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Reviews

Reviews

by David Baldacci - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Every day without fail, Travis Devine puts on a cheap suit, grabs his faux-leather briefcase, and boards the 6:20 commuter train to Manhattan, where he works as an entry-level analyst at the city's most prestigious investment firm. Then one morning, Devine's tedious routine is shattered by an anonymous email: She is dead. Sara Ewes, Devine's coworker and former girlfriend, has been found hanging in a storage room of his office building, prompting the NYPD to come calling on him. If that wasn't enough, before the day is out, Devine receives another ominous visit, a confrontation that threatens to dredge up grim secrets from his past in the army unless he participates in a clandestine investigation into his firm.

by Casey Sherman - Nonfiction, True Crime

In the winter of 1969, the bodies of four young women were discovered in a cemetery near the tip of Cape Cod. In a place once known as Helltown, the victims had been shot, stabbed, dismembered and mutilated. As investigators would soon learn, the perpetrator was a young, handsome serial killer named Tony Costa. A bizarre former taxidermist with a split personality and a penchant for violence, Costa ultimately mobilized friends in the hippie community for support and retribution, and captivated literary icons and rivals Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer. Costa embarked on a daring cat-and-mouse game with investigators, who --- as the body count kept growing --- were desperate to put an end to the killing season on Cape Cod.

by Paul Tremblay - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Art Barbara was a 17-year-old high school loner in the late 1980s who started an extracurricular club for volunteer pallbearers at poorly attended funerals. His new friend brought along her Polaroid camera to take pictures of the corpses. Okay, that part was a little weird. So was her obsessive knowledge of a notorious bit of New England folklore that involved digging up the dead. And there were other strange things --- terrifying things --- that happened when she was around, usually at night. Decades later, Art tries to make sense of it all by writing The Pallbearers Club: A Memoir. But somehow this friend got her hands on the manuscript and, well, she has some issues with it. And now she’s making cuts.

by Brad Thor - Fiction, Political Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

An unprecedented, potentially nation-ending threat has materialized on the world stage. Fearful of the global consequences of engaging this enemy, administration after administration has passed the buck. The clock, however, has run out, and doing nothing is no longer an option. It is time to unleash Scot Harvath. As America’s top spy, Harvath has the unparalleled skills and experience necessary to handle any situation, but this assignment feels different. Thrust into a completely unfamiliar culture, with few he can trust, the danger begins mounting the moment he arrives. Amidst multiple competing forces and a host of deadly agendas, it becomes nearly impossible to tell predator from prey.

by Tess Gerritsen - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles are newly plagued by what seems like a completely senseless murder. Sofia Suarez, a widow and nurse who was universally liked by her neighbors, lies bludgeoned to death in her own home. But anything can happen behind closed doors, and Sofia seemed to have plenty of secrets in her last days, making covert phone calls to traceless burner phones. When Jane finally makes a connection between Sofia and the victim of a hit-and-run from months earlier, the case only grows more blurry. What exactly was Sofia involved in? One thing is clear: The killer will do anything it takes to keep their secret safe.

by Kathy Reichs - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Freed from a heavy work schedule, Tempe Brennan is content to dote on her daughter, Katy, finally returning to civilian life from the army. But when mother and daughter meet at Tempe’s place one night, they find a box on the back porch with a very fresh human eyeball in it. GPS coordinates etched into the eyeball lead to a Benedictine monastery where an equally macabre discovery awaits. Soon after, Tempe examines a mummified corpse in a state park. There seems to be no pattern to the subsequent killings uncovered, except that each mimics in some way a homicide that a younger Tempe had been called in to analyze. Could this elaborately staged skein of mayhem be the prelude to a twist that is even more shocking?

by Elly Griffiths - Fiction, Mystery

Three years after her mother’s death, Ruth Galloway is finally sorting through her things when she finds a curious relic: a decades-old photograph of her own Norfolk cottage --- before she lived there --- with a peculiar inscription on the back. Ruth returns to the cot­tage to uncover its meaning as Norfolk’s first cases of COVID-19 make headlines, leaving her and Kate to shelter in place there and befriend a kind neighbor, Zoe. Meanwhile, Nelson is investigating a series of deaths of women that may or may not be suicide. When he links a case to an archaeological dis­covery, he breaks curfew to visit Ruth and enlist her help. But the further Nelson investigates the deaths, the closer he gets to Ruth’s isolated cottage --- until Ruth, Zoe and Kate all go missing, and Nelson is left scrambling to find them before it’s too late.

by Ragnar Jónasson - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

When a deadly snowstorm strikes the Icelandic highlands, four friends seek shelter in a small, abandoned hunting lodge. It is in the middle of nowhere, and there's no way of communicating with the outside world. As the night darkens and fears intensify, an old tragedy gradually surfaces --- one that forever changed the course of their friendship. Those dark memories could hold the key to the mystery the friends now find themselves in. And whether they will survive until morning.

by Debbie Babitt - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

From the bench at Manhattan Supreme, the Honorable Alice D. McKerrity has seen the most hardened killers pass through her courtroom. But there’s something about this trial --- a defendant charged with the murder of a pregnant woman --- that affects her as no other case ever has. She’s also harboring a secret that if exposed could have far-reaching ramifications both personally and professionally. And now, unbeknownst to Alice, her daughter has begun a search for her biological father. As the trial progresses, Alice’s life starts to unravel. Almost at the breaking point, she begins to doubt her own sanity. Then she makes a shocking discovery that sends her on a collision course with her past and a terror-filled night in the woods in Upstate New York.

by Loren D. Estleman - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

It’s summer in Detroit, and private eye Amos Walker has just received word that his ex-wife has passed away. He can use a distraction, which arrives in the form of a young, would-be investigative journalist who has gotten in way over his head. He needs Walker’s protection, but is suspiciously vague about why and from whom. And he’s not the only one playing their cards way too close to their chest. Walker just wants answers, but what he finds is a dead body --- and enough trouble to put him on ice for good, unless he can discover what everyone’s not telling him.