Tag:

Thrillers

Review

The Close-Up

by Henrietta Thornton

Novelist Zoe Weiss is stuck. Her first novel was successful enough to land her a deal for another, which is now a year overdue, with no ideas on the horizon, let alone drafts to pass along to her increasingly irate agent. If she doesn’t come up with something, she’ll have to pay back the $250,000 advance, and working at a Los Angeles florist, that doesn’t seem possible. When she drops an arrangement at a flower delivery and her ex-fling, Zach, happens to be there to help, everything seems suddenly better. Maybe he can help her pick up the pieces of her life, too? Zach’s a famous actor now, and his glamorous life could be the makings of a novel. Soon the two are appearing in the tabloids as an item and the writer’s block is as missing as Zoe’s bikini top in that one swimming pool photo. Only one issue: Zoe signed an NDA, so writing about this is forbidden, but that’s the least of her worries when creepy happenings start—a real heart is left on the window of her car—and she thinks someone is following her. Oops, Zach has a stalker, one who’s not too happy about his new girlfriend. Zoe’s problems and her florist-by-day, glam-girl-by-night bizarro life are realistic and absorbing, and the plot equally so. Twists and a totally unexpected epilogue are the cherry on top.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Oligarch’s Daughter

by Jeff Ayers

Joseph Finder combines various themes from his previous novels and creates his best book to date. Six years ago, Paul Brightman worked on Wall Street and met a Russian American woman named Tatyana, who quickly became an infatuation. After they court and fall in love, she introduces him to her father, a Russian oligarch who soon sweeps Paul into his financial world. Tatyana and Paul marry, and everything seems to be going smoothly until it all blows up. At present, Paul lives in a small town in New Hampshire under the name Grant Anderson. He spends his days working on boat repair and helping with a boat charter that takes clients fishing. One morning, as he takes the boat out with a tourist, the man turns to Grant and says, “I know who you are, Paul.” Finder perfectly blends Grant’s storyline with that of a terrified Paul trying to survive. Nothing is predictable here, and the payoff is glorious. The Oligarch’s Daughter will be remembered as a classic years from now and should be used as a textbook to teach writers how to craft a perfect thriller. Is it too early to say this is not only the best book of the year but the best book of the decade?

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Chain Reaction

by Jeff Ayers

Byrne’s latest starts with a bang and never lets up for a second. Dez Limerick has unique skills and training as a former special ops operative. His talent as a gatekeeper ensures the client has access to get in and out of a sticky situation. Now retired, he’s thrilled to get an offer to play for one of his idols in a concert. He arrives at the venue only to learn that the entire mall complex has been taken over by terrorists. Working behind the scenes to save everyone, Dez, along with a thief named Cat, starts to realize there is more going on than it initially appears. Do these men have ties to a higher-up in the Russian government? This fun take on Die Hard could easily be the entire story, but it’s merely the beginning. Someone with a personal vendetta is hunting Dez, and they won’t rest until he’s in the ground. Byrne has created an unconventional hero with unorthodox methods and a darn fun attitude. The series gets better and better with each installment, and readers will be eager to see what’s in store for Dez next.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Department

by Henrietta Thornton

Get ready to face big questions in Faber’s novel, one that uses a southern college’s philosophy department as a magnifying glass on relationships between haves and have nots; having power and not, that is. Decidedly a have not in this equation is Neil Weber, a professor whose chances at tenure are fading, a situation he’s desperate to change but too depressed to take real action over. Instead, he becomes enmeshed—his friends and the police say obsessed—with the disappearance of student Lucia Vanotti. This young woman, whose narration alternates with Neil’s, is technically a have not, the daughter of Italian immigrants who own a local restaurant. But a chance encounter has Neil placing her on a pedestal and desperate to find her. As he digs deeper into the student’s life and related goings on in the town, and before-disappearance Lucia brings us further into her trauma-ridden life, readers will ask, can love ever be enough? Who is a savior acting for? Humming in the background of the drama is the perplexing question of what happened to Lucia, the answer to which brings delicious twists. An absorbing debut.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Inheritance

by Brian Kenney

Succession meets Canyon Ranch in this terrifying family reunion. The deeply complex and über-rich Agarwals family (parents, three adult kids, a daughter-in-law), with homes scattered about the map, have gathered together on an island off Scotland. The estate is owned by Myra, the oldest daughter. She’s putting the finishing touches on the conversion of the mansion into a luxe resort and wellness center, and losing buckets of money in the process. But for now it’s just the Agarwals’ playground. And there’s plenty to celebrate, including the parents’ fortieth anniversary (Shalini, the mother, is very needy) and the announcement by patriarch Raj of his long-awaited succession plan (he’s pretty arrogant). Narrated by both Myra and Zoe, the middle-class daughter-in-law who is a fake influencer, everyone’s dirty laundry gets exposed as they wait to see who gets the biggest cut of the pie. With the addition of some angry Scots—this is their land!—and the arrival of former family members, you have a recipe for murder that is certain to shock most readers. Here’s a clue: if the Agarwals motto is “family first,” where does that leave everyone else?

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

All the Other Mothers Hate Me

by Brian Kenney

She ain’t lying! All the moms do hate her. Because Florence Grimes is quite the unrepentant good-time girl who gets all the side-eye from the moms and smirks from the dads. She has a collection of lovers that’s like a deck of cards. Her get-ups are designed to provoke, at the very least. And her last, and only, job—years ago—was in a girl band that ended in humiliation. The one ray of light is her ten-year-old son, Dylan, who is a radical environmentalist and attends a fancy London all-boys school. But when Alfie Risby, Dylan’s bully and heir to a frozen-food empire, suddenly disappears during a class trip, and Dylan is the prime suspect, Flo starts to wake up and realizes that she is the only one that can save Dylan. Rich in satire, hugely funny, with a running wink-wink to the reader, this novel is pure comedic gold.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne

by Henrietta Thornton

Men do live in Waterville, Maine. They even live in Petit Canada, the staunchly French neighborhood where “people [have] more trouble than money.” But the town’s men seem mostly beside the point. The women, on the other hand, use “visiting”—sitting over coffee—as time to “organize, decide neighborhood business, and leverage collective will to solve problems.” Chief at both causing and solving those problems is self-proclaimed “goddam cast-iron bitch” Babs Dionne, who runs the town and is feared by all, but also fiercely loved. A teenage Babs commits a crime as the book opens, one that follows her over the decades of the story, corroding her ability to show love to the children she adores. One of them, Sis, is now missing and the family suspects her drunken husband is to blame. Babs and her other daughter, Lori, who’s using drugs to push down the PTSD she gained in Afghanistan, set out separately to find the woman, Lori desperate to spare Babs from the pain of likely tragedy. At the same time, a character known as “The Man” is not so gently working to convince Babs that the underworld business she’s controlled for decades is his now. We’ll see about that. Currie’s tale and his powerful writing are reminiscent of small-town sagas by Richard Russo, and are peopled by the same kinds of won’t-let-you-go characters. An immersive book to be savored.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Nemesis

by Jeff Ayers

Hurwitz delivers another knockout thriller as Evan Smoak, Orphan X, deals with the fallout of his battle with the killer, Wolf. Missions to secure justice for those who can’t find it in other ways involve Evan distancing himself from personal feelings. This time is different, as someone he has known for a long time and who supplies his special gear has betrayed him, and now Evan needs to betray a code and eliminate someone he cares about. Tommy has a unique way of making things right, which conflicts with Evan’s core beliefs. He was Evan’s friend and confidante until he betrayed his friend by supplying the Wolf weaponry that almost put Evan in the ground. To make things even harder, Evan also must deal with his “adopted” daughter, Joey, who makes a mistake for the entire world to see on the Internet, putting their relationship on rocky ground. Evan has nowhere to turn but himself, as he is forced to fight and make amends with people who are closer than family to him. It’s a good day when Hurwitz has another Orphan X novel for us to devour, and this is perfect for thriller readers waiting for the next Jack Reacher to hit the shelves (but Nemesis is better!).

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Whiteout

by Brian Kenney

I’ve always been a fan of ice thrillers, and Burnett’s Whiteout is perfectly terrifying in every way. When we meet Rachel, an Oxbridge scientist, she’s living alone in a tiny tent in Antarctica. She can’t reach anyone, and the only broadcast she can receive is a public service announcement from the BBC stating that there has been a nuclear attack and not to leave your home. But even if the world no longer exists, Rachel soldiers on, collecting samples every day, if only to retain a feeling of normalcy. There’s plenty Rachel doesn’t understand, but even more that the reader must struggle to put together. Add to this Rachel’s guilt-ridden memories of leaving behind her baby girl and husband and nature’s increasing violence that seems to want to destroy her, and you have a recipe for a meltdown. Burnett is a genius with pace, and the book gains speed as Rachel manages to push past one obstacle after another to the final confrontation. Pack all the down you have, you’re going to need it.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Heroic Measures

by Henrietta Thornton

Colonel Stephen Englehart is a great medical examiner, which in the bureaucratic backwardness of the U.S. Army means he’ll be promoted any day now to paper pusher. No, thank you. Besides, he has an ambivalent attitude toward the whole organization, given that his soldier father was mostly absent and the “uncle” who took over—his father’s fellow soldier who is now one of Stephen’s superiors—is chilly at best. Retirement is beckoning, but his plans are exploded by five corpses arriving at his base. Don’t autopsy them, comes the order. Just hold them until their storm-damaged plane is repaired. That’s weird enough, but then one of the dead seems to have been untouched by the grenade he was supposed to have been killed by, and a medical examiner’s worst nightmare comes true: the man opens his eyes. At the same time, Stephen’s sister, Major Sharon Englehart, is arriving in Germany, where Stephen is based, and the two will try to steal some time to meet…but she never arrives at her post. The secrets, lies, and fearsome technology behind this fast-moving, exciting novel will keep readers turning the pages as they also enjoy the sibling loyalty and Stephen’s sidestepping of military rules—including his affair with a subordinate. This is a great step into military and technothrillers for fans of Patricia Cornwell and other forensic crime authors, and an equally perfect introduction to more relationship-based novels for military fiction buffs.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail