearing, interesting, suspense-ladden mystery/thriller!
It all starts with four deaths in four different cities all over the world. No one really connects the murders, until two widows meet at the office of their deceased husbands' employer. They start to talk and soon they discover they're being followed and someone wants them dead. They only don't know why their husbands had to die and why they're being followed around and attacked. When they discover what happened it is almost too late.
I sinmply couldn't put this book down and had to read on and on. In the end it took me about 24 hours from the first to the last pages - with sleeping and all, well not much of that, but anyway!

With Jilliane Hoffman's Last Witness I knew what I was getting myself into. Having read and loved her first mystery starring C.J. Townsend, I just had to get her second! After C.J. took care of the conviction of William Bantling, supposed to be the serial killer "Cupid", she thinks everything is alright now. Until one night she gets called to a crime scene where a cop has been brutally killed. This cop happened to be one of the few men who knew the secret, who knew what happend during the ivnestigation of Cupid's murders and it's trial. When a second and third cop are killed in the same brutal fashion, C.J. knows she has to do something to protect others from being killed.
I can't really say much more about the book without giving away the story, but let me tell you one thing. If you haven't read Retribution already,but intend to read Last Witness you might want to know that the second builds up on the story of the first. It's pretty much crucial that you read the first one!
These two books are really brutal and the murders and everythign around it explained in a colorful way, so if you can't stand the gory-tpye mysteries you might want to leave Jilliane Hoffman's books out.
What I especially liked about both books was that Jilliane Hoffman could explain things quite good - her being a former proecutor with the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office and working as the Regional Legal Advisor for the FloridaDepartment of Law Enforcement, she knew her business.