D. V. Berkom

This is the silliest Kate Jones story I have read yet. Kate tries to be all Bondian by getting caught by the bad guys and sequestered in their evil lair, but in Kate's case she manages that feat like 100 times an hour. And unlike Bond, Kate needs to be rescued by random persons that happen by. Once free, she finds the easiest way to be recaptured. The endless cycle is nauseating.

Kate says it best: "That's what I got for relying on what I thought was a finely developed sixth sense for staying one step ahead of the bad guys." A legend in her own mind.

Cruising for death. I’ll say!

One hundred percent of the time she is scheming to figure out how she can be the least successful in staying alive; she works exceeding hard to come up with the worst possible solution to her problems. Self-fulfilling prophecy after self-fulfilling prophecy and she makes it crystal clear that she will never get a clue.

I also tire of Kate feeling sorry for herself, that gets old quick.

Otherwise, the backstory reads a bit like James Rollins’ Amazonia (2002).

That said, this is a "great" series. I could see a science fiction angle where Kate teleports through time and space. She could be abducted by aliens, escape, and then become one of James T. Kirk's Star Trek girls until she misses the space jump because she is obsessing about something in her past. Lost in Space, she can be saved by cosmonauts, returned to earth, and imprisoned in Siberia before she is spirited away on a yak. Then she makes her way home via San Francisco where her (bad) luck continues; she is shanghaied upon arrival and quickly finds herself en route back to the Far East. While trying to figure out a means of escape, Kate is rescued by the cabin boy who is tired of being buggered, but those two are quickly recaptured and left to die on a desert island 4,000 miles from the nearest other human. Not to be bested, and with the help of the boy, Kate builds a makeshift raft and sails to freedom... until they are torpedoed by a WWII Japanese submariner who doesn’t know that the war has ended et cetera.

Somewhere in there Kate will be chained in a medieval dungeon and burned at the stake before being rescued by a lovelorn hunchback. And Kate will swoon over a number of guys while being beaten and tortured and stabbed and poisoned and shot and drowned before falling off a few cliffs and killed any number of times in the above story; just like in the series.

Just tweak the space time continuum a little bit, which Berkom practically does anyway, and the possibilities are endless.… (mais)

Another good book from DV Berkom. If you can totally suspend belief, and are ready to dive into the world of never-going-to-happen, then you will enjoy her books. Kate Jones, the main character and our heroine, is a total nitwit with a death wish. When it comes to getting captured and shot and beat up and killed, Kate is second to none. Whatever the worst possible deadly situation you can imagine, well, Kate can beat that in spades. And she does!

Ever hear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time? That is Kate’s full-time job!

Kate is her own worst enemy. And you would think that someone with millions of enemies would try and find some friends, which she does, sort of. It turns out that all of her friends are also her enemies; she has millions of frenemies!

Literally everyone is trying to kill Kate. With oodles of crazy going on it is hard to even remember why everyone is trying to kill Kate, we only know that someone is (or several large groups of peoples). Because everyone is trying to kill Kate, it doesn't take long for her to end up in their clutches.

So she'll be captured by 100 of the most heinous, hard, cold, remorseless murderers / gangsters / drug lords / professional assassins / gang-bangers / baby-killers on the planet, and right when 100 machine guns are about to open up on her and finally kill her good... another 100 of the equally most heinous, hard, cold, remorseless murderers / gangsters / drug lords / professional assassins / gang-bangers / baby-killers on the planet burst in claiming she is theirs to kill! A shoot-out ensues and in a minute - what felt like hours to Kate - 200 ex-murderers / ex-gangsters / ex-drug lords / ex-professional assassins / ex-gang-bangers / ex-baby-killers lay dead on the ground. Once Kate manages to free herself, she one again becomes girl on the run trying to stay one step ahead of the next batch of 100 of the most heinous, hard, cold, remorseless murderers / gangsters / drug lords / professional assassins / gang-bangers / baby-killers on the planet.

That may have not been verbatim, but the book proceeds more-or-less along those lines. Kate makes the impossible readily possible (even more so than Tom Cruise!), and she does it page after page.

While unbelievable, DV Berkom writes very readable stories so they good, quick sources of mindless reading.… (mais)

D V Berkom draws me into the danger and intrigue of Terminal Threat from the opening pages. She is recovering, mentally and physically, after her last SHEN mission, so she retired for a quiet life. All Leine Basso wanted was a fresh start in a small town. She loved Italy and was in the process of opening a bookstore. Santa will be visiting her in a month.

Gabriela is running for her life. She comes upon the closed bookstore. In desperation, a delicate knock, so as not to be heard from her pursuers, a woman draws her in with gun in hand. Leine is always quick to help. She can’t turn her back when confronted by evil. The assassin in her rises to the surface. The townspeople need her help and she has the skills…and connections to do just that.

“Evidently, you could take the girl out of the assassin, but you can’t take the assassin out of the girl.”

She is…or was… The Leopard and she is ready to roar. She knew she had many enemies, and now they had found her.

Threats, gunfire, bombs…an all out war has been mounted.

Santa is her hunkalicious honey, finishing out his time on the police force before retiring in a year. He isn’t privy to what is happening until it’s all over. Will he stick with her considering…

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Your life is a series of Terminal Threats.”

Action packed from the first page to the last, D V Berkom knows how to keep the suspense and pacing racing at a breakneck speed. White knuckled, edge of the seat reading. Terminal Threat is a finely tuned, suspenseful thriller that achieves excellence in writing. I cannot think of one thing that could be improved upon…and that is the wonder of D V Berkom’s ‘pen’.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Terminal Threat by D V Berkom.

See more at http://www.fundinmental.com… (mais)