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Reviews

Reviews

by Hari Kunzru - Fiction

Seth is a shy, awkward twentysomething. Carter is more glamorous, the heir to a great American fortune. But they share an obsession with music --- especially the blues. One day, Seth discovers that he's accidentally recorded an unknown blues singer in a park. Carter puts the file online, claiming it's a 1920s recording by a made-up musician named Charlie Shaw. But when a music collector tells them that their recording is genuine --- that there really was a singer named Charlie Shaw --- the two white boys, along with Carter's sister, find themselves in over their heads, delving deeper and deeper into America's dark, vengeful heart.

by Peter Heller - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Celine has made a career out of tracking down missing persons nobody else can find. But when a young woman named Gabriela employs her expertise, what was meant to be Celine's last case becomes a scavenger hunt through her own memories, the secrets there and the surprising redemptions. Gabriela's father was a National Geographic photographer who went missing in Wyoming 20 years ago, and while he was assumed to have been mauled by a grizzly, his body was never found. Celine and her partner set out to Yellowstone National Park to follow a trail gone cold but soon realize that somebody desperately wants to keep this case closed.

by Matthew Betley - Adventure, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Roughly two years after the events of OVERWATCH, Logan West and John Quick are sent to Alaska to investigate the possible presence of a Russian black ops team on a mission to steal American next-generation technology. The resulting violent confrontation triggers a global search for the stolen technology and threatens to pit the United States against China in a looming shadow war and technology race. As Logan and John --- now joined by the chief of the CIA’s Special Operations Group, Cole Matthews --- battle their way through Spain, the Mediterranean and, ultimately, across Sudan, an imminent threat arises at home that FBI Deputy Director Mike Benson must face and determine if it is part of a deadly global conspiracy.

by Owen Laukkanen - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

She was a forgotten girl, a runaway found murdered on the High Line train through the northern Rocky Mountains and, with little local interest, put into a dead file. But she was not alone. When Kirk Stevens and Carla Windermere of the joint FBI-BCA violent crime force stumble upon the case, they discover a horror far greater than anyone expected --- a string of murders on the High Line, all of them young female drifters whom no one would notice. But someone has noticed now. Through the bleak midwinter and a frontier land of forbidding geography, Stevens and Windermere follow a frustratingly light trail of clues --- and where it ends, even they will be shocked.

by Dan Chaon - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his 40s when he hears the news: his adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustin’s parents, aunt and uncle. Despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty. Now, after DNA analysis has overturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning. Meanwhile, one of Dustin’s patients has been plying him with stories of the drowning deaths of a string of drunk college boys. At first Dustin dismisses his patient's suggestions that a serial killer is at work as paranoid thinking, but eventually he starts to believe that there’s more to the deaths than coincidence.

by David Joy - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

A combat veteran returned from war, Thad Broom can’t leave the hardened world of Afghanistan behind, nor can he forgive himself for what he saw there. His mother, April, is haunted by her own demons, a secret trauma she has carried for years. Between them is Aiden McCall, loyal to both but unable to hold them together. Connected by bonds of circumstance and duty, friendship and love, these three lives are blown apart when Aiden and Thad witness the accidental death of their drug dealer and a riot of dope and cash drops in their laps. On a meth-fueled journey to nowhere, they will either find the grit to overcome the darkness or be consumed by it.

by Paula Daly - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Karen Bloom believes that tough discipline is the true art of parenting and that achievement leads to ultimate happiness. But in an unending quest for excellence, her seemingly flawless family starts to rebel against her. Her husband, Noel, is a handsome doctor with a proclivity for alcohol and women. Their prodigy daughter, Bronte, is excelling at school, music lessons and dance classes, yet she longs to run away. Verity, Noel’s teenage daughter from his first marriage, is starting to display aggressive behavior. And Karen’s son from a previous relationship falls deeper into drug use. When tragedy strikes the Blooms, Karen’s carefully constructed facade begins to fall apart --- and once the deadly cracks appear, they are impossible to stop.

by Johnny Shaw - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Jimmy Veeder has finally settled down, completing his dramatic transformation from hell-raiser to family man. But the night after his wedding, childhood friend Tomás Morales, the current crime lord of Mexicali, turns up on his doorstep offering information about the whereabouts of his son’s grandfather, for whom Jimmy has been searching for years. Jimmy and Angie head to Mexico accompanied by old pals Bobby Maves and Griselda. The trip immediately careens into chaos when they find themselves shadowed by thugs, shot at by cartel soldiers, and forced into a confrontation with a violent, volatile drug lord. The fight spreads from Sinaloa back to Jimmy’s doorstep, putting everything Jimmy cares about directly in the crosshairs.

by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Married to a beautiful police officer and father of two young boys, neurosurgeon Eitan Green has the perfect life. Then, speeding along a deserted moonlit road after an exhausting hospital shift, he hits someone. Seeing that the man, an African migrant, is beyond help, he flees the scene. When the victim's widow knocks at Eitan's door the next day, holding his wallet and divulging that she knows what happened, Eitan discovers that her price for silence is not money. It is something else entirely, something that will shatter Eitan's safe existence and take him into a world of secrets and lies he never could have anticipated.

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Aldis hates her job working in a juvenile detention center in rural Iceland. The boys are difficult, the owners are unpleasant, and there are mysterious noises at night. And then two of the boys go astray. Decades later, single father Odinn is looking into alleged abuse at the center. The more he finds out, though, the more it seems the odd events of the 1970s are linked to the accident that killed his ex-wife. Was her death something more sinister?