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Reviews

Reviews

by Christopher Fowler - Fiction, Mystery

When 91-year-old Amelia Hoffman dies in her top-floor flat on a busy London road, it’s considered an example of what has gone wrong with modern society: she slipped through the cracks in a failing system. But detectives Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit have their doubts. Mrs. Hoffman was once a government security expert, though no one can quite remember her. When a link emerges between the old lady and a diplomat trying to flee the country, it seems that an impossible murder has been committed. Mrs. Hoffman wasn’t the only one at risk. Bryant is convinced that other forgotten women with hidden talents are also in danger. And, curiously, they all own models of London Bridge.

by Keigo Higashino - Fiction, Mystery

A popular young girl disappears without a trace, and her skeletal remains are discovered three years later. When the prime suspect isn’t indicted, he returns to mock the girl’s family. And this isn’t the first time he’s been suspected of the murder of a young girl; nearly 20 years ago, he was tried and released due to lack of evidence. Detective Chief Inspector Kusanagi worked both cases. The neighborhood in which the murdered girl lived is famous for an annual street festival. During the parade, the suspected killer dies unexpectedly. DCI Kusanagi turns once again to his college friend, Physics professor and occasional police consultant Manabu Yukawa --- known as Detective Galileo --- to help solve the string of impossible-to-prove murders.

by Alice Blanchard - Fiction, Mystery

Detective Natalie Lockhart gained unwanted notoriety when she and her family became front and center of two sensational murder cases. Burned out and always looking over her shoulder, Natalie desperately thinks that quitting the police force is her only option left. All that changes when a beloved resident --- a practicing Wiccan and founder of the town’s oldest coven --- is killed in a fashion more twisted and shocking than Natalie has ever seen before. Natalie has no choice but to help solve the case along with Detective Luke Pittman, her boss and the old childhood friend she cannot admit she loves, even to herself. There is a silent, malignant presence in Burning Lake that will not rest. And what happens next will shock the whole town, and Natalie, to the core.

by James Lovegrove - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

1889. The First Terror. At a boys’ prep school in the Kent marshes, a pupil is found drowned in a pond. Could this be the fulfillment of a witch’s curse from over 200 years earlier? 1890. The Second Terror. A wealthy man dies of a heart attack at his London townhouse. Was he really frightened to death by ghosts? 1894. The Third Terror. A body is discovered in the dark woods near a Surrey country manor, hideously ravaged. Is the culprit a cannibal, as the evidence suggests? These three chilling and strangely linked crimes test Sherlock Holmes’ deductive powers, and his skepticism about the supernatural, to the limit.

by Sara Foster - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Lainey’s friend, Ellis, is missing. And she’s not the only one. In the six months since the first case of a terrifying new epidemic --- when a healthy baby wouldn’t take a breath at birth --- the country has been thrown into turmoil. The government has passed sweeping new laws to monitor all citizens. And several young pregnant women have vanished without a trace. As a midwife, Lainey’s mum, Emma, is determined to be there for those who need her. But when 17-year-old Lainey finds herself in trouble, this dangerous new world becomes very real. The one person who might help is Emma’s estranged mother, but reaching out to her will put them all in jeopardy.

by Patricia Cornwell - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta has come almost full circle, returning to Virginia as the chief medical examiner, the state where she launched her storied career. Just weeks on the job, she’s called to a scene by railroad tracks where a woman’s body has been shockingly displayed, her throat cut down to the spine. At the same time, a catastrophe occurs in a top-secret laboratory in outer space, endangering at least two scientists aboard. Appointed to the highly classified Doomsday Commission that specializes in sensitive national security cases, Scarpetta is summoned to the White House and tasked with finding out exactly what happened. But even as she works the first potential crime scene in space remotely, an apparent serial killer strikes again very close to home.

by Andrew Klavan - Fiction, Mystery

Colorful Christmas lights dapple the family homes in the idyllic lakeside town of Sweet Haven when Jennifer Dean, a young librarian at the local elementary school, is brutally murdered. There are witnesses, and her boyfriend, Travis Blake, confesses to the crime…but something doesn’t quite add up. Blake is a third-generation Army Ranger, awarded the Silver Star for his heroism in Afghanistan. How could a beloved son of this tight-knit burgh commit such a grisly deed? In steps Cameron Winter, a rugged and lonesome English professor haunted by the ghosts of his own Christmas past, whose former lover asks him to prove Blake innocent. If he can solve this small-town mystery, just maybe he can find peace from his inner demons as well.

by Thomas Perry - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Jane Whitefield helps people disappear. Fearing for their lives, fleeing dangerous situations, her clients come to her when they need to vanish completely. And when people are desperate enough to need her services, they come to the old house in rural western New York where Jane was raised to begin their escape. It’s there that, one spring night, Jane finds a young woman fresh from LA. After she cheated on her boyfriend, he dragged her to the home of the offending man and made her watch as he killed him. She testified against the boyfriend, but a bribed jury acquitted him, and now he’s free and trying to find and kill her. Jane agrees to help, but the boyfriend has some new friends: members of a Russian organized crime brotherhood.

by Kjell Eriksson - Fiction, Mystery

Four years have passed since Cecilia Karlsson disappeared from the island of Gräsö in Roslagen. When Ann Lindell receives a tip that she has been seen alive, she cannot help getting involved, even though she is no longer with the police. The black sheep of the island, Nils Lindberg, has never forgotten Cecilia Karlsson, with whom he was in love as a teenager. He may not be completely sober all the time, but he has no doubt of what he saw out on the bay just before Cecilia disappeared. While Ann struggles to put the jigsaw puzzle together, she is trying to establish herself in her new life together with her lover, Edvard. At the same time, someone is hiding in a cottage in a remote part of the island. Someone who is looking for revenge.

by Jeffery Deaver - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

A woman wakes up in the morning to find that someone has picked her apartment’s supposedly impregnable door lock and rearranged personal items. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are brought in to investigate and soon learn that the sociopathic intruder, who calls himself "the Locksmith,” can break through any lock or security system ever devised. With more victims on the horizon, Rhyme, Sachs and their stable of associates must discover his true mission. Their hunt is interrupted when an internal investigation in the police force uncovers what seems to be a crucial mistake in one of Rhyme's previous cases. He is fired as a consultant for the NYPD and must risk jail if he investigates the Locksmith case in secret.