Tag:

Thrillers

Review

The Second Son

by Jeff Ayers

Chase Burke works as a sommelier for a restaurant in New York’s Chrysler Building and has put his military life behind him. He’s about to ask out a pretty government official, Tanya, who is visiting him on the job, when armed men attack, and she seems to be their target. Chase kills some of the men, but Tanya is hurt. Detective James Campbell and his partner, Detective Alice Doyle, are assigned the case and are told to work closely with Federal authorities. They soon determine that Chase has a lot of skeletons in his closet, and he immediately becomes the prime suspect. Chase realizes he must uncover the truth if he’s not going to rot in jail for the rest of his life, but digging for answers puts him in the crosshairs of a secret group of killers that thinks he knows too much. Whom can he trust while his face is plastered all over every news channel? From the opening page to the last, this book is a relentless force of non-stop action and thrills. Gervais and Steck write great books and have crafted a stellar story together. Comparisons to Mark Greaney and Jack Carr are warranted, but this first in a series might be even better. The next one cannot come fast enough.

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Review

The Intruder

by Henrietta Thornton

Casey just wanted a quiet life in the New Hampshire woods. That’s mostly what she’s got, despite the neighbor that seems a bit off and the icky landlord whose suggestive comments she could do without. When a massive storm bears down, her cabin’s failing roof is a worry but turns out to be the least of her problems. Then she sees someone outside. It’s a teenage girl who’s been hiding in the garden shed, and when Casey tries to help her, Casey soon becomes captive in her own home while the storm rages. The girl, who seems enraged at Casey for reasons that are a mystery to readers and the hapless captive alike, is ready to make this night a violent one. Alternating with that story is the tale of Ella, a girl who lives with her abusive, hoarder mother, and her desperation to escape that life and the bullying at school. McFadden brings her usual tight plotting and twists to this massively absorbing work of psychological terror, which will be a winner with her fans and all who enjoy a tense, character-driven read.

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Review

What about the Bodies?

by Henrietta Thornton

Their messiness portrayed with cringe-inducing accuracy, hapless characters strive to survive what life throws at them—and it’s a lot—in Edgar-nominated Jaworowski’s latest. Reed, a young man who’s autistic, has just lost the person at the center of his life. He wants to do the right thing, and…kind of…wants to do what his brother, who is his guardian, asks, but surely a little excursion to keep a promise won’t hurt anyone. Then there’s Billy, another resident of Locksburg, PA, who needs his single-mother’s help to hide one of the bodies of the title. It’s not a fresh body, leading to some gruesome scenes but mostly to edge-of-your-seat moments as the two struggle to stop their lives from sliding even deeper into darkness. Trying to escape the town is Liz, a musician who’s taken up with a local bad boy who, you guessed it, gets both of them into trouble just as she’s on the brink of getting out. These all-too-realistic lives collide in a memorably character-driven story whose dialog—especially that of Liz—will make readers laugh even as they despair that anything can ever go right in Locksburg. Plenty of readers love a small-town thriller and this one’s just the ticket.

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Review

Everyone a Stranger

by Jeff Ayers

Virginia Abrams lives in Washington, D.C., in 1943, and her husband has died overseas in the Pacific. The son of a prominent Senator attacks her, resulting in an unwanted pregnancy. When the son dies, his powerful parents decide to keep Virginia quiet by arranging to have her killed. Barely escaping, Virginia hops on a train and ends up on the other side of the country in Seattle. Under the identity of Ginny Moore, she rents an apartment and secures a job as a personal secretary to a well-established mystery author. But she can’t escape the feeling that the senator’s henchman will find her. When a young mom who looks almost identical to Ginny dies in what seems like an accidental fall, she starts to question everyone around her. Can anyone be trusted? At the height of WWII, when spies and traitors lurk around every corner, the paranoia escalates above a 10 in O’Brien’s latest thriller. In a story that feels like O’Brien traveled back in time and stole the manuscript straight from Alfred Hitchcock’s desk, Ginny’s struggle to find solace will have readers keeping their lights on while reaching for tissues. Everyone a Stranger is arguably the author’s best novel to date.

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Review

The Vanishing Place

by Henrietta Thornton

There’s no horror here but plenty of scares as nine-year-old Effie must parent her siblings in her family’s freezing shack in the western New Zealand bush. With the nearest town, Koraha, six hours walk through dense forest, Mum with a new baby and Dad mostly off hunting and fishing, it’s all Effie can do to keep the little ones fed and warm. The new baby, the fourth child and named four, heralds a much harder chapter for the family, one that ultimately sees Effie living as an adult in Scotland. She’s compelled to return to New Zealand when reports reach her that a little girl—unknown to Effie but looking exactly like her—has shown up in the town, injured and starving. Who she is and what happened in the past is a twist-filled saga that drops readers right into the dangerous landscapes that are both the New Zealand wilderness (“an unforgiving thing that would eat them up”) and the off-off grid family. One to remember, and a must for fans of Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible and Alisa Alering’s Smothermoss.

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Review

Best Offer Wins

by Henrietta Thornton

Brace yourself: this tale of obsession is WILD. Our DC public relations protagonist, Margo, is worried her life isn’t going as planned, with the central problem being her lack of an acceptable (read: fancy) home. Once she and her increasingly worried husband, Ian, have that, she will allow herself to get on with the rest of the plan. But as it stands, she has “No house, no baby. No house, no family. No house, no life.” She finds the perfect place but knows they will probably be outbid for it, like always. The DC property market is no joke, but neither is Margo’s determination to have that home no matter what, and her increasingly unhinged measures to be the winning bidder will keep readers gripped. If you like a main character who takes up all the space, this one’s for you, and it’s a must for book clubs as well, as Margo’s antics beg to be dissected over wine.

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Review

Close Call

by Jeff Ayers

Kipness compellingly combines her background as a sports reporter with her love of crime fiction, and her latest Kate Green thriller is her best yet. Kate is a sports reporter with a recent Emmy win, and she’s asked to cover the U.S. Open and specifically to interview two tennis stars: Brynn, an arrogant but talented up-and-comer, and Lucy, a veteran facing her last event. Brynn does not trust Kate at all, while Lucy is nicer but also hesitant. As Kate continues her coverage, she begins to uncover details that seem straight out of a soap opera rather than the tennis circuit. When Lucy forfeits a match the day after Kate interviews her, the reporter knows that something happened to Lucy and then receives a photo of the bound and gagged player. Kate can’t help but investigate, an effort that will uncover secrets about Lucy and Brynn and reveal personal elements of Kate’s life. There are many suspects here and it is so much fun from the first page to the last. Kipness’s engaging novel is perfect for newcomers to and fans of the series and is a blend of Hank Phillippi Ryan’s work and the Myron Bolitar novels by Harlan Coben. With a recently announced TV deal with Universal Television, picking this up should not be a close call.

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Review

Empty Boxes

by Danise Hoover

The title is a hint to a major plot element in this somewhat tangled, dangerous, multi-crime story with an intrepid reporter at the center. Rita Locke, crime reporter for a major Pittsburgh paper, is awakened early on a Sunday, her day off, by one of her police sources alerting her to a grisly murder in a funeral home. It’s the last straw for her boyfriend, and as she leaves for the crime scene, he ends their relationship. The body was found by a local beautician, and she is mighty nervous when interviewed by Rita. There are dead witnesses, anonymous clues, stolen jewelry, fake medical practitioners, and medical schools, nearly deadly foreign travel, returning boyfriends, and of course, the empty coffins referred to in the title. Yes, the story is crowded, but it is refreshing to have a reporter at the head rather than a cop or a PI, and readers will not be able to put this down towards the end. Here’s hoping for more about Rita Locke.

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Review

Midnight Burning

by Henrietta Thornton

Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein met in real life. Here that short interaction is included—the author has done his research, big time—but as part of a fictional steadfast friendship between the two that’s filled with loving banter and crime solving. The series debuts in 1937 as the scientist and actor are older, well-known figures. Chaplin is considering a movie that will lampoon Hitler (his real film The Great Dictator) and Einstein is teaching at Caltech and following with dread and guilt the development of a devastating weapon, the atom bomb, enabled by his work. When Nazis visit LA as part of a propaganda effort and all signs point to looming danger, the friends team up with Georgia Ann Robinson, the first Black female detective in LAPD history (also a real person), to thwart the plans. Antisemitism and racism are given lurid front seats here, with both shown as grotesque blights on our world. Readers will readily see parallels with white-nationalism today, making this a timely and ire-provoking read. They will also learn a great deal about Chaplin (less about Einstein, though he’s still well fleshed out), with his ladies-man ways on full display along with his kindness and sharp wit. This series promises to mix fun capers with serious societal commentary and is one to watch out for.

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Review

She Didn’t See It Coming

by Jeff Ayers

Bryden seems to have the perfect family. She has a loving husband, Sam, and an adorable three-year-old daughter named Clara. One night when he’s working late, Sam gets a call from Clara’s daycare. Bryden has not picked up their daughter and is not answering her phone or responding to texts. Sam picks Clara up and arrives home to find Bryden’s cell phone and purse in the apartment and her car parked in the garage. Where did she go, and what happened to her? Detective Jayne Salter of the Albany Police Department gets the case. From the moment she starts investigating, she finds Bryden’s family, friends, and neighbors all seem to be hiding something. But does that make one of them guilty? Lapena keeps the suspense and mystery going to the final page. Readers, at one point, will think everyone is responsible for Bryden’s disappearance, but the truth is shocking and surprising. Jayne will uncover more murder and chaos than she’s bargaining for, and Lapena could have a series character on her hands with this charismatic detective.

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