20 Great Thrillers, June 2012

Is that degree you just worked four-plus years to earn doing you absolutely no good in your job search? While you are waiting for the phone to ring, read THE PROFESSIONALS by Owen Laukkanen as an instructional manual of what not to do in the interim. A group of friends, feeling they’ve been denied the American Dream, begin a cross-country crime spree which involves kidnapping wealthy individuals and holding them for relatively small ransoms. It’s an interesting plan, and even though you can tell that it is doomed from the start you will love watching how it slowly, tragically, and violently unravels.