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Reviews

Reviews

by Elly Griffiths - Fiction, Literary Fiction, Literary Mystery, Mystery

Natalka and Edwin are perfect, if improbable, partners in a detective agency. Eighty-four-year-old Edwin is a master at surveillance, deploying his age as a cloak of invisibility. Natalka, more than 50 years his junior, is a math whiz who takes any cases concerning fraud or deception. She loves a murder, but none have come the agency’s way. That is until local writer Melody Chambers dies. Melody’s daughters are convinced that their mother was murdered. Edwin thinks that Melody’s death is linked to that of an obituary writer who predeceased many of his subjects. Edwin and Benedict go undercover to investigate and are on a creative writing weekend at isolated Battle House when another murder occurs. Are the cases linked, and what is the role of a distinctly sinister book group attended by many of the writers involved?

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

Claire Matchett needs this trip. It will be a break from work and raising children. A chance to repair her damaged marriage. A week of hiking and hot tubbing with friends at a luxurious hotel in the woods, disconnected from the pressures of real life. Then, on a lonely dirt road, Claire's minivan breaks down. With no cell reception, the group has no choice but to walk the rest of the way to their remote accommodation. But the forest is dark and difficult to navigate; hours later, they are lost. Hopelessly lost. As they venture deeper into the woods, the members of their party are struck down mysteriously, one by one. Are they being hunted? And by what --- or who? As Claire's dream vacation descends into a nightmare, something becomes clear: only one of them will return home alive.

by Thomas Olde Heuvelt - Fiction, Horror, Supernatural Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

On a foggy winter morning, high school kids Luca and Emma discover the impossible: the wreck of an 18th-century ship stranded in a flower field. Emma enters the hatch on the deck and is never seen again. And she isn’t the last to disappear. Soon a government agency begins to investigate, determined to uncover the ship’s secrets before a media storm erupts. They enlist Robert Grim, a retired specialist of the occult, to unravel the mystery, and he soon realizes the ship could be a harbinger of an ancient doom awakened under the sea. In a maelstrom of international intrigue and pure terror, Grim and Luca must race against time as they come face to face with an open doorway to the apocalypse.

by James Patterson and Candice Fox - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

When ex-cop Bill Robinson takes over The Inn by the Sea, all he wants is a quiet escape from the city. But when a crime boss moves into town and begins terrorizing Bill's friends, he can't just sit back and watch. It's not long before local criminals are turning up dead and The Inn comes under attack. With the help of The Inn's fearless residents, Bill must do everything he can to defend his town, his chosen family and his home.

by Clare Mackintosh - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Stranded in the Welsh mountains, seven reality show contestants have no idea what they've signed up for. Each of these strangers has a secret. If another player can guess the truth, they won't just be eliminated --- they'll be exposed live on air. The stakes are higher than they'd ever imagined, and they're trapped. The disappearance of a contestant wasn't supposed to be part of the drama. Detective Ffion Morgan has to put aside what she's watched on screen and find out who these people really are --- knowing she can't trust any of them. And when a murderer strikes, Ffion knows every one of her suspects has an alibi…and a secret worth killing for.

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

In a small Alaska town, a boy is found with his throat ripped out and all the blood drained from his body. The inhabitants of Deadhart know who’s responsible: a member of the Colony, an ostracized community of vampyrs living in an old mine settlement deep in the woods. Detective Barbara Atkins, a specialist in vampyr killings, is called in to officially determine if this is a Colony killing --- and authorize a cull. Determined to find the truth, she enlists the help of a former Deadhart sheriff, Jenson Tucker, whose investigation into the previous murder almost cost him his life. Since then, Tucker has become a recluse. But he knows the Colony better than almost anyone. As the pair delve into the town’s history, they uncover secrets darker than they could have imagined. And then another body is found.

by Harry Dolan - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

When Kate Summerlin was 11 years old, she climbed out her bedroom window looking for a taste of freedom. But what she found as she wandered in the woods near her house was something else: the body of a beautiful young woman, the first of Merkury’s victims. And before she could come to grips with what she was seeing, she heard a voice behind her --- the killer’s voice --- saying: “Don’t turn around.” Now, Kate is a successful true crime writer, but she has never told anyone the truth about what happened on that long-ago night. When Merkury claims yet another victim, a college student, Kate finds herself drawn back to the town where everything started. She sets out to make sense of this latest crime, but the deeper she gets into the story, the more she comes to realize that it’s far from over.

by Anthony Horowitz - Fiction, Mystery

Riverside Close is a picture-perfect community. The six exclusive and attractive houses are tucked far away from the noise and grime of city life, allowing the residents to enjoy beautiful gardens, pleasant birdsong and tranquility from behind the security of a locked gate. It is the perfect idyll, until the Kentworthy family arrives, with their four giant, gas-guzzling cars, gaggle of shrieking children, and plans for a garish swimming pool in the backyard. The Kentworthys do not belong in Riverside Close and quickly offend every last one of the neighbors. When Giles Kentworthy is found dead on his own doorstep, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, Detective Hawthorne is the only investigator they can call to solve the case. Because how do you solve a murder when everyone is a suspect?

by Caleb Carr - Memoir, Nonfiction

Caleb Carr has had special relationships with cats since he was a young boy in a turbulent household, where his steadiest companions were the adopted cats that lived with him in both the city and the country. As an adult, he has had many close feline companions, with relationships that have outlasted most of his human ones. But only after building a three-story home in rural, upstate New York did he enter into the most extraordinary of all of his cat pairings: Masha, a Siberian Forest cat who had been abandoned as a kitten and was languishing in a shelter when Caleb met her. She had hissed and fought off all previous carers and potential adopters, but somehow she chose Caleb as her savior. For the 17 years that followed, Caleb and Masha were inseparable.

by Nick Medina - Fiction, Horror, Supernatural Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

All Noemi Broussard wanted was a fresh start. With a new boyfriend who actually treats her right and a plan to move from the reservation she grew up on --- just like her beloved Uncle Louie before her --- things are finally looking up for Noemi. Until the news of her boyfriend’s apparent suicide brings her world crumbling down. But the facts about Roddy’s death just don’t add up, and Noemi isn’t the only one who suspects that something menacing might be lurking within their tribal lands. After over a decade away, Uncle Louie has returned to the reservation, bringing with him a past full of secrets, horror and what might be the key to determining Roddy’s true cause of death. Together, Noemi and Louie set out to find answers. But as they get closer to the truth, Noemi begins to wonder if it might be best for some secrets to remain buried.