Thriller

The last in the Antonia Scott trilogy offers more tightly plotted terror and a brilliant ending. Antonina has long graduated from the secret program, Red Queen, that made her already-high IQ into a finely tuned weapon. Red Queen (2023) and Black Wolf (2024) saw her working for Mentor at various underworld tasks that needed a cold genius, all the while waiting for her husband, Marcos, to wake from the coma caused during an attack by one of her enemies. Now she’s let Marcos go, but the dangerous work and attacks continue. Others in the Red Queen program are being targeted worldwide, and Antonia’s longtime and beloved sidekick, Jon Gutiérrez, has been targeted in a macabre way. The two face a terrifying countdown during which they must solve crime puzzles posed by the sinister Mr. White. There’s a lot going on here, and it’s best if readers have read the previous books; fans of the related Netflix series, Red Queen, will also be in line to get further inside the thinking of the show’s mysterious lead character and to know how her perilous odyssey ends.

Garrett Kohl’s plan for a normal life on his Texas ranch goes awry in Moore’s latest action thriller. He learns that his adopted son’s brother might still be alive in Afghanistan, and he will have to lead the rescue operation if there is a chance of it succeeding. Doing so could cost him a chance to marry his high-school sweetheart and the peaceful life he has promised his friends and family. When Garrett learns about a possible act of sabotage with international implications that could destroy the region, he must put aside his feelings and work with both CIA allies and neighborhood enemies to stop the potential carnage. C.J. Box meets the television series Yellowstone in this wild and compelling thrill ride amidst a beautiful Texas landscape. Moore has crafted a cast of characters and a locale that feels authentic. Readers will be eager for the author’s next adventures.

Southern Gothic meets crime fiction in this beautiful, haunting tale set in the 1970s. Parson, Texas is a place to leave, not stay. But twenty-nine-year-old Lou keeps finding reasons to hang on, despite that Hurricane Celia destroyed much of the town; the Vietnam War is still consuming many of Parson’s youth, including Lou’s brother; and any work is scarce. But Lou keeps thinking about Miss Kate, her surrogate mother of sorts, whose murder Lou can’t shrug off, even if the rest of the town can. The situation grows more complicated when Joanna, Miss Kate’s daughter and Lou’s first, great love, arrives on the scene. Joanna made her escape years ago—off to a fancy college, then grad school—only to be tugged back to Parson on account of Miss Kate’s house, a huge and creepy mansion that’s tumbling down. Joanna hires Lou to help her renovate the structure, which slowly leads to revelations that help Lou in discovering Miss Kate’s murderer. Insights into Parson’s queer community, and the decisions they make to survive, are fascinating. If Carson McCullers were to write a mystery, this would be it.