THE BLACK BOOK by James Patterson and David Ellis (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Edoardo Ballerini
A horrifying murder leads investigators to an unexpected address --- an exclusive brothel that caters to Chicago's most powerful citizens. There's plenty of incriminating evidence on the scene, but what matters most is what's missing: the madam's black book. Now shock waves are rippling through the city's elite, and everyone is desperate to find it. As everyone who's anyone in Chicago scrambles to get their hands on the elusive black book, no one's motives can be trusted. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
BONE WHITE: Mundy's Landing Book Three by Wendy Corsi Staub (Thriller)
Audiobook available, performed by Allyson Ryan
“We shall never tell.” Spurred by the cryptic phrase in a centuries-old letter, Emerson Mundy travels to her ancestral hometown to trace her past. In Mundy’s Landing, she connects with long-lost relatives --- and a closet full of skeletons going back centuries. In the year since former NYPD Detective Sullivan Leary solved the historic Sleeping Beauty Murders, she --- like the village itself --- has made a fresh start. But someone has unearthed blood-drenched secrets in a disembodied skull, and is hacking away at the Mundy family tree, branch by branch. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE BRIDGE by Stuart Prebble (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Alex Collins
Michael Beaumont is head over heels with the woman of his dreams. But Alison is harboring a dangerous secret, one that threatens to break loose once Michael introduces her to his last remaining relative. Michael's grandmother Rose, who raised him from childhood, isn't quite the woman she used to be --- her memory is failing her, and she's prone to fits of wild emotion. But something about Rose's outburst upon meeting Alison seems like more than just a simple delusion. And something about the string of murders terrorizing London, with incidents occurring just blocks from Michael, feels like more than just a coincidence. What is Rose not telling Michael? What is Alison hiding? Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
BUM LUCK by Paul Levine (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Luke Daniels
Jake Lassiter’s client, Miami Dolphins’ running back Thunder Thurston, has been cleared of murdering his wife. Jake didn’t expect to win (or want to win) since he is sure his client is guilty. When Thurston walks free, Lassiter vows to seek his own kind of justice. Street justice. Vigilante justice. Law partners Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord can’t believe their friend has become so obsessed with killing Thurston. Convinced Jake’s unhinged behavior is due to concussive brain injuries suffered during his football career, they beg him to seek treatment. But as Lassiter’s raging fixation on vengeance grows, Solomon and Lord wonder if they’re too late to help. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE BURIAL HOUR: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel by Jeffery Deaver (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Edoardo Ballerini
A businessman is snatched from an Upper East Side street in broad daylight, and a miniature hangman's noose is left at the scene. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are called in to investigate. Soon the case takes a stranger turn: a recording surfaces of the victim being slowly hanged, his desperate gasps the backdrop to an eerie piece of music. The video is marked as the work of The Composer. Despite their best efforts, the suspect gets away. So when a similar kidnapping occurs on a dusty road outside Naples, Italy, Rhyme and Sachs don't hesitate to rejoin the hunt. But the search is now a complex case of international cooperation --- and not all those involved may be who they seem. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
CONVICTION by Julia Dahl (Mystery/Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Andi Arndt
In the summer of 1992, a year after riots exploded between black and Jewish neighbors in Crown Heights, a black family is brutally murdered in their Brooklyn home. A teenager is quickly convicted, and the justice system moves on. Twenty-two years later, journalist Rebekah Roberts gets a letter: I didn't do it. Frustrated with her work at the city’s sleaziest tabloid, Rebekah starts to dig. But witnesses are missing, memories faded, and almost no one wants to talk about that grim, violent time in New York City --- not even Saul Katz, a former cop and her source in Brooklyn’s insular Hasidic community. So she goes it alone. And as she gets closer to the truth of that night, Rebekah finds herself in the path of a killer with two decades of secrets to protect. Reviewed by Megan Elliott.
THE CUBS WAY: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse by Tom Verducci (Sports)
Audiobook available, read by Tom Verducci
It took 108 years, but it really happened. The Chicago Cubs are once again World Series champions. How did a team composed of unknown, young players and supposedly washed-up veterans come together to break the Curse of the Billy Goat? Tom Verducci, twice named National Sportswriter of the Year and co-writer of THE YANKEE YEARS with Joe Torre, has full access to team president Theo Epstein, manager Joe Maddon and the players to tell the story of the Cubs' transformation from perennial underachievers to the best team in baseball. Reviewed by Curtis Edmonds.
THE DEVIL AND WEBSTER by Jean Hanff Korelitz (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Kate Burton
Students at Webster College begin the fall semester with an outdoor encampment around "The Stump" --- a traditional campus gathering place for generations of student activists --- to protest a popular professor's denial of tenure. A former student radical herself, Naomi Roth, the college’s first female president, admires the protestors' passion, especially when her own daughter, Hannah, joins their ranks. Then Omar Khayal, a charismatic Palestinian student with a devastating personal history, emerges as the group's leader, and the demonstration begins to consume Naomi's life. As the crisis slips beyond her control, Naomi must take increasingly desperate measures to protect her friends, colleagues and family from an unknowable adversary. Reviewed by Jana Siciliano.
FOXLOWE by Eleanor Wasserberg (Gothic Suspense)
Audiobook available, read by Charlie Sanderson
Foxlowe is a crumbling old house in the moors --- a wild, secluded and magical place. For Green, it is not just home, but everything she knows. Outside, people live in little square houses, with unhappy families and tedious jobs. At Foxlowe, Green runs free through the hallways and orchards, in the fields and among the Standing Stones. Outside, people are corrupted by money. At Foxlowe, the Family shares everything. Outside, the Bad is everywhere. At Foxlowe, everyone in the Family is safe --- as long as they follow Freya’s rules and perform her rituals. But as Green’s little sister, Blue, grows up, she shows more and more interest in the Outside. Before long she starts to talk about becoming a Leaver. Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.
THE HORSE DANCER by Jojo Moyes (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Fiona Hardingham
When Sarah’s grandfather gives her a beautiful horse named Boo --- hoping that one day she’ll follow in his footsteps to join an elite French riding school, away from their gritty London neighborhood --- she quietly trains in parks and alleys. But then her grandfather falls ill, and Sarah must juggle horsemanship with school and hospital visits. Natasha, a young lawyer, is reeling after her failed marriage: her professional judgment is being questioned, her new boyfriend is a let-down, and she’s forced to share her house with her charismatic ex-husband. Yet when the willful 14-year-old Sarah lands in her path, Natasha decides to take the girl under her wing. But Sarah is keeping a secret --- a secret that will change the lives of everyone involved forever. Reviewed by Vivian Payton.
IF NOT FOR YOU by Debbie Macomber (Romance)
Audiobook available, read by Khristine Hvam
If not for her loving but controlling parents, Beth Prudhomme might never have taken charge of her life and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she’s reconnected with her spirited Aunt Sunshine and found a job as a high school music teacher. If not for her friend Nichole, Beth would never have met Sam Carney, although first impressions have left Beth with serious doubts. Sam is everything Beth is not --- and her parents’ worst nightmare: a tattooed auto mechanic who’s rough around the edges. When shocking secrets from Sam’s past are revealed, Beth struggles to reconcile her feelings. But when Beth goes a step too far, she risks losing the man and the life she’s come to love. Reviewed by Susan Miura.
IF WE WERE VILLAINS by M. L. Rio (Literary Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Robert Petkoff
Oliver Marks has just served 10 years in jail --- for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago. As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingénue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
LOLA by Melissa Scrivner Love (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Roxana Ortega
The Crenshaw Six are a small but up-and-coming gang in South Central LA who have recently been drawn into an escalating war between rival drug cartels. To outsiders, the Crenshaw Six appear to be led by a man named Garcia --- yet what no one has figured out is that the gang's real leader (and secret weapon) is Garcia's girlfriend, a brilliant young woman named Lola. Lola has mastered playing the role of submissive girlfriend, and in the man's world she inhabits, she is consistently underestimated. But in truth she is much, much smarter --- and in many ways tougher and more ruthless --- than any of the men around her. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
LONG BLACK VEIL by Jennifer Finney Boylan (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Jennifer Finney Boylan
In 1980, six college students sneak into the dilapidated ruins of Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary, looking for a thrill. But it’s not long before they realize they are locked in --- and not alone. When the friends get lost and separated, the terrifying night ends in tragedy, and the unexpected, far-reaching consequences reverberate through the survivors’ lives. Decades later, the dogged detective investigating the cold case charges one of them --- celebrity chef Jon Casey --- with murder. Only Casey’s old friend, Judith Carrigan, can testify to his innocence. But Judith is protecting long-held secrets of her own --- secrets that, if brought to light, could destroy her career as a travel writer and tear her away from her fireman husband and teenage son. Reviewed by Dunja Bonacci Skenderovic.
THE LOST ORDER by Steve Berry (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Scott Brick
The Knights of the Golden Circle was the largest and most dangerous clandestine organization in American history. It amassed billions in stolen gold and silver, all buried in hidden caches across the United States. Since 1865 treasure hunters have searched, but little of that immense wealth has ever been found. Now, 160 years later, two factions of what remains of the Knights of the Golden Circle want that lost treasure --- one to spend it for their own ends, the other to preserve it. Thrust into this battle is former Justice Department agent Cotton Malone, whose connection to the knights is far deeper than he ever imagined. Reviewed by Ray Palen.
MARLENA by Julie Buntin (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Emma Galvin
Everything about 15-year-old Cat’s new town in rural Michigan is lonely and off-kilter, until she meets her neighbor --- the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena. As the two girls turn the untamed landscape of their desolate small town into a kind of playground, Cat catalogues a litany of firsts --- first drink, first cigarette, first kiss --- while Marlena’s habits harden and calcify. Within the year, Marlena is dead, drowned in six inches of icy water in the woods nearby. Now, decades later, when a ghost from that pivotal year surfaces unexpectedly, Cat must try to forgive herself and move on, even as the memory of Marlena keeps her tangled in the past. Reviewed by Maya Gittelman.
MY ITALIAN BULLDOZER by Alexander McCall Smith (Fiction)
Audiobook available, narrated by Timothy Ackroyd
Paul Stuart, a renowned food writer, finds himself at loose ends after his longtime girlfriend leaves him for her personal trainer. To cheer him up, Paul’s editor, Gloria, encourages him to finish his latest cookbook on-site in Tuscany, hoping that a change of scenery will offer a cure for both heartache and writer’s block. But upon Paul’s arrival, things don’t go quite as planned. A mishap with his rental-car reservation leaves him stranded, until a newfound friend leads him to an intriguing alternative: a bulldozer. With little choice in the matter, Paul accepts the offer, and as he journeys into the idyllic hillside town of Montalcino, he discovers that the bulldozer may be the least of the surprises that await him. Reviewed by Roz Shea.
NEW YORK 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Science Fiction)
Audiobook available; read by Jay Snyder, Robin Miles, Peter Ganim, Suzanne Toren, Ryan Vincent Anderson, Christopher Ryan Grant, Caitlin Kelly, Michael Crouch and Robert Blumenfeld
As the sea levels rose, every street became a canal and every skyscraper an island. For the residents of one apartment building in Madison Square, however, New York in the year 2140 is far from a drowned city. There is the market trader, the detective, the beloved internet star and the building's manager. There also are two boys who don't live there, but have no other home --- and who are more important to its future than anyone might imagine. Lastly there are the coders, temporary residents on the roof, whose disappearance triggers a sequence of events that threatens the existence of all --- and even the long-hidden foundations on which the city rests. Reviewed by Pauline Finch.
NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US by Stephanie Powell Watts (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Janina Edwards
JJ Ferguson has returned home to Pinewood, North Carolina, to build his dream house and to pursue his high school sweetheart, Ava. But as he reenters his former world, where factories are in decline and the legacy of Jim Crow is still felt, he’s startled to find that the people he once knew and loved have changed just as much as he has. JJ’s return --- and his plans to build a huge mansion overlooking Pinewood and woo Ava --- not only unsettles their family, but stirs up the entire town. The ostentatious wealth that JJ has attained forces everyone to consider the cards they’ve been dealt, what more they want and deserve, and how they might go about getting it. Reviewed by Bianca Ambrosio.
ONE PERFECT LIE by Lisa Scottoline (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by George Newbern
Chris Brennan is applying for a job as a high school government teacher, and he's ready to step in as an assistant baseball coach. But everything about him is a lie. Raz is a high school pitcher who may have a future in the major leagues. However, his father died only a few months ago, leaving him in a vulnerable place where any new father figure might influence him for good, or for evil. Justin is shy, and his mother fears he is being lured down a dark path by one of his teammates. Mindy doesn’t know that her husband and her son, Evan, are keeping secrets from her --- secrets that might destroy them all. At the center of all of them is Chris Brennan. Why is he there? What does he want? And what is he willing to do to get it? Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.
OUR SHORT HISTORY by Lauren Grodstein (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Karen White
Karen Neulander has always been fiercely protective of her son, Jacob. When Jacob’s father, Dave, found out Karen was pregnant and made it clear that fatherhood wasn’t in his plans, Karen walked out of the relationship, never telling Dave her intention was to raise their child alone. But now Jake is asking to meet his dad, and with good reason: Karen is dying. When she finally calls her ex, she’s shocked to find Dave ecstatic about the son he never knew he had. With just a few more months to live, Karen resists allowing Dave to insinuate himself into Jake’s life. She wrestles with the truth that the only thing she cannot bring herself to do for her son --- let his father become a permanent part of his life --- is the thing he needs from her the most. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
THE PERFECT STRANGER by Megan Miranda (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Rebekkah Ross
Confronted by a restraining order and the threat of a lawsuit, failed journalist Leah Stevens needs to get out of Boston when she runs into an old friend, Emmy Grey, who has just left a troubled relationship. Emmy proposes they move to rural Pennsylvania, where Leah can get a teaching position and both women can start again. But their new start is threatened when a woman with an eerie resemblance to Leah is assaulted, and Emmy disappears days later. Determined to find Emmy, Leah cooperates with Kyle Donovan, a handsome young police officer on the case. As they investigate her friend’s life for clues, Leah begins to wonder if she ever really know Emmy at all. Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum.
RAGDOLL by Daniel Cole (Thriller)
Audiobook available, performed by Alex Wyndham
William Fawkes, a controversial detective known as The Wolf, has just been reinstated to his post after he was suspended for assaulting a vindicated suspect. Still under psychological evaluation, Fawkes returns to the force eager for a big case. When his former partner and friend, Detective Emily Baxter, calls him to a crime scene, he’s sure this is it: the body is made of the dismembered parts of six victims, sewn together like a puppet --- a corpse that becomes known as “The Ragdoll.” Fawkes is tasked with identifying the six victims, but that gets dicey when his reporter ex-wife anonymously receives photographs from the crime scene, along with a list of six names, and the dates on which the Ragdoll Killer plans to murder them. The final name on the list is Fawkes. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub and L. Dean Murphy.
THE ROAD TO JONESTOWN: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple by Jeff Guinn (True Crime)
Audiobook available, read by George Newbern
In the 1950s, a young Indianapolis minister named Jim Jones preached a curious blend of the gospel and Marxism. His congregation was racially integrated, and he was a much-lauded leader in the contemporary civil rights movement. Eventually, Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to northern California. He became involved in electoral politics and soon was a prominent Bay Area leader. In THE ROAD TO JONESTOWN, Jeff Guinn examines Jones’ life, from his extramarital affairs, drug use and fraudulent faith healing to the fraught decision to move almost a thousand of his followers to a settlement in the jungles of Guyana in South America. Reviewed by Rebecca Kilberg.
A SIMPLE FAVOR by Darcey Bell (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available; performed by Andi Arndt, Xe Sands and Matthew Waterson
When Emily asks Stephanie to pick up her son, Nicky, after school, she happily says yes. Nicky and Stephanie’s son, Miles, are classmates and best friends, and the five-year-olds love being together --- just like she and Emily. But Emily doesn’t come back. She doesn’t answer calls or return texts. Stephanie knows something is terribly wrong; Emily would never leave Nicky. Terrified, she reaches out to Emily’s husband, Sean, offering emotional support. Then, she and Sean receive shocking news. Emily is dead. The nightmare of her disappearance is over. Or is it? Because soon, Stephanie will begin to see that nothing --- not friendship, love, or even an ordinary favor --- is as simple as it seems. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
TELL ME HOW THIS ENDS WELL by David Samuel Levinson (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Michael Goldstrom
In 2022, American Jews face an increasingly unsafe and anti-Semitic landscape at home. Against this backdrop, the Jacobson family gathers for Passover in Los Angeles. But their immediate problems are more personal than political, with the three adult children in various states of crisis, the result, each claims, of a lifetime of mistreatment by their father, Julian. The siblings have begun to suspect that Julian is hastening their mother Roz's demise, and years of resentment boil over as they debate whether to go through with the real reason for their reunion: an ill-considered plot to end their father’s iron rule for good. That is, if they can put their bickering, grudges, festering relationships and distrust of one another aside long enough to act. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
THE TWELVE LIVES OF SAMUEL HAWLEY by Hannah Tinti (Literary Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Elizabeth Wiley
A loner who spent years living on the run, Samuel Hawley raised his daughter, Loo, on the road, always watching his back. Now that Loo is a teenager, Hawley wants only to give her a normal life. In his late wife’s hometown, he finds work as a fisherman, while Loo struggles to fit in at the local high school. She also grows more and more curious about the death of the mother she never knew. Soon, everywhere she turns, she encounters the mysteries of her parents’ lives before she was born. As Loo uncovers a history that’s darker than she could have known, the demons of her father’s past spill over into the present --- and together both Hawley and Loo must face a reckoning yet to come. Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.
A TWIST OF THE KNIFE by Becky Masterman (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Suzanne Toren
Ex-FBI agent Brigid Quinn, now happily settled in Tucson, doesn’t visit her family in Florida much. But her former partner on the force, Laura Coleman --- a woman whose life she has saved and who has saved her life in turn --- is living there now. So when Laura calls about a case that is not going well, Brigid doesn’t hesitate to get on a plane. On leave from the Bureau, Laura has been volunteering for a legal group trying to prove the innocence of a man who is on death row for killing his family. Laura is firmly convinced that he didn’t do it, while Brigid isn’t so sure. But the date for his execution is coming up so quickly that they’ll have to act fast to find any evidence that may absolve him before it’s too late. Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman.