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Reviews

Reviews

by Nelson DeMille and Alex DeMille - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Army CID Special Agents Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor team up for their toughest assignment yet as they are dispatched to Camp Hayden to investigate the death of Major Roger Ames, the chief scientist in charge of the top-secret war games being conducted between a platoon of Army Rangers and a fleet of “lethal autonomous weapons.” Brodie and Taylor must untangle the complex web of alliances, animosities and secret agendas among the men and women of the isolated facility. In a place cut off from the world and exposed to the harsh desert elements, everyone is a suspect. Brodie and Taylor must uncover layers of deception to find the hidden hand behind the murder of Major Ames, and the real purpose of the activities at Camp Hayden and its terrifying arsenal of next-generation weapons.

by Mitch Albom - Fiction

When he is eight years old, Alfie Logan discovers the magical ability to get a second chance at everything. He can undo any moment and live it again. The one catch: he must accept the consequences of his second try --- for better or worse. Eventually, Alfie turns his gift to his love life, studying his crushes and going back to make himself more appealing. In time, he falls deeply in love with Gianna, the woman he believes is the one. He seems to find contentment. But as the years pass, Alfie’s eye begins to wander. Which is when he learns a lone caveat to his power: once he undoes a love, that person can never fall in love with him again. Knowing that if he gives in to temptation, he will risk losing what he has with Gianna, Alfie makes a choice that changes his life forever.

by Richard Osman - Fiction, Mystery

It’s been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles. And Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favorite criminal. But when Elizabeth meets Nick, a wedding guest asking for her help, she finds that the thrill of the chase is ignited once again. And when Nick disappears without a trace, his cagey business partner becomes the gang’s next stop. It seems the duo has something valuable --- something worth killing for. Joyce’s daughter, Joanna, jumps into the fray to help the gang as they seek answers. Has someone kidnapped Nick? And what’s this uncrackable code they keep hearing about? Plunged back into action once more, can the four friends solve the puzzle and a murder in time?

by Sara Ackerman - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Historical Romance, Mystery, Romance

1905: As the mother of a university and a woman with an iron will, Jane Stanford has made her share of enemies. After a scare at her mansion in San Francisco and on the advice of her doctor, she flees to Honolulu and the fashionable new Moana hotel. But as fate would have it, the island is not as safe as it seems. 2005: Zoe Finch is a bestselling author who desperately needs a jump-start on her next novel, and she makes a split decision to attend a writers' conference at the Moana under an assumed name. As a storm brews offshore, she begins having nightmares that feel hauntingly real. Terrified, Zoe enlists the help of mystery writer Dylan Winters and, over the course of the week, races to uncover the shocking truth of what happened in the hotel 100 years ago almost to the day.

by Joshua Sharpe - Nonfiction, True Crime

In 1985, a white man walked into a South Georgia church and brutally murdered Harold and Thelma Swain, two pillars of the area’s Black community. The killer vanished into the night. For 15 years, the case remained unsolved. Then authorities zeroed in on Dennis Perry, a carpenter who grew up nearby. Convicted with devastatingly flawed evidence, Perry received a double life sentence. When award-winning journalist and South Georgia native Joshua Sharpe retraces the case, he discovers a winding path of corruption, devastating missteps and secrets. He eventually uncovers explosive evidence that helps prove Perry’s innocence. And he confronts a long-ignored suspect: an alleged white supremacist who had bragged about committing the murders. But the fight for the truth is not easily won.

by Katie Bishop - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

On a beautiful summer’s night 20 years ago, troubled 17-year-old Tamara Drayton was found floating face down in the pool of her family’s idyllic mansion in the south of France, leaving her twin brother, golden-boy Blake, to pick up the pieces of their shattered family. Also left behind was their sister, Nina; at six years old, she became the youngest person ever to testify in a French murder trial. She’s the only one who saw what happened --- who watched as her babysitter, Josie Jackson, pushed Tamara under the water and held her there until she stopped breathing. Didn’t she? Twenty years later, Nina's memories have faded, leaving her with no idea of what really transpired that night. When a new true crime documentary about her sister’s murder is announced, Nina thinks this might be her chance to finally find out.

by Meg Waite Clayton - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

1957. Isabella Giori is 10 months into a standard seven-year studio contract when she auditions with Alfred Hitchcock. Just weeks later, she is sequestered by the studio’s “fixer” in a tiny Carmel cottage, waiting and dreading. Meanwhile, next door, Léon Chazan is annoyed when Iz interrupts his work on yet another screenplay he won’t be able to sell, because he’s been blacklisted. Soon, they’re together in his roadster, speeding down the fog-shrouded Big Sur coast. 2018. Twenty-six-year-old screenwriter Gemma Chazan, in Carmel to sell her grandfather’s cottage, finds a hidden safe full of secrets --- raising questions about who the screenwriter known simply as Chazan really was, and if she can live up to his name. 

by Daniel Silva - Adventure, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Gabriel Allon has been awarded a commission to restore one of the most important paintings in Venice. But when he discovers the body of a mysterious woman floating in the waters of the Venetian Lagoon, he finds himself in a desperate race to recover a lost masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci. The painting, a portrait of a beautiful young girl, has been gathering dust in a storeroom at the Vatican Museums for more than a century, misattributed and hidden beneath a worthless picture by an unknown artist. Because no one knows that the Leonardo is there, no one notices when it disappears one night during a suspicious power outage. No one but the ruthless mobsters and moneymen behind the theft --- and the mysterious woman whom Gabriel found in a watery grave in Venice. A woman without a name. A woman without a face.

by Jon Cowan - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

As a disgraced lawyer with a drinking problem, Jake West is coasting on what’s left of his charm and money. He used to be the kind of lawyer who could convince anyone of anything --- until he decided to take on his father’s biggest client and prove his dad was corrupt. Now Jake finds himself almost at rock bottom, and that’s before his ex-best friend is murdered and Jake is accused of the crime. In a desperate bid to save himself, Jake must sober up and search for the real killer, whom he suspects might be hidden in one of the case files of his father’s illustrious law firm. As he delves into a labyrinth of lies and corruption, Jake teams up with an eclectic group of equally broken people as they all must skirt the law in order to find the proof he needs…no matter the personal or professional cost.

by Kaira Rouda - Domestic Thriller, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

If you ask Jill Tingley, she’ll tell you that she and her husband, Jack, are college sweethearts living the dream in Southern California. Theirs is an enviable life, though they’ve grown distant in recent years. With their daughter, Maggie, away at college, Jill suggests a road trip to reconnect. Jack would rather do anything else than drive to Utah with his wife. He’s only stayed in this marriage because of a shared secret, a tragedy in the past that he wanted to keep buried. And for his daughter’s sake. But Jack is finished with the charade of his marriage. He’s filing for divorce as soon as they return, no matter what. But he doesn’t realize what else Jill is hiding. So begins a cat-and-mouse road trip as a cunning wife and a reluctant husband match wits and drive each other to the edge.