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Reviews

Reviews

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.

by Anthony Horowitz - Fiction, Mystery

Ex-Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne is dead. Or, rather, the actor playing him in the film adaptation of The Word is Murder is. Rising star David Caine has been stabbed, and it seems that everyone on the set had a motive. Caine had just fired his PA. He had fallen out with his director, slept with the screenwriter, humiliated his co-star, and dropped his agent days before he was about to sign a multi-million-dollar deal to appear in the next Spider-Man movie. But what if Caine’s murderer had made a mistake? What if it was the real Hawthorne who was the intended victim? For it turns out that the brilliant detective may have gotten it wrong 10 years earlier. An innocent man has died in jail. And perhaps someone has decided that Hawthorne must pay the price.

by Candice Fox - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Since a violent confrontation tore apart a family five years ago, brothers and fellow cops Russell and Evan haven’t spoken a word to each other. When they’re both assigned to the murder of a young journalist in the tiny town of Redbelly Crossing, their paths are forced to cross again. This was supposed to be the week Russell could repair things with his teenage daughter. Instead, he has to drag her on a murderous ride into the middle of snake-infested nowhere. For Evan, this case is exactly what he needed: a high-profile investigation that will give him the chance to rebuild his career after a terrible mistake that nearly ended it. Then a dark discovery leaves Evan with only one way out: to bury the truth Russell is so determined to uncover.

by Daisy Pearce - Fiction, Horror, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Supernatural Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Hazel has been gone from her small hometown of Idless in the English countryside for years. Now returned in the wake of a traumatic divorce and crumbling personal life, her simple plans are to lay low at her parents’ vacated house, reconnect with her prickly sister, Cathy, and slowly get back on her feet. Cathy is surprised when Hazel doesn’t show. Their relationship strained from a fallout half a decade ago, she didn’t expect them to get back into a sisterly rhythm…though she hadn’t counted on Hazel bailing, either. But something isn’t adding up. Other people in town whisper of a threat that can’t be shaken. The woods are known for being restless. And Cathy knows the old saying: If you go looking for trouble, you just might find it.

by Douglas Preston and Aletheia Preston - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

When a reclusive man is found dead under grisly circumstances in the Colorado wilderness, CBI Agent Frankie Cash and Eagle County Sheriff Jim Colcord, whom we met in EXTINCTION, team up again on their most enigmatic and dangerous case yet. Their investigation uncovers a trail of bizarre killings, baffling money transfers, and a fanatical secret society. And all the while, the resurrected Neanderthals, who vanished into the Colorado mountains, seem to be biding their time for something…spectacular.

by Anne Perry and Victoria Zackheim - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

1913: Junior attorney Daniel Pitt must step in for his friend, fellow attorney Toby Kitteridge, whose parents have been brutally attacked. Toby's mother is dead, and his father is barely alive. With Toby returning to the family home in rural Ipswich, Daniel remains in London to substitute for Toby and defend Peter Ward, who is on trial for the sexual assault and murder of a young woman. Daniel is convinced that Ward is innocent, yet the evidence seems to prove otherwise. Eager to assist, his pathologist wife, Miriam fford Croft, offers her forensics expertise. But despite Miriam’s involvement, Daniel finds himself distracted by his desire to help Toby. And when the evidence points to Toby’s father as the killer of Toby’s mother, Daniel faces two of the greatest challenges of his young career: proving the innocence of both Peter Ward and Reverend Kitteridge.

by C. J. Dotson - Fiction, Horror, Supernatural Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

In 1998, desperate loneliness pushes preteen Amber to ignore the misgivings of her family, particularly her younger sister, when she befriends the troubled new kid in the neighborhood --- a boy with dead eyes, a fascination with fire, and no remorse. Their turbulent relationship is brief but creates lasting consequences. Twenty-two years later, in 2020, he resurfaces to kill Amber’s parents, and is in turn betrayed by his accomplice and killed in Amber's childhood home. After the deaths, Amber inherits the house and, in an effort to save money, moves in with her husband and two children, hoping to reclaim some sense of stability in the grief and chaos surrounding her. Instead, she finds that the familiar walls are haunted by more than just bitter memories and lockdown stress.