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Reviews

Reviews

by Jenny Milchman - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Psychologist Arles Shepherd treats troubled children, struggling with each case to recover from her own traumatic past. Having just set up a new kind of treatment center in the remote Adirondack wilderness, Arles longs to heal one patient in particular: a 10-year-old boy who has never spoken a word --- or so his mother, Louise, believes. Hundreds of miles away, Cass Monroe is living a parent’s worst nightmare. His 12-year-old daughter has vanished on her way home from school. With no clues, no witnesses and no trail, the police are at a dead end. Fighting a heart that was already ailing, and struggling to keep both his marriage and himself alive, Cass turns to a pair of true-crime podcasters for help. Arles, Louise and Cass will soon find their lives entangled in ways none of them could have anticipated.

by Val McDermid - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three companions --- a healer, a weaver and a seer. The men hunting her will kill her --- because she is the only one who stands between them and their violent ambition. She is no lady: she is the first queen of Scotland, married to a king called Macbeth. As the net closes in, what unfurls is a tale of passion, forced marriage, bloody massacre and the harsh realities of medieval Scotland. At the heart of it is one strong, charismatic woman, who survived loss and jeopardy to outwit the endless plotting of a string of ruthless and power-hungry men. Her struggle won her a country. But now it could cost her life.

by Claire Douglas - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Emilia Ward lives in suburban London with her husband, their young son, and a teenager from her first marriage. Emilia is an ordinary mom --- and she’s also the bestselling author of the Miranda Moody detective novels. But when writing her 10th --- and most difficult --- book, life takes a disturbing turn: an incident mimicking the plot of one of her novels occurs in real life. Just an unsettling coincidence, right? Until it happens again. And again. Then someone she knows dies in the same way as a victim in the book she's currently writing. Why is someone doing this? What do they want? How could they possibly know what she’s thinking --- and writing? Is Emilia and her family next?

by Freida McFadden - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Sydney Shaw has terrible luck with dating. She's seen it all: men who lie in their dating profile, men who stick her with the dinner bill, and men who can't shut up about their mothers. But finally, she hits the jackpot. Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He's charming and handsome, and he works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet. Then the brutal murder of a young woman --- the latest in a string of deaths across the coast --- confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them. Sydney should feel safe. After all, she is dating the guy of her dreams. But she can't shake her own suspicions that the perfect man may not be as perfect as he seems. Because someone is watching her every move, and if she doesn't get to the truth, she'll be the killer's next victim.

by Robert Harris - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

In 1914 London, 26-year-old Venetia Stanley --- aristocratic, clever, bored, reckless --- is part of a fast group of upper-crust bohemians and socialites known as “The Coterie.” She’s also engaged in a clandestine love affair with the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, a man more than twice her age. He writes to her obsessively, sharing the most sensitive matters of state. As Asquith reluctantly leads the country into war with Germany, a young intelligence officer with Scotland Yard is assigned to investigate a leak of top-secret documents. Suddenly, what was a sexual intrigue becomes a matter of national security that could topple the British government --- and will alter the course of political history.

by Stephanie Wrobel - Fiction, Mystery, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Alfred Smettle is not your average Hitchcock fan. He is the founder, owner and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, a sprawling Victorian house in the White Mountains dedicated to the Master of Suspense. There, Alfred offers his guests round-the-clock film screenings, movie props and memorabilia in every room, plus an aviary with 50 crows. To celebrate the hotel’s first anniversary, he invites his former best friends from his college Film Club for a reunion. He hasn’t spoken to any of them in 16 years, not after what happened. But who better than them to appreciate Alfred’s creation? And to help him finish it. After all, no Hitchcock set is complete without a body.

by Heather Redmond - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

1814, London: Foreign diplomats are descending on London in advance of the Congress of Vienna meetings to formulate a new peace plan for Europe following Napoleon’s downfall. Mary and Jane’s father, political philosopher William Godwin, is hosting a gathering with an advance party of Russian royal staff. Following their visit, Jane overhears her father reassuring his pushiest creditor that the Russians have pledged diamonds to support his publishing venture, the Juvenile Library, relieving his financial burden. But when Godwin is told the man who promised the diamonds was pulled from the River Thames, his dire financial problems are further complicated by the suspicion that the family may have been involved in the murder. Stepsisters Mary and Jane resolve to find the real killer to clear the family name.

by Dean Koontz - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Raised in the wilderness by her late great-uncle, Vida is a young woman with an almost preternatural affinity for nature, especially for the wolves that also call the forested mountains home. Formed by hard experience, by love and loss, and by the prophecies of a fortune teller, Vida just wants peace. If only nearby Kettleton County didn’t cast such a dark shadow. It’s where Jose Nochelobo, the love of Vida’s life and a cherished local hero, died in a tragic accident. That’s the official story, but Vida has reasons to doubt it. The truth can’t be contained for long. Nor can the hungry men of power in Kettleton who want something too: that Vida, like Jose, disappear forever. One by one they come for her, prepared to do anything to see their plans through to their evil end. Vida is no less prepared for them.

by Brian Freeman - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Tommy Miller is a man with deadly skills, hiding in Florida under a false identity. After being set up on an overseas mission, he's on the run from terrorists --- and from the government that betrayed him. So when his wife and daughter are violently abducted, it seems his ghosts are finally catching up with him. But Tommy isn't the only one with secrets. His wife has been concealing her own dangerous past. With a hotshot police detective, Lindy Jax, close on his trail, Tommy follows a twisted path that brings him face to face with ruthless enemies. His search for answers soon puts him on the wrong side of the law --- hunted by the police and pursued by men who want him dead. Worst of all, if he hopes to save his wife and daughter, he must become the man he once was --- a killer operating from the deepest shadows.

by Ragnar Jónasson - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

1983: At a former sanatorium in the north of Iceland that is now a hospital ward, an old nurse, Yrsa, is found murdered. Detective Hulda Hermannsdottir and her boss, Sverrir, are sent to investigate her death. There, they discover five suspects. Less than a week after the murder, the chief physician is also found dead, having apparently fallen from a balcony. Sverrir rules his death a suicide and assumes that he was guilty of the murder as well. The case is closed. 2012: Almost 30 years later, Helgi Reykdal, a young police officer, is writing his thesis on the 1983 murders in the north. As Helgi delves deeper into the past, he decides to try to meet with the original suspects. But soon he finds silence and suspicion at every turn as he tries to finally solve the mystery from years before.