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Reviews

Reviews

by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins - Fiction, Hard-boiled Mystery, Mystery

After Mike Hammer witnesses Wall Street superstar Vincent Colby getting clipped by a speeding red Ferrari, the shaken victim's stockbroker father hires Hammer to find the driver. But the toughest private eye of them all soon is caught up in a series of bizarre, seemingly unconnected slayings marked by a forbidden martial arts technique. What do a lovely redhead, a short-tempered bartender, an exotic call girl, a murdered police inspector and a movie stuntman have to do with a scheme that might have transformed young Colby into a psychological time bomb?

by Donna Leon - Fiction, Mystery

When Dottoressa Donato calls the Questura to report that a dying patient at the hospice Fatebenefratelli wants to speak to the police, Commissario Guido Brunetti and his colleague, Claudia Griffoni, waste no time in responding. “They killed him. It was bad money. I told him no,” Benedetta Toso gasps the words about her recently deceased husband, Vittorio Fadalto. Even though he is not sure she can hear him, Brunetti softly promises that he and Griffoni will look into what initially appears to be a private family tragedy. Piecing together the tangled threads, in time Brunetti comes to realize the perilous meaning in the woman’s accusation and the threat it reveals to the health of the entire region.

by Tom Bouman - Fiction, Mystery

A headless stranger is found in the woods of Wild Thyme, a small town in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania. All signs point to a man-killing bear, and Officer Henry Farrell would just as soon leave this hunt to the Game Commission. But doubts arise when he discovers the victim was a retired investigator. What drew the investigator to sleepy Wild Thyme? Before Henry can find answers, his own nephew disappears into the hills. Then an old flame dies under suspicious circumstances, leaving Henry as the prime suspect. Torn between protecting his family and clearing his name, Henry fights to protect the most he’s ever had to lose.

by Scott Phillips - Fiction, Humor, Noir, Suspense, Thriller

Douglas Rigby, attorney-at-law, is bankrupt. He’s just sunk his last $200,000 --- a clandestine “loan” from his last remaining client, former bigshot TV exec Glenn Haskill --- into a cocaine deal gone wrong. The lesson? Never trust anyone else with the dirty work. Desperate to get back on top, Rigby formulates an art forgery scheme involving one of Glenn’s priceless paintings, a victimless crime. But for Rigby to pull this one off, he’ll need to negotiate a whole cast of players with their own agendas, including his wife, his girlfriend, an embittered art forger, Glenn’s resentful nurse, and the man’s money-hungry nephew. One misstep, and it all falls apart. Will he be able to save his skin?

by Jussi Adler-Olsen - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

The newspaper refers to the body only as Victim 2117 --- the 2,117th refugee to die in the Mediterranean Sea. But to three people, the unnamed victim is so much more, and the death sets off a chain of events that throws Department Q, Copenhagen’s cold cases division led by Detective Carl Mørck, into a deeply dangerous --- and deeply personal --- case. A case that not only reveals dark secrets about the past, but has deadly implications for the future.

by Andy Davidson - Fiction, Supernatural Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Ever since her father was killed when she was just a child, Miranda Crabtree has kept her head down and her eyes up, ferrying contraband for a mad preacher and his declining band of followers to make ends meet and to protect an old witch and a secret child from harm. But dark forces are at work in the bayou, both human and supernatural, conspiring to disrupt the rhythms of Miranda’s peculiar and precarious life. And when the preacher makes an unthinkable demand, it sets Miranda on a desperate, dangerous path, forcing her to consider what she is willing to sacrifice to keep her loved ones safe.

by John McMahon - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

A hard-nosed real estate baron is dead, and detectives P.T. Marsh and Remy Morgan learn there's a long list of suspects. Mason Falls, Georgia, may be a small town, but Ennis Fultz had filled it with professional rivals, angry neighbors and a wronged ex-wife. As Marsh and Morgan dig into the case, it becomes clear that Fultz's death was not an isolated case of revenge. It may be part of a dark web of crimes connected to an accident that upended Marsh's life a couple years earlier --- and that now threatens the life of a young child. Marsh veers dangerously off track as his search for clues becomes personal...and brings him to a place where a man's good deeds turn out to be more dangerous than his worst crimes.

by C. J. Box - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

When Joe Pickett is asked to join the rescue efforts for the victim of a startling grizzly attack, he reluctantly leaves his district behind. One survivor of the grizzly's rampage tells a bizarre story, but just as Joe begins to suspect the attack is not what it seems, he is brought home by an emergency on his own turf. Someone has targeted a prominent local judge, shooting at him from a seemingly impossible distance. While the judge was not hit, his wife is severely wounded, and it is up to Joe to find answers --- and the shooter. The search for the would-be assassin becomes personal when Joe's best friend, Nate Romanowski --- just as he's adjusting to the arrival of his first child --- falls under suspicion for the crime.

by Peter Swanson - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Years ago, bookseller and mystery aficionado Malcolm Kershaw compiled a list of the genre’s most unsolvable murders --- which he titled “Eight Perfect Murders” --- chosen from among the best of the best. But no one is more surprised than Mal, now the owner of the Old Devils Bookstore in Boston, when an FBI agent comes looking for information about a series of unsolved murders that look eerily similar to the killings on Mal’s old list. And the FBI agent isn’t the only one interested in this bookseller who spends almost every night at home reading. A killer is out there, watching his every move --- a diabolical threat who knows way too much about Mal’s personal history, especially the secrets he’s never told anyone, even his recently deceased wife.

by Scott Carson - Fiction, Supernatural Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Far upstate, in New York’s ancient forests, a drowned village lays beneath the dark, still waters of the Chilewaukee reservoir. Early in the 20th century, the town was destroyed for the greater good: bringing water to the millions living downstate. Or at least that’s what the politicians from Manhattan insisted at the time. The local families, settled there since America’s founding, were forced from their land, but they didn’t move far…and some didn’t move at all. Now, a century later, an inspector assigned to oversee the dam witnesses something inexplicable. It turns out that more than the village was left behind in the waters of the Chill when it was abandoned. The townspeople didn’t evacuate without a fight. A dark prophecy remained, too, and the time has come for it to be fulfilled.