Review: Murder in the Cretaceous Period by Fadhil Qaradaghi

Rasti is a theater director who is schizophrenic and paranoid. Based on his detective plays, a rich man hires him to find out who kidnapped his daughter and killed his son.

Rasti dives into the task, but as a very unreliable narrator, it is often hard to follow his thinking and delusions to see what is really going on.

He also goes back to the Cretaceous Era where under his name Tatanka, he talks about the wicked morals and infection of Man. When a dinosaur murders for sport rather than food, he believes The City and humans have infected the world and thus lead to the extinction.

He talks a lot about Cosmic Plan and Eras.

I enjoyed the story, but felt I had to work for it.

Review: The Dinosaur Battle of New Orleans by Dane HAtchell

A scientist creates an experiment to cure him of his cancer. Only, there were side effects... Besides spending a few months in prehistoric times before returning to the present, he brings dinosaurs back with him. All unintentional but creating chaos and death in New Orleans. From an airplane downed by pteradactyls to a dinosaur battle in Jackson Square where Left and Right protesters have to battle for their lives, the insanity that already is NOLA explodes with violence, fear and heroism. I bought this book because the premise intrigued me and I stayed with it because it was just plain fun! Terri

Review: Dinosaur Lake by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Henry Shore is the Chief Park Ranger at Crater Lake in Oregon. After a series of earthquakes unearth some fossils of an unknown species of dinosaur, other strange things start happening. Some people and their boats disappear, and animal carcasses and unusual tracks are found on the lake's islands. Stories begin to circulate of a lake monster. 

Of course, being an ex-cop, Henry takes the stories with a grain of salt until he and a paleontolgist send to examine the fossils see the creature and realize not only that it is real, but that if it can't be contained, a lot of people are going to die. The dinosaur is smart, cunning, and hungry and he and his team have to find a way to stop it. 

Some of the characters seem a bit too stereotypical -- Mad scientist, Vulture-like journalists from the Inquirer, Ineffective bureaucrat and so on. That said, I still liked/hated them and they moved the story along for me in a fast-paced and interesting way.  This is an absolutely fun monster vs. man story.

Terri