Skip to main content

Reviews

Reviews

by Joshua Moehling - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

It's a hot, miserable summer in the small town of Sandy Lake. Detective Ben Packard has finally settled into life here --- just in time for a tornado to sweep through the county, causing irreparable damage. Hiding among the debris is someone with a secret. When a mother who made enemies defending her bullied son is killed, the suspect list stretches across the entire town. For Packard, the case hits uncomfortably close to home. The deeper he digs, the more Sandy Lake hums with a tension that refuses to break. As thick smoke from nearby wildfires chokes the air, someone from Packard's past shows up on his doorstep without warning, forcing him to confront the reality of navigating life as a gay man in a small town bent on tradition, no matter the cost. 

by Michael Connelly - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Detective Sergeant Stilwell knows that his posting on Catalina Island is no paradise. Acting on a tip from a confidential informant, Stilwell and his deputies watch a plane land in the middle of the night at the Airport in the Sky, a remote airstrip in the mountains. A duffel bag of drugs is dropped and the deputies move in, but things quickly go sideways. While Stilwell chases the fleeing pickup man into the mountainside brush, shots are fired on the runway and the plane flies off. An internal inquiry follows, putting Stilwell on the bench until he is cleared of responsibility for the disastrous operation. But he is determined to find out who brought deadly violence to his island, so he begins his own secret investigation into the drug deal gone wrong.

by Sunyi Dean - Fantasy, Fiction, Gothic, Historical Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Horror

When Mercy Chan washes up on the shores of Hong Kong with no family, no money and no memories, the only refuge she finds is the infamous, ghost-infested slum of Kowloon Walled City. Since then, she has rebuilt her life, working for the local triad as a ghost talker and dealing with the angry and bitter spirits who haunt the district. But the past Mercy can’t remember isn't done with her. An unusually powerful ghost has infested Kowloon’s waterways, drowning innocents and threatening the district. It claims to know Mercy --- and secrets from her past that are best left forgotten. As Mercy is drawn into a deadly cat-and-mouse game with this malignant spirit, she begins to realize that the monster she fights within these walls may well be one of her own making.

by Lucy Clarke - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Seven years ago, two boys went missing at sea --- and only one was brought to shore. The Sandbank, a remote stretch of coast dotted with beach huts, was scarred forever. Sarah’s son survived all those years ago. But on the anniversary of the accident, he disappears without a trace. As new secrets begin to surface, The Sandbank hums with tension and unanswered questions. Sarah’s search grows more desperate, and she starts to mistrust everyone she knows. Someone saw everything on that fateful day seven years ago. And they’ll do anything to keep the truth buried.

by Alex Finlay - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

On May 1, 1992, Jules Delaney and Quinn Riley hardly know each other. Jules is high school queen bee in a small Midwestern town when she survives a brutal attack by the elusive May Day Killer --- a predator who strikes every May 1st. Quinn, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, is arrested the same night after trying to break up a fight and nearly killing someone. By morning, their lives are forever connected. A year later, Jules is tormented by one question: Why was she spared? Quinn is newly released from juvenile detention and returns home to devastating news --- the unsolved murder of his mother. Over the next decade, their lives are revisited on a single day each year: May 1st. As the years pass, secrets surface, lies unravel, and the paths of Jules and Quinn draw closer together.

by Michael Crichton, writing as John Lange - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

A MURDER IN HOLLYWOOD was originally written in 1973 but never before published. In the glitz and decadence of 1970s Hollywood, an era when sex and drugs are readily available on any movie set, the writer of the next Western blockbuster, Bloodrock, has been found dead in his motel bathtub. Now publicist Harvey Jason is desperately trying to keep the project on track while the famed Harlow Perkins, a brilliant and ruthless investigator, begins to unravel the mystery and hunt the killer down. From scorching-hot desert locations to sleazy motel bars, the members of the cast and crew --- each one with a very dark secret of their own --- will send this case deeper and deeper into a maze of confusion and shadows until the shocking truth is revealed.

by Alison Gaylin - Fiction, Mystery

World-famous author Melanie Joan Hall asks for Sunny Randall's help in tracking down Book Babe, the screen name of an enormously popular book reviewer, who has trolled her with a deeply insulting one-star review. This usually wouldn’t matter except that Book Babe has thousands of followers, and her unwarranted blast has Melanie's publisher threatening to pull all her books. But Sunny's investigation reveals that the reviewer and Melanie have a rich history --- in fact, she may even have good reason to hate the torn-up author. And when Book Babe suddenly turns up dead, casting Melanie as a possible suspect, Sunny finds herself in a complicated web that, if she can't untangle fast enough, just might put a target on her back.

by Patricia Cornwell - Memoir, Nonfiction

Patricia Cornwell is best known for her internationally bestselling thriller series about forensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta. In TRUE CRIME, Cornwell excavates her own life, detailing her traumatic childhood being raised by neglectful parents, her father abandoning the young family on Christmas Day, her mother being institutionalized twice, an abusive foster family, and developing a parental relationship with evangelist Billy Graham’s wife, Ruth. Cornwell unflinchingly shares overcoming obstacles that later gave her the ambition to become an award-winning police reporter. From there it was research in a medical examiner’s office that would turn into a full-time job. She would become a forensic expert and worldwide publishing phenomenon. 

by Gillian McAllister - Domestic Thriller, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

With Lucy about to leave home for university, she and her mother, Simone, depart the UK for a vacation to Texas to spend some quality time together. But when Simone awakens on their first morning in the desert, Lucy is gone. In her place is a cell phone, and a voice on the other line issues a shocking ransom demand. Don’t tell the police. Come to this location. And be prepared to do a deal. Though Simone’s husband urges her to bring in the authorities for help, she knows she can’t take any chances. So that night, she drives to the isolated meet-up. What she finds there changes everything. The mysterious kidnapper doesn’t want money. They want Simone to do something. The unthinkable. A catastrophic chain of events is set in motion, with chilling consequences that extend beyond Simone and her family. 

by John R. Kelly - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

In the shadowy streets of 1936 Oxford, England, members of a secret society keep turning up dead. When J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and their fellow literary masterminds, known as the Inklings, are called upon to catch a killer, they trade their pens for magnifying glasses. With time running out, they get a helping hand from mystery writers Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers to unravel a sinister web of secrets.