Child, Lincoln: Utopia

There is the theme park to end theme parks in the Nevada desert whose various attractions provide
amusement for thousands every day.   Recent technical glitches have led to one of the technical
designers being asked to return to the park not to correct the problem but to remove the robotics
he installed.   He arrives with his daughter on the same day that a criminal group intend stealing the
cash take which is collected by armoured truck, this being in the region of 100,000,000 dollars
though this remains unknown until late in the book.   The park is run by the designer's former girl
friend which provides some tension though it is not really required.   To cover the theft, a series of
minor sabotage acts have been planned, some of these taking place pre-book, hence the appearance
of the expert.    The technical details are presumably feasible and, by and large, do not hamper what
is a fairly leisurely build-up but the pace gradually increases as the incidents escalate.   The final
intention of the villains is hidden until near the end to provide a climactic scene in which, despite
the earlier damage and the apparently foolproof planning of the crime, the good guys win.   Apart
from the descriptions of the various attractions which make the theme park live up to the name,
Utopia, the character interplay is realistic and these two features add to the unity which is given by
the action taking place during the course of a single day apart from an unnecessary epilogue.  The
book is a good read and sits well with the author's better known collaborations with Douglas Preston.

Crackanthorpe, David: The Ravenglass Line

I sometimes wonder why I have certain books but must assume that this one, like numerous others,
was part of the Times/W H Smith half-price series.    One of two brothers is arrested in France but
is released on bail put up by his younger brother who wants him to find out how involved their
mother is with a dubious Hungarian entrepreneur.   The mother is well to do, having inherited the
family shipping and transport business which the younger son now runs, but she has given the
Hungarian considerable amounts of money and is one of those rich women who do not really give
any thought to the effects her actions may produce.   The older brother has an affair with his sister-
in-law in the course of uncovering the Hungarian's illegal transporting of Romanian women and
children who are taken to the empty, dilapidated family mansion in rural Lancashire where the
brother ends his career.   The final chapter tidies up in a rather unlikely manner the mother's problem
and the brothers' entanglement.    An easy read but no more

Carrisi, Donato: The Lost Girls of Rome

It took me some time to read this 'Italian Literary Thriller Phenomenon' to quote the cover.   The
basic story is the search for a missing girl in Rome.   Two men talk about this over a coffee with one of them then going to the apartment where she lived; they are members of a proscribed Vatican order, the Penitenzieri, trained to search out evil.   At the same time in Milan, Sandra, a police forensics
expert, is looking for answers to her husband's death and this takes her to Rome where her search and
that of the Penitenzieri become entwined.   She becomes involved with an Interpol investigator whom
she distrusts as his objective is not just to find out how her husband dies but to unmask the Penitenzieri.    The search for the girl is complicated and, as ever, a number of blind alleys before the
man who had already killed other girls was unmasked.   Interspersed with this story is one of another
search for a different serial killer which moves from Paris to Prague and Chernobyl though there is
a final coalescing of the three strands by the end of the novel.   I found the development of all three
strands was well done as was the linking of the two Roman lines.   While the exposing of the primary
villain came as no surprise, the build-up to his capture was effectively done.   The end of the book does come as a surprise which I leave you to discover for yourself.   A really good thriller well worth
seeking out.