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Thrillers and Suspense January 2020
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| Just Watch Me by Jeff LindsayWhat it is: an engaging caper novel starring Riley White, a flawed but compelling master thief with a reputation for audacious and daring heists.
The thrill is gone...Riley is starting to feel like his job is getting too easy so he sets his sights on an impossible target: a museum exhibit of the Iranian Crown Jewels, and the layers of security protecting them.
Read it for: Riley's parkour skills, complex moral code, and occasional acts of vigilante justice a la Robin Hood. |
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The Gomorrah Gambit by Tom ChatfieldWhat it's about: When the Dark Web executes an ultimate power grab that destroys all privacy, an elite hacker and his secretive Muslim girlfriend uncover a conspiracy that is complicated by a family member's recruitment into a digital terrorist organization. What happens: As pressure mounts, Azi has no choice but to take on the ultimate infiltration. In an age when identities can be switched at will and nobody is who they seem, how far will he go to end the nightmare? Reviewers say: "Tech philosopher Chatfield paints a picture of the deadly scenario that skilled hackers seeking world domination are capable of creating. . . . A nonstop thriller that will be a particular treat for high-end techies."-- Booklist
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Impossible Causes by Julie MayhewWhat it is: a gripping, claustrophobic thriller about isolation, power, and the lies that fester when witnesses stay silent. What it's about: Moving to remote Lark Island to recover from the deaths of family members, a grieving teen and her mother are confronted by the detached community’s deeply religious beliefs and dark secrets, including a young girl’s suspicious death. Who might enjoy it: fans of All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda and You Will Know Me by Megan Abbott.
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False Step by Victoria Helen StoneThe premise: Stay calm, keep smiling, and watch your step. In this marriage of secrets and lies, nothing is what it seems. What it's about: For days, all of Denver, Colorado, has worried over the fate of a missing child, little Tanner Holcomb. Then, a miracle: handsome, athletic Johnny Bradley finds him, frightened but unharmed, on a hiking trail miles from his wealthy family's mountain home. In a heartbeat, his rescuer goes from financially strapped fitness trainer to celebrated hero. What happens: His wife, Veronica, despises the pressure of the sudden fame, afraid that secrets and bitter resentments of her marriage may come to light. And she's willing to do anything to keep them hidden. But when a shocking revelation exposes an even darker side to Tanner's disappearance, Veronica realizes that nothing in her life can be trusted. And everything should be feared.
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| Reputation by Sara ShepardWhat it's about: When the hacked emails of the students, faculty, and staff of the elite Aldrich University are leaked online, tensions on campus escalate until someone is driven to kill a prominent medical professor.
Why you might like it: the story's multiple perspectives make each narrator a complex blend of sympathetic and suspicious.
About the author: Although Sara Shephard is best known for her young adult series Pretty Little Liars, she has written other works of adult fiction such as Everything We Wanted and The Elizas. |
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| The Sacrament by Olaf OlafssonWhat it is: a haunting, character-driven, literary thriller that grapples with the legacy of child abuse in the Catholic Church and the decades-old secrets surrounding a priest's mysterious suicide.
Starring: Sister Johanna, a nun who seems to be an unlikely thriller protagonist -- at least until the truths she's been hiding from for the last 40 years begin to catch up with her.
Reviewers say: a "gripping, masterfully constructed story" that bends "toward redemption and justice" (Booklist). |
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If You Like: Classic Spy Novels
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| Lenin's Roller Coaster by David DowningSeries alert: This 3rd entry in David Downing's richly detailed series of Jack McColl spy novels takes Jack to Russia shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 on a mission critical to the still-raging World War I.
Fancy meeting you here: Jack's mission and personal life get a lot more complex when he crosses paths with his old flame, American journalist Caitlin Hanley, who is firmly on the side of the revolutionaries.
For fans of: atmospheric espionage tales such as Robert Harris' An Officer and a Spy. |
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Midnight in Europe by Alan FurstWhat it is: Alan Furst, whom Vince Flynn has called "the most talented espionage novelist of our generation," gives us a taut, suspenseful, romantic, and richly rendered novel of spies and secret operatives in Paris and New York, in Warsaw and Odessa, on the eve of World War II. What it's about: Cristián Ferrar, is a lawyer in the Paris office of a prestigious international law firm. Ferrar is approached by the embassy of the Spanish Republic and asked to help a clandestine agency trying desperately to supply weapons to the Republic's beleaguered army--an effort that puts his life at risk in the battle against fascism. Reviewers say: "Suspenseful and sophisticated . . . No espionage author, it seems, is better at summoning the shifting moods and emotional atmosphere of Europe before the start of World War II than Alan Furst." --The Wall Street Journal
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| The Girl from Venice by Martin Cruz SmithThe premise: Italian fisherman Cenzo Vianello has been trying to keep his head down and stay off the radar of the Nazis who are occupying his city, until the day he pulls a young Jewish woman from the lagoon and impulsively decides to help her hide from the Germans.
The problem: Although the German surrender is just around the corner, tension is still high and the occupiers may decide to take as many Venetians as they can down with them.
For fans of: The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure, which takes place in occupied France and also features a character pulled deeper into the resistance by unexpected events. |
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| The Good Assassin by Paul VidichStarring: retired CIA agent George Mueller, who since his last appearance in An Honorable Man has settled into a quiet life as a literature teacher.
What happens: When Allen Dulles himself asks George to take one last mission, he travels to Cuba, where the Batista regime is on the verge of collapse and a former CIA colleague is suspected of aiding the revolutionaries.
For fans of: Defectors by Joseph Kanon, another character-driven story about spies with uncertain loyalties. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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