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Reviews

Reviews

by Ashley Dyer - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

After months of hunting a cold-blooded murderer that the press has dubbed the Thorn Killer, Detective Greg Carver is shot in his own home. His trusted partner, Ruth Lake, is alone with him. Yet instead of calling for help, she has rearranged the crime scene and wiped the room clean of prints. But Carver isn’t dead. Awakening in the hospital, Carver has no memory of being shot, but is certain that his assailant is the Thorn Killer. He insists the attack is retaliation, an attempt to scare the detective off the psychopath’s scent. One person knows the truth and isn’t telling. She’s also now leading the Thorn Killer investigation while Carver recuperates. Ruth is keeping a deadly secret, and she’ll cross every line to keep it from surfacing.

by Riley Sager - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Two Truths and a Lie. Vivian, Natalie, Allison and first-time camper Emma Davis played it all the time in their cabin at Camp Nightingale. But the games ended the night Emma sleepily watched the others sneak out of the cabin into the darkness. Now a rising star in the New York art scene, Emma is asked to return to the newly reopened camp as a painting instructor. Seeing an opportunity to find out what really happened to her friends all those years ago, she agrees. Emma is assigned to the same cabin she slept in as a teenager, and cryptic clues that Vivian left behind about the camp's twisted origins begin surfacing. As she digs deeper, Emma finds herself sorting through lies from the past while facing mysterious threats in the present.

by Raymond A. Villareal - Fiction, Supernatural Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

The body of a young woman found in an Arizona border town, presumed to be an illegal immigrant, disappears from the town morgue. Then more bodies, dead from an inexplicable disease that solidified their blood, are brought to the morgue, only to also vanish. Soon, the U.S. government must come to terms with what they're too late to stop: an epidemic of vampirism. These changed people, or "Gloamings," rapidly rise to prominence in all aspects of modern society. Soon people are beginning to be "re-created," willingly accepting the risk of death if their bodies can't handle the transformation. But when a charismatic and wealthy businessman who recently has been turned, runs for political office, all hell breaks loose.

by Travis Smith - Nonfiction, Popular Culture, Sociology

Millions of people around the world are heavily invested in the motivations, decisions and destinies of their favorite superheroes. In SUPERHERO ETHICS, Travis Smith investigates what they are saying and what messages about life they are communicating. Throughout the book, Smith frames his analysis around a single question: Which superhero embodies the kind of ethical character we should strive to emulate in today’s society? He arrives at his choice by structuring the book as a contest. He takes 10 top superheroes and pits them one against another, chapter by chapter. The hero who better exemplifies how we ought to live advances to the final round. By the end of the book, a single superhero emerges victorious and is crowned most exemplary for our times.

by Brad Thor - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Across Europe, a secret organization has begun attacking diplomats. Back in the United States, a foreign ally demands the identity of a highly placed covert asset. In the balance hang the ingredients for all-out war. With his mentor out of the game, counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath must take on the role he has spent his career avoiding. But, as with everything else he does, he intends to rewrite the rules --- all of them.

by Alex Gray - Fiction, Mystery

When the body of a red-haired young man is washed up on the shore of the beautiful Isle of Mull, Detective Superintendent Lorimer’s tranquil holiday away from the gritty streets of Glasgow is rudely interrupted. The body has been bound with twine in a ghoulishly unnatural position that strongly reminds Lorimer of another murder: a 20-year-old Glasgow case that he failed to solve as a fledgling detective constable. As a local cop takes charge of the island murder investigation, Lorimer tries to avoid stepping on her toes. But as the similarities between the young man’s death and the cold case grow more obvious, Lorimer realizes that there could be a serial killer on the loose after all these years.

by Cara Black - Fiction, Mystery

A dying man enters the office of Éric Besson, a lawyer in Paris’s 13th arrondissement. He is carrying a dilapidated notebook full of meticulous investment records. For decades, he has been helping a cadre of dirty cops launder stolen money. The notebook contains his full confession. He is adamant that Besson get the notebook into the hands of La Proc, Paris’s chief prosecuting attorney, so the corruption can finally be brought to light. But en route to La Proc, Besson’s courier --- his assistant and nephew --- is murdered, and the notebook disappears. Private investigator Aimée Leduc is reluctant to get involved, as her father was a cop and was murdered by the same dirty syndicate the notebook implicates.

by Laurie R. King - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

Lady Vivian Beaconsfield has spent most of her adult life in one asylum after another, since the loss of her brother and father in the Great War. Although her mental state seemed to be improving, she’s now disappeared after an outing from Bethlem Royal Hospital, better known as Bedlam. To track down the vanished woman, Mary Russell must use her deductive instincts and talent for subterfuge --- and enlist her husband Sherlock Holmes’ legendary prowess. Together, the two travel from the grim confines of Bedlam to the murky canals of Venice --- only to find the shadow of Benito Mussolini darkening the fate of a city, an era and a tormented English lady of privilege.

by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Gideon Crew --- brilliant scientist, master thief, intrepid adventurer --- is shocked when his former employer, Eli Glinn, vanishes without a trace, and Glinn's high-tech lab Effective Engineering Solutions shuts down seemingly overnight. Fresh off a diagnosis that gives him only months to live, Crew is contacted by one of his former coworkers at EES, Manuel Garza, who has a bead on one final treasure hinted at in EES's final case, the long-awaited translation of a centuries-old stone tablet of a previously undiscovered civilization: The Phaistos Disc. What lies at the end of the trail will either save Gideon's life or bring it to a sudden, shocking close.

by Anthony Horowitz - Fiction, Mystery

Diana Cowper, the wealthy mother of a famous actor, enters a funeral parlor to plan her own service. Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home. Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator. Hawthorne needs a ghost writer to document his life and chooses Anthony Horowitz. Drawn in against his will, Horowitz soon finds himself at the center of a story he cannot control. Hawthorne is brusque, temperamental and annoying, but his latest case --- with its many twists and turns --- proves irresistible. The writer and the detective form an unusual partnership. At the same time, it soon becomes clear that Hawthorne is hiding some dark secrets of his own.