DISPATCH :: OPERATION WARRIOR LIBRARY salutes Meg Gardiner

I'm turning this post over to my wife, Audrey...

Author Meg Gardiner is incredibly prolific: she churns out top-drawer thrillers in two series at a fast clip, she really takes care of her fans with frequent signings and conventions, and she writes a witty and aspiring-writer-helpful blog (www.meggardiner.com). And she’s taken care of the troops just as well: she sent us a box filled with a huge selection of her paperbacks and then was kind enough to mention OWL in her blog this week. Further highlighting my own crappy work ethic. Meg Gardiner knows how to keep a person up reading through the night. And the night she kept me up was over a month ago. So apologies to Ms. Gardiner.

I selected THE DIRTY SECRETS CLUB out of her box of goodies; this is from her Jo Beckett series, and I need to check out her Evan Delaney series next. Jo is a “deadshrinker.” A nice change of pace from the morgue and scalpels, Jo dissects the psyches and lives of victims to help the police catch killers. Stephen King is absolutely right – he calls her “the next suspense superstar.” Her prose is modern and absolutely jangles with energy. I felt like I was in Jo’s head, the words and action tumble out in nearly stream-of-consciousness style. And the action never stops.

Jo is tough yet still vulnerable, and as she solves the mystery of why seemingly unconnected people are committing suicide in spectacular and public ways, we also slowly learn about her broken past. The satellite of characters around her aren’t just cutouts to hold together a clever plot, each feels real and we are given insight into their side of the story. And the surprise twist of the ending is very believable in our political times, where we are faced with lack of ethics and lack of regard for consequences every day lately. Meg Gardiner is fairly new on the scene here in the U.S, but she has been a bestseller in Britain for a while. Which allows readers here the great pleasure of plowing through one of her series in a single swoop. Enjoy!

Thanks to Meg we were able to send her books to troops in Afghanistan. You can support Meg by buying her books. Remember, any purchase you make in the OWL store goes directly to covering costs.