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Reviews

Reviews

by James Ellroy - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

A body is unearthed in Griffith Park. The cops tag it a routine dead-man job. They're wrong. It's an early-warning signal of Chaos. There's a murderous fire and a gold heist. There's Fifth Column treason on American soil. There are homegrown Nazis, Commies and race racketeers. It's populism ascendant. There are two dead cops in a dive off the jazz-club strip. And three men and one woman have a hot date with history. Elmer Jackson is a corrupt Vice cop. He's a flesh peddler and a bagman for the L.A. Chief of Police. Hideo Ashida is a crime-lab whiz, lashed by anti-Japanese rage. Dudley Smith is a PD hardnose working Army Intelligence. He's gone rogue and gone all-the-way fascist. Joan Conville was born rogue. She's a defrocked Navy lieutenant and a war profiteer to her core. L.A. '42. Homefront madness. Wartime inferno.

by Blake Crouch - Fiction, Science Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

At first, it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. But the force that’s sweeping the world is no pathogen. It’s just the first shock wave, unleashed by a stunning discovery --- and what’s in jeopardy is not our minds but the very fabric of time itself. In New York City, Detective Barry Sutton is closing in on the truth --- and in a remote laboratory, neuroscientist Helena Smith is unaware that she alone holds the key to this mystery...and the tools for fighting back. Together, Barry and Helena will have to confront their enemy --- before they, and the world, are trapped in a loop of ever-growing chaos.

by James Patterson and David Ellis - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

FBI agent Emmy Dockery is young and driven, and her unique skill at seeing connections others miss has brought her an impressive string of arrests. But a shocking new case has left her utterly baffled. The victims all appear to have died by accident and seemingly have nothing in common. But this many deaths can't be a coincidence. And the killer is somehow one step ahead of every move Dockery makes. To FBI special agent Harrison "Books" Bookman, everyone in the FBI is a suspect --- particularly Emmy Dockery (the fact that she's his ex-fiancee doesn't make it easier). But someone else is watching Dockery. Studying, learning, waiting. Until it's the perfect time to strike.

by Patrick Lee - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Former Special Forces operative Sam Dryden is the target of an unsuccessful attempted abduction. Using his attacker's cell phone, he learns that another person, a woman named Danica Ellis, is also being targeted. Dryden arrives just in time to save Danica from the assault team sent after her. But neither of them recognize the other, or have any idea why they are being targeted. The only clue is a heavily redacted, official-looking document given to Danica by her stepfather before he was killed. It refers to witnesses to a secret military site in Ashland, Iowa, in 1989. Dryden and Danica lived in Ashland in 1989, when they were both 12 years old, though neither of them has any memory of the other. Now it’s up to them to piece together the details of their past --- and elude the forces that are after them in the present-day.

by Mark Billingham - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

When DI Tom Thorne arrives at the metro station, where a woman named Philippa Goodwin threw herself in front of an underground train, he inexplicably senses something awry and feels compelled to dig deeper. He soon discovers that she was the victim of a callous conman who preys on vulnerable women, and whose deception plunged Philippa to her end. Thorne enlists DI Nicola Tanner to help him track down the swindler and bring him to justice. But the detective duo gets more than they bargained for when a young man’s bludgeoned body turns up on the shore of a nearby seaside town. The two cases come together in a way that neither of the detectives could have foreseen.

by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins - Fiction, Western

In a bloody attack, ruthless outlaws hijack the morning stage from Trinidad, New Mexico. Not for gold or money, but for Denver banker Raymond Parker. Even more valuable to Sheriff Caleb York are the money man’s fellow passengers: York’s ex-flame, ranch owner Willa Cullen, and Rita Filley, the sensual owner of the Victory Saloon. Holding their captives at a hotel in the ghost town known as Hell Junction, the Hargrave gang demands a high ransom. Caleb must find a way to infiltrate the gang and rescue the hostages. Because Caleb York knows that when you’re in Hell, justice takes no prisoners.

by Vincent Zandri - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

When ex-con and novelist JA Kingsley loses everything he ever cared about, including his wife and teenage daughter, he abandons his home in order to write a new book and restart his fractured life. Traveling to the Adirondack Mountains, he checks himself into The Loon Lake Inn, a peaceful, lakeside resort. For a brief moment, he feels at peace with himself and a world that has seemingly turned its back on him. But what he doesn’t expect is the lurid attraction that ignites between him and the wife of the inn’s owner, who has connections to some of most dangerous people imaginable. And what begins as a torrid affair turns into something much more sinister when they decide that nothing will stand in the way of their love --- including murder.

by Karen Cleveland - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Stephanie Maddox works her dream job policing power and exposing corruption within the FBI. A single parent, Steph has missed a lot of school events, birthdays and vacations with Zachary, who is now a teenager. But the truth is, she would move heaven and earth for him, including protecting him from an explosive secret in her past. It just never occurred to her that Zachary would keep secrets of his own. One day, while straightening her son’s room, Steph is shaken to discover a gun hidden in his closet. A loaded gun. Then comes a knock at her front door --- a colleague on the domestic terrorism squad, who utters three devastating words: “It’s about Zachary.”

by Owen Laukkanen - Adventure, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Former U.S. Marine Jess Winslow reenters civilian life a new widow, with little more to her name than a falling-down house, a medical discharge for PTSD, and a loyal dog named Lucy. After 15 years in state prison, Mason Burke owns one set of clothes, a wallet, and a photo of Lucy, the service dog he trained while behind bars. When Jess' late husband piloted his final "fishing" expedition, he stole and stashed a valuable package from his drug dealer associates. Now the package is gone, and the sheriff's department has seized Jess' dearest possession --- her dog. Unless Jess turns over the missing goods, Lucy will be destroyed. To rescue Lucy, Jesse and Mason will have to forge an uneasy alliance.

by Ragnar Jónasson - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Autumn of 1987 takes a young couple on a romantic trip in the Westfjords holiday --- a trip that gets an unexpected ending and has catastrophic consequences. Ten years later, a small group of friends go for a weekend in an old hunting lodge in Elliðaey --- a place completely cut off from the outside world --- to reconnect. But one of them isn't going to make it out alive. And Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir is determined to find the truth in the darkness.