Tag:

Thrillers

Review

Silent Bones

by Willy Williams

Book of the Week September 11, 2025

When a mudslide blocks a highway near Edinburgh, the debris also exposes a skeleton with a damaged skull, indicating signs of murder. Detective Inspector Karen Pitrie and her Police Scotland Historic Crimes Unit are called in to investigate. It’s spring 2025, five years after the traumatic COVID-related events of Past Lying. Research indicates that the skeleton, soon identified as that of freelance journalist Sam Nimmo, was buried back in 2014 when the road was constructed. At that time, Nimmo was the prime suspect in the killing of his pregnant girlfriend. Was his death an act of vengeance? Or was his investigation into a possible sex scandal connected to the 2014 referendum for Scottish independence the motivating factor? Pirie and her team also probe the so-called accidental death of a hotel manager with ties to a mysterious book club called Justified Sinners, whose members are wealthy, entitled men. Flavoring her writing with colorful Scottish slang, McDermid combines compelling, intricate plotting with strong character development. It’s nice to see DC Jason Murray developing his sleuthing skills and confidence under Karen’s patient mentoring, while talented but impulsive DS Daisy Mortimer occasionally still irritates her boss. The unsettled ending may disappoint some readers (real life is not always so neatly tied up), but McDermid’s passion for justice shines through.

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Review

The Italian Secret

by Danise Hoover

In a spectacular example of a post-war noir novel we have Billie Walker, a hardboiled PI following in her father’s tradition, with her specialty helping women out of terrible marriages by finding evidence of infidelity. The Sydney, Australia PI has a loyal and supportive staff, an attractive police officer to back her up, and a mystery in her background. In her father’s files, she finds an old picture, taken in an Italian town near Naples, of him, another woman, and a young girl. There follows the suspicious death of a client, a sea voyage with her mother to Naples, vendettas, the search for her father’s other family, and a deadly chase through the tunnels under the city. This is non-stop action, with an authenticity of mood, clothing, travel detail, and attitude that makes it special.

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Review

The Tumbling Girl

by Henrietta Thornton

In the acknowledgments to this immersive debut, Walsh explains that she took a novel-writing course partly to convince herself not to write this series opener; readers will be happy that she went ahead anyway. Walsh drops us deep into the world of Minnie Ward, who writes music for Victorian London’s Variety Palace Music Hall. The shabby venue hosts a plate spinner whose dressing room sounds like breaking crockery and sobs, a soprano who only sometimes hits a note, a wayward monkey that likes to have its way with the ventriloquist’s dummy, and other downmarket wonders. When kindly detective Albert Easterbrook is hired to find the killer of a young woman who worked at the Palace, it brings him into Minnie’s world. She’s not content to sit on the sidelines of the investigation—she knows far more than Albert does about the workings of her realm, not to mention that those he needs to question aren’t going to open themselves up to a “toff.” While working through his exasperation with headstrong Minnie, Albert begins to fall for her, a situation she rebuffs as it will never work out—class divides loom large here. Their sometimes-parallel, sometimes-together work exposes both to dangers and horrors that will keep readers rapt; a side plot involving a serial killer who is terrorizing London closes the book and creates an opening for a sequel, which readers will eagerly await.

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Review

Five

by Jeff Ayers

At 7:01 AM on an ordinary day, five people with significantly different backgrounds arrive at a London subway platform. One will die when the train arrives at 7:06 AM. Is it the gambler, a young man who can’t seem to shake the need to burn money for his habit? The child, a violent boy who takes pleasure in other people’s pain? The suffering mother who can’t seem to control her unruly kid? Or perhaps the old woman whose upbringing makes it difficult for her to convey emotions? The businessman whose quest for power overshadows his family obligations? As time ticks down to what is inevitable, Bannister explores the stories behind this unique group. Readers will choose favorites among them, rooting for some to succeed while wanting others to be lying on the tracks and hit when the time comes. The story the author has woven, and the way she delivers it on the page, is a stroke of genius that shouldn’t work, but it does. Bannister forces us to realize that everyone we see every day has a background that reflects how they became who they are. We all have a story. Five is worth the leap and will make a terrific audio experience as well.

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Review

Innocence Road

by Danise Hoover

The body of a young woman is found in the desert outside a nothing Texas town, stirring memories of the murder of the daughter of a prominent citizen 15 years ago. Leanne Everhart, a local cop and daughter of one of the officers who solved the original case, is in a terrible place. The man who confessed to the original crime has had his conviction overturned, and she sees connections that no one else sees in the two crimes. As she digs further, she finds that there are more dead women, nearly one a year, whose existence has been ignored by politics and local inertia. She sees patterns, but there are no funds to pursue the case. Long-held local loyalties and family ties stand in her way, but it’s the politics and scandals that are the true impediments. Tough, indomitable Leanne calls in every favor she can while risking her career and her life in the process. This is an edge-of-the-seat read that’s not for the faint of heart.

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Review

The Quiet Mother

by Brian Kenney

Lies, guilt, and betrayal are the engines that drive Indridason’s powerful third and most recent of the Konrad novels to be published in English. Retired police detective Konrad hears of the brutal murder of Valborg, an older woman who lives a simple life in her Reykjavik apartment. She leaves behind little, except for a note with Konrad’s phone number. It turns out that Konrad was contacted by Valborg several times—they even met for coffee—as Valborg tried to convince the detective to take on her case: she wanted him to find a child that she had given up almost 50 years before. Konrad repeatedly turned down her request, fearing that there wasn’t enough information to complete her search. But once Valborg is murdered, guilt consumes Konrad, and he decides to delve into the past to understand the present. Dark and haunting, Konrad’s search unearths the sad and sordid history of his own family, a history he has striven to repress. A fast-moving Nordic noir that will appeal to fans of police narratives, family histories, and Iceland’s past.

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Review

The Haunting of Emily Grace

by Jeff Ayers

Emily Grace has lost everyone she cares about, but rather than wallow in grief, she decides to work for a secretive millionaire renovating his mansion on a secluded island. The owner of the home, Cameron, is also grieving, since his wife disappeared in what appears to be a sailing accident over a month ago. The folks living on the island believe the house Emily’s working on is cursed, and mysterious events start to happen there when Cameron’s daughter, Chloe, arrives. Strange sounds, Cameron’s wife’s clothes folded in a closet, and other oddities that put Emily Grace in a bad light with her employer all put her on edge. She starts to question everything, including the motivations behind the friendships of a couple of others who live on the island. Both of them tell her different stories of what’s happening in Cameron’s creepy house, making it difficult for her to focus since she thinks that she’ll be next to disappear. Taylor takes the reader on a journey that never falters, invoking the setting and isolation so well that readers will see the fog, feel the darkness, and hear the faint footsteps throughout. When diving into this, make sure you are in a crowded room with bright lights.

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Review

Desperate Spies

by Charlotte Del Vecchio

At 75 years old, retired FBI agent Ethel Fiona Crestwater returns for another case of digging up dirt and showing up perps. Ethel may have hung up her badge, but that does not make her any less active on the cases that impact the people closest to her, especially the steady stream of FBI agents she rents rooms to in her home. When an old colleague calls in a favor, she accepts without question. But as she dives deeper into the case, Ethel discovers that it originates in the very sting-operation-gone-bad that sent her into retirement, involving the murder of a college student and the Russian mob. Now, 18 years later, Ethel is back on the case with a new team and even more to lose. De Castrique’s (Secret Lives) sharp protagonist must use her skills and resources in the form of some tech-savvy spies, including Jesse, her beloved double-first-cousin-twice-removed, to keep state secrets out of the wrong hands once and for all. Fans of elderly sleuths will enjoy this political thriller, as well as Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series and Deanna Rayborn’s Killers of a Certain Age.

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Review

The Bridesmaid

by Dodie Ownes

A quirky forensics expert and an undercover NYPD detective are thrown together here to solve a murder. Adrianna Kensington, daughter of nightclub kingpin Leopold Kensington, is putting together the wedding of the century on the family’s private island, Elysium, while her husband-to-be, tech bro Mark Li, gathers sponsorship deals. Her bridesmaids are all fellow alums of Kensington Manor, an elite all-girls school whose motto is “Discipline, Self-Restraint, and Godliness”—and all of them were with Dri three years ago when she was kidnapped and held captive for three days after her 21st birthday bash at Elysium. When crime-podcaster and bridesmaid Simone is found dead days before the wedding, everything is at risk—Adrianna’s reputation, social-media money, and the whole Kensington empire—and the kidnapper could be after the bride again. Holly was the forensics side of the podcast, and is asked to substitute for Simone at the wedding. Fitzwilliam, a cop as preppy as Holly is goth, tags along as her assistant. The story is told from alternating views of the wedding party, allowing readers to experience the cut-throat world of mean girls, reality-show nuptials, and bridezilla moments. A dark historical twist in the tropical paradise setting adds depth to this high-flying tale of money, murder, and secrets.

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Review

The Tarot Reader

by Charlotte Del Vecchio

Jade Crawford, or as her clients know her, Madame Ravencroft, is a 25-year-old psychic, offering a variety of services thanks to her supposed connection with the great beyond. However, Jade’s spiritual talent is nothing more than a creative ruse, delicately toeing the line between criminal and therapeutic. Jade and her younger sister, Stevie, run their Psychic Parlor and Shoppe out of Winston-Salem, NC, struggling to make ends meet and searching for income by any means necessary. After losing their mother to a tragic accident and their father to a prison sentence, the girls were forced to take on the family business and continue the con in order to survive. When a sleazy local politician goes missing, Jade sees an opportunity to promote her business and maybe claim the reward money by sending in a tip offering the location of the body to the police, claiming to have seen it in a vision. When her “vision” is revealed to be hauntingly accurate, Jade and Stevie find themselves in a whirlwind of media and customers demanding a piece of the magic. As Jade continues to spin her web of lies around the police and the town, she finds her sister and herself entangled in the investigation not only as suspects but possibly the next victims. Fans of Samantha M. Bailey will appreciate this thrilling twist on a female-driven thriller with layers of secrets and complexities throughout.

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