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Reviews

Reviews

by Laird Barron - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Ex-majordomo and bodyguard to an industrial tycoon-cum-U.S. senator, Badja Adeyemi is in hiding and shortly on his way to either a jail cell or a grave, depending on who finds him first. In his final days as a free man, he hires Isaiah Coleridge to tie up a loose end: the suspicious death of his nephew four years earlier. At the time police declared it an accident, and Adeyemi isn't sure it wasn't, but one final look may bring his sister peace. So it is that Coleridge and his investigative partner, Lionel Robard, find themselves in a tiny town in New York State that is home to outsized secrets and an unnerving cabal of locals who are protecting them. At the epicenter of it all is the site of a stalled supercollider project, an immense subterranean construction that may have an even deeper, more insidious purpose.

by Michael Connelly - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Veteran reporter Jack McEvoy has taken down killers before, but when a woman he had a one-night stand with is murdered in a particularly brutal way, McEvoy realizes he might be facing a criminal mind unlike any he's ever encountered. Jack investigates --- against the warnings of the police and his own editor --- and makes a shocking discovery that connects the crime to other mysterious deaths across the country. Undetected by law enforcement, a vicious killer has been hunting women, using genetic data to select and stalk his targets. Uncovering the murkiest corners of the dark web, Jack races to find and protect the last source who can lead him to his quarry. But the killer has already chosen his next target, and he's ready to strike.

by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Three victims, three bullets, three cities. The shooters' aim is as fearsomely precise as their target selection. When Lindsay Boxer realizes that the fallen men and women excel in a lucrative, criminal activity, she leads the charge in the manhunt for the killers. As the casualty list expands, fear and fascination with this suspicious shooting gallery galvanizes the country. The victims were no angels, but are the shooters villains…or heroes?

by Brian Panowich - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

As a lifelong resident and ex-arson investigator for McFalls County, Dane Kirby has lived his life in one of the most chaotic and crime-ridden regions of the south. When he gets called in to consult on the brutal murder of Arnie Blackwell in a Jacksonville, Florida, motel room, he and his FBI counterpart, Special Agent Roselita Velasquez, begin an investigation that leads them back to the criminal circles of his own backyard. Someone is hacking a bloody trail throughout the Southeast looking for Arnie’s younger brother, a boy with Asperger’s Syndrome who possesses an unusual skill with numbers that could make a lot of money and that has already gotten a lot of people killed --- and has even more of the deadliest people alive willing to do anything it takes to exploit him.

by Timothy Hallinan - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Eight years ago, Poke Rafferty, an American travel writer, and his Thai wife, Rose, adopted a Bangkok street child named Miaow, forming an unconventional intercultural family. But now that family is in jeopardy. The birth of Poke and Rose’s newborn son has littered their small apartment with emotional land mines, forcing Poke to question his identity as a dad and Miaow to question her identity as a daughter. At the same time, the most cantankerous member of the small gang of Old Bangkok Hands who hang out at the Expat Bar suddenly goes missing under suspicious circumstances. Engaged in the search for the missing American, Poke is caught completely off-guard when someone he thought was gone forever resurfaces --- and she has the power to tear the Raffertys apart.

by David Ignatius - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

CIA operations officer Michael Dunne is tasked with infiltrating an Italian news organization that smells like a front for an enemy intelligence service. Headed by an American journalist, the self-styled bandits run a cyber operation unlike anything the CIA has seen before. Fast, slick and indiscriminate, the group steals secrets from everywhere and anyone, and exploits them in ways the CIA can neither understand nor stop. Dunne has never refused an assignment, and his boss has assured his protection. But when news of the operation breaks and someone leaks that Dunne had an extramarital affair while on the job, the CIA leaves him to take the fall. Now a year later, fresh out of jail, Dunne sets out to hunt down and take vengeance on the people who destroyed his life.

written by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell - Fiction

They've infiltrated homes in Hong Kong, shops in Vancouver, the streets of Sierra Leone, town squares in Oaxaca, schools in Tel Aviv, bedrooms in Indiana. They're everywhere. They're here. They're us. They're not pets, or ghosts, or robots. They're real people, but how can a person living in Berlin walk freely through the living room of someone in Sydney? How can someone in Bangkok have breakfast with your children in Buenos Aires, without your knowing? Especially when these people are completely anonymous, unknown, unfindable. The characters in LITTLE EYES reveal the beauty of connection between far-flung souls --- but they also expose the ugly side of our increasingly linked world.

by Jordan Farmer - Fiction, Mystery, Noir

The hunchbacked son of a West Virginia hill preacher, Hollis Bragg now resides in rural isolation next to the burned-out husk of his father's church, and earns his living ghostwriting songs for a popular band that left the poverty and corruption of Appalachia and never looked back. Then, much to his consternation, he's discovered by Russell Watson, a local musician and fan who also happens to be the rebellious son of the local chemical company magnate. When a devastating toxic spill at the Watson chemical plant poisons the local water, it sets off an unpredictable series of events as Hollis witnesses a murder, faces a shocking betrayal, and begins to come to terms with his body and his past.

by Michael Ledwidge - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

When a Gulfstream jet goes down in the Bahamas carrying a fortune in cash and ill-gotten diamonds, expat diving instructor Michael Gannon is the only person on the scene. Assuming himself the beneficiary of a drug deal gone bad, Gannon thinks he’s home free with the sudden windfall --- until he realizes he forgot to ask one simple question: Who were the six dead men on the plane? To find the answer, Gannon is soon thrust into an increasingly complex and deadly game of cat and mouse with a group of the world’s most powerful and dangerous men who will stop at nothing to catch him.

by Max Allan Collins - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Historical Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

It's 1954, and Nathan Heller takes on the Sam Sheppard case. A young doctor is startled from sleep and discovers his wife brutally murdered. He claims that a mysterious intruder killed her. But all the evidence points to a disturbed husband who has grown tired of married life and yearned to be free at all costs. Sheppard is swiftly convicted and sent to rot in prison. Just how firm was the evidence…and was it tampered with to fit a convenient narrative to settle scores and push political agendas? As Heller digs into the case, he becomes convinced of Sheppard’s innocence. But he can’t prove it and has to let the case drop. Heller is given another chance years later, and this time he's determined to free the man…even if it brings his own death a bit closer.