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Reviews

Reviews

by Ken Bruen - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Jack Taylor has never quite been able to get his life together, but now he has truly hit rock bottom. Still reeling from a violent family tragedy, Taylor is busy drowning his grief in Jameson and uppers, as usual, when a high-profile officer in the local Garda is murdered. After another Guard is found dead, and then another, Taylor’s old colleagues from the force implore him to take on the case. The plot is one big game, and all of the pieces seem to be moving at the behest of one dangerously mysterious team: a trio of young killers with very different styles, but who are united by their common desire to take down Jack Taylor. Their ring leader is Jericho, a psychotic girl from Galway who is grieving the loss of her lover, and who will force Jack to confront some personal trauma from his past.

by J.D. Rhoades - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Jack Keller is back in rural North Carolina, looking for steady work and trying to establish a relationship with Francis, the son he never knew. But the boy has heard too much about Keller, particularly from Ben Jones, his half-brother and the son of Marie, the woman Keller loves. Keller is living with the guilt of knowing that much of Ben’s turmoil stems from that fateful day of blood and madness on a burning mountainside when Keller saved Ben’s life and that of his mother. But it came at a terrible price. Keller’s intervention on behalf of a bullied refugee girl and her family draws him into a confrontation with people from that family’s own dark past, including a trio of vicious and sadistic female assassins --- with Ben, Marie and Francis destined to end up in the crosshairs as well.

by Lee Child - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Jack Reacher is on a Greyhound bus, minding his own business. He steps off the bus to help an old man who is obviously just a victim waiting to happen. But you know what they say about good deeds. Now Reacher wants to make it right. An elderly couple has made a few well-meaning mistakes, and now they owe big money to some very bad people. One brazen move leads to another, and suddenly Reacher finds himself a wanted man in the middle of a brutal turf war between rival Ukrainian and Albanian gangs. Reacher has to stay one step ahead of the loan sharks, the thugs and the assassins. He teams up with a fed-up waitress who knows a little more than she’s letting on, and sets out to take down the powerful and make the greedy pay.

by Daniel Kraus - Fiction, Horror, Suspense, Thriller

In a ruined house at the end of Yellow Street, an angry outcast hatches a scheme to take revenge for all the wrongs he has suffered. With the help of three alienated kids, he plans to hide razor blades, poison and broken glass in Halloween candy, maiming or killing dozens of innocent children. But as the clock ticks closer to sundown, will one of his helpers --- an innocent himself, in his own streetwise way --- carry out or defeat the plan?

by Tim Maleeny - Fiction, Mystery

At the height of tourist season, an armored car drives off a crowded pier and sinks to the bottom of San Francisco Bay. By the time divers find the wreck, the cash is gone and the driver has vanished. The police are convinced it's an inside job, but local merchant Vera Young, whose boyfriend drove the armored car, claims it was much more than a simple heist. Vera swears the missing driver is innocent and wants him found before the police can throw him in jail. Private investigator Cape Weathers reluctantly takes the case but warns Vera that her boyfriend is likely guilty --- or dead. What starts as a manhunt uncovers a criminal conspiracy of money laundering, illegal drug testing, and a network of corporations willing to do anything to protect their stock price.

by John Connolly - Fiction, Supernatural Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

On a lonely moor in northern England, the body of a young woman is discovered. In the south, a girl lies buried beneath a Saxon mound. To the southeast, the ruins of a priory hide a human skull. Each is a sacrifice, a summons. And something in the darkness has heard the call. Charlie Parker has also heard it, and from the forests of Maine to the deserts of the Mexican border, from the canals of Amsterdam to the streets of London, he will track those who would cast the world into darkness. Parker fears no evil --- but evil fears him.

by James Sallis - Fiction, Mystery

Sarah Jane Pullman is a good cop with a complicated past. From her small-town chicken-farming roots through her runaway adolescence, court-ordered Army stint, ill-advised marriage, and years slinging scrambled eggs over greasy spoon griddles, Sarah Jane unfolds her life story, a parable about memory, atonement and finding shape in chaos. Her life takes an unexpected turn when she is named the de facto sheriff of a rural town, investigating the mysterious disappearance of the sheriff whose shoes she’s filling --- and the even more mysterious realities of the life he was hiding from his own colleagues and closest friends.

by Nicci French - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

When Neve Connolly pays a morning-after visit to her lover, Saul, and finds him brutally murdered, all the lies she has so painstakingly stitched together threaten to unravel. After scrubbing clean every trace of her existence from Saul’s life --- and death --- Neve believes she can return to normal, shaken but intact. But she can’t get out of her head the one tormenting question: What was she forgetting? An investigation into the slaying could provide the answer. It’s brought Detective Chief Inspector Alastair Hitching, and Neve’s worst fears, to her door. But with every new lie, every new misdirection to save herself, Neve descends further into the darkness of her betrayal --- and into more danger than she ever imagined.

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

As the holidays approach, Detective Lindsay Boxer and her friends in the Women's Murder Club have much to celebrate. Crime is down. The medical examiner's office is quiet. Even the courts are showing some Christmas spirit. And the news cycle is so slow that journalist Cindy Thomas is on assignment to tell a story about the true meaning of the season for San Francisco. Then a fearsome criminal known only as "Loman" seizes control of the headlines. He is planning a deadly surprise for Christmas morning. And he has commissioned dozens of criminal colleagues to take actions that will mask his plans. All that Lindsay and the SFPD can figure out is that Loman's greed --- for riches, for bloodshed, for attention --- is limitless.

by John Sandford - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

At the local state university, two feuding departments have faced off on the battleground of science and medicine. Each carries their views to extremes that may seem absurd, but highly educated people of sound mind and good intentions can reasonably disagree, right? Then a renowned and confrontational scholar winds up dead, and Virgil Flowers is brought in to investigate. As he probes the recent ideological unrest, he soon comes to realize he's dealing with people who, on this one particular issue, are functionally crazy. Among this group of wildly impassioned, diametrically opposed zealots lurks a killer, and it will be up to Virgil to sort the murderer from the mere maniacs.