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Reviews

Reviews

by Phillip Margolin - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Criminal defense attorney and former MMA fighter Robin Lockwood does not believe in magic. Behind every good illusion is a good explanation --- unless you consider the work of Robert Chesterfield, that is. One of her firm’s former clients, Chesterfield is a career magician who was linked to a series of suspicious deaths. Even though he walked free, Robin can’t help but wonder if he was as innocent as he appeared. Now, decades later, the mystery surrounding Chesterfield has taken a dark turn. When he stages his greatest-ever trick, called the Chamber of Death, Chesterfield himself turns up dead at the end. With dozens of witnesses --- and no one with any idea of how it was orchestrated --- Robin finds herself at loose ends as she tries to untangle this twisted case…and learn the truth about Chesterfield, once and for all.

by Max Allan Collins - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

No sooner do Hot Rod and the Pistons reunite for their induction into the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame than two band members take a final bow. Both alleged suicides. With replacements at the ready, the Pistons are back on home turf to headline the first ever Rock and Country Music Fest. Police Chief Krista Larson and her father, Keith, suspect that there may be more to the band members’ untimely deaths than anyone else can see. As Krista and Keith navigate the investigation, a dark picture of the band’s rocky history begins to take center stage. As betrayal, revenge and blackmail start playing out in the present, the father-daughter team fear that this encore may be the band’s finale.

by Simone St. James - Fiction, Supernatural Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Upstate New York, 1982. Viv Delaney wants to move to New York City. To help pay for it, she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. But something isnʼt right at the motel, something haunting and scary. Upstate New York, 2017. Carly Kirk has never been able to let go of the story of her aunt Viv, who mysteriously disappeared from the Sun Down before she was born. She decides to move to Fell and visit the motel, where she quickly learns that nothing has changed since 1982. And she soon finds herself ensnared in the same mysteries that claimed her aunt.

by Deepa Anappara - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense

Nine-year-old Jai drools outside sweet shops, watches too many reality police shows, and considers himself to be smarter than his friends Pari (though she gets the best grades) and Faiz (though Faiz has an actual job). When a classmate goes missing, Jai decides to use the crime-solving skills he has picked up from TV to find him. He asks Pari and Faiz to be his assistants, and together they draw up lists of people to interview and places to visit. But what begins as a game turns sinister as other children start disappearing from their neighborhood. Jai, Pari and Faiz have to confront terrified parents, an indifferent police force and rumors of soul-snatching djinns. As the disappearances edge ever closer to home, the lives of Jai and his friends will never be the same again.

by Erica Spindler - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Sienna Scott grew up in the dark shadow of her mother’s paranoid delusions. Now, Sienna has returned home to confront her past and the unsolved murder that altered the course of her life. In her mother’s shuttered house, a fear that’s always haunted Sienna rears its ugly head yet again: maybe it was she who had been the killer’s target that night. And now, with it, a terrifying new realization that the killer is still out there...and intends to take care of his unfinished business. As the walls close in, the line between memory and truth begins to blur. Has Sienna’s worst nightmare come true? Or is she, like her mother, losing her grip on reality? These questions take on a whole new meaning as Sienna tries to unmask a killer and finally prove that she may be her mother’s look-alike, but she’s not her clone.

by Lee Goldberg - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

A video of Deputy Eve Ronin’s off-duty arrest of an abusive movie star goes viral, turning her into a popular hero at a time when the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is plagued by scandal. The sheriff makes her the youngest female homicide detective in the department’s history. Now Eve has to justify her new badge. Her chance comes when she and her partner are called to the blood-splattered home of a missing single mother and her two kids. The horrific carnage screams multiple murder --- but there are no corpses. Eve has to rely on her instincts and tenacity to find the bodies and capture the vicious killer, all while battling her own insecurities and mounting pressure from the media, her bosses and the bereaved family.

by Jane Shemilt - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Over the course of a long, hot summer in London, the lives of three very different married couples collide when their children join the same tutoring circle, resulting in illicit relationships, shocking violence and unimaginable fallout. As the weeks go by, the couples become very close. Resentments flare. An affair begins. No one sees the five children at their secret games or realize how much their family dynamics are changing until tragedy strikes. The story twists and then twists again while the three families desperately search for answers. It’s only as they begin to unravel the truth of what happened over the summer that they realize evil has crept quietly into their world. But has this knowledge come too late?

by Robert Bryndza - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Kate Marshall was a promising young police detective when she caught the notorious Nine Elms serial killer. But her greatest victory suddenly turned into a nightmare. Traumatized, betrayed and publicly vilified for the shocking circumstances surrounding the cannibal murder case, Kate could only watch as her career ended in scandal. Fifteen years after those catastrophic events, Kate is still haunted by the unquiet ghosts of her troubled past. Now a lecturer at a small coastal English university, she finally has a chance to face them, as a copycat killer has taken up the Nine Elms mantle. Success promises redemption, but there’s much more on the line: Kate was the original killer’s intended fifth victim…and his successor means to finish the job.

by Saul Black - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

On a hot summer night, a watchful neighbor locks eyes with an intruder and unwittingly alerts the police to a vicious crime scene next door: a lavish master bedroom where a man lies dead. Next to him, his wife is bleeding out onto the hardwood floor, clinging to life. The victim, Adam Grant, was a well-known San Francisco prosecutor --- a man whose connection to homicide detective Valerie Hart brings her face-to-face with a life she’s long since left behind. Adam’s career made him an easy target, and forensic evidence points towards an ex-con he put behind bars years ago. But while Adam’s wife and daughter grapple with their tragic loss, Valerie uncovers devastating clues that point in a more ominous direction.

by Lisa Jewell - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Shortly after her 25th birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames, which is worth millions. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well --- and she is on a collision course to meet them. Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy 10-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone. But where?