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Reviews

Reviews

by Graham Norton - Fiction, Mystery

The remote Irish village of Duneen has known little drama, and yet its inhabitants are troubled: Sergeant P.J. Collins hasn’t always been this overweight; Brid Riordan, a mother of two, hasn’t always been an alcoholic; and elegant Evelyn Ross hasn’t always felt that her life was a total waste. So when human remains --- suspected to be those of Tommy Burke, a former lover of both Brid and Evelyn --- are discovered on an old farm, the village’s dark past begins to unravel. As a frustrated P.J. struggles to solve a genuine case for the first time in his professional life, he unearths a community’s worth of anger and resentments, secrets and regrets.

by Sharon Bolton - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Just before dawn in the hills near the Scottish border, a man murders a young woman. At the same time, a hot-air balloon crashes out of the sky. There’s just one survivor. She’s seen the killer’s face --- but he’s also seen hers. And he won’t rest until he’s eliminated the only witness to his crime. Alone, scared and trusting no one, she’s running to where she feels safe --- but it could be the most dangerous place of all.

by Holly Seddon - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Driven by fears and obsessions, Robin Marshall is haunted by what happened to her family when she was a girl. Her only connection to the outside world is through her rear windows and the lives she spies upon in the apartment house across the way. Then a stranger starts pounding on her door. Sarah Marshall, Robin’s estranged twin, has recently lost custody of her child and has set off on her own, hoping that somewhere in England she can find Robin. While Sarah, slowly unraveling, searches for her sister’s hiding place, Robin sees another life hanging in the balance in the lighted windows across the street. It is a life only Robin can save --- as long as she never looks away.

by Andrew Gross - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

February 1943. Both the Allies and the Nazis are full speed ahead to construct the decisive weapon of the war. Kurt Nordstrum, an engineer in Oslo, puts his life aside to take up arms against the Germans as part of the Norwegian resistance. After the loss of his fiancée, and with his outfit whittled to shreds, Kurt escapes to England to transmit secret evidence that the Nazis are closing in on the atomic bomb. His mission: to disrupt their plans before they advance any further. Parachuted onto the unforgiving terrain in Europe, Kurt must lead the most daring raid of the war. But completing it may come at the cost of the one person he has grown to love.

by Gail Godwin - Fiction

After his mother's death, 11-year-old Marcus moves in with his great aunt, a reclusive painter with a haunted past. Aunt Charlotte points out a ruined cottage, telling Marcus she had visited it regularly after she'd moved there 30 years ago because it matched the ruin of her own life. The islanders call it "Grief Cottage," because a boy and his parents disappeared from it during a hurricane 50 years before. While Aunt Charlotte is in her studio painting, Marcus visits the cottage, building up his courage by coming ever closer, even after the ghost of the boy who died seems to reveal himself. He courts the ghost boy, never certain whether the ghost is friendly or follows some sinister agenda.

by Hugh Howey - Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic Fiction, Science Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

The old world is buried. A new one has been forged atop the shifting dunes. Here in this land of howling wind and infernal sand, four siblings find themselves scattered and lost. Their father was a sand diver, one of the elite few who could travel deep beneath the desert floor and bring up the relics and scraps that keep their people alive. But their father is gone. And the world he left behind might be next. Welcome to the world of SAND, an exploration of lawlessness, the tale of a land ignored. Here is a people left to fend for themselves.

by Tess Gerritsen - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Two separate homicides, at different locations, with unrelated victims, have more in common than just being investigated by Boston PD detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles. In both cases, the bodies bear startling wounds, yet the actual cause of death is unknown. It’s a doubly challenging case for the cop and the coroner to be taking on. As Jane struggles to save her mother from the crumbling marriage that threatens to bury her, Maura grapples with the imminent death of her own mother --- infamous serial killer Amalthea Lank. While Jane tends to her mother, there’s nothing Maura can do for Amalthea, except endure one final battle of wills with the woman whose shadow has haunted her all her life.

by Jon Land - Fiction, Supernatural Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Since the dawn of time, good and evil have challenged the free will of man. Now the time has come for one man to choose for all human kind. With an uncanny ability to survive any combat situation, Max Younger has built a heroic life for himself as a Navy SEAL. That is, until a rogue rescue operation plunges him back into a past he thought he’d escaped forever. Waiting for him back home in New York are terrible, long-hidden truths rooted in the tragic death of his father. But the origin of those truths lie even further back than that, and Max finds himself ensnared in a sinister plot involving nothing less than the biblical apocalypse.

by Marcus Sakey - Fiction, Science Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

The last thing FBI agent Will Brody remembers is the explosion. He wakes without a scratch. The building is in ruins. His team is gone. Outside, Chicago is dark. Cars lie abandoned. No planes cross the sky. He’s relieved to spot other people --- until he sees they’re carrying machetes. Claire McCoy, the head of an FBI task force, stands over the body of Will Brody. A terrorist has claimed 18 lives and thrown the nation into panic. Against this horror, something reckless and beautiful happened. She fell in love…with Will Brody. But the line between life and death is narrower than any of us suspect --- and all that matters to Will and Claire is getting back to each other.

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

Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls --- which includes Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout's knife, and Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn. But when Lisa is found dead in her bathtub with her wrists slit, Sam appears on Quincy's doorstep. She seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out.