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Thrillers and Suspense April 2017
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A Simple Favor
by Darcey Bell
It starts with a simple favor—an ordinary kindness mothers do for one another. When her best friend, Emily, asks Stephanie to pick up her son Nicky after school, she happily says yes. Nicky and her son, Miles, are classmates and best friends, and the five-year-olds love being together—just like she and Emily. A widow and stay-at-home mommy blogger living in woodsy suburban Connecticut, Stephanie was lonely until she met Emily, a sophisticated PR executive whose job in Manhattan demands so much of her time. But Emily doesn’t come back. She doesn’t answer calls or return texts. Stephanie knows something is terribly wrong—Emily would never leave Nicky, no matter what the police say. Terrified, she reaches out to her blog readers for help. She also reaches out to Emily’s husband, the handsome, reticent Sean, offering emotional support. It’s the least she can do for her best friend. Then, she and Sean receive shocking news. Emily is dead. The nightmare of her disappearance is over. Or is it? Because soon, Stephanie will begin to see that nothing—not friendship, love, or even an ordinary favor—is as simple as it seems.
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Ill Will
by Dan Chaon
“We are always telling a story to ourselves, about ourselves,” Dustin Tillman likes to say. It’s one of the little mantras he shares with his patients, and it’s meant to be reassuring. But what if that story is a lie? A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his forties when he hears the news that his adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustin’s parents, aunt, and uncle. Despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty. After DNA analysis has overturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning. Meanwhile, one of Dustin’s patients gets him deeply engaged in a string of drowning deaths involving drunk college boys. At first Dustin dismisses talk of a serial killer as paranoid thinking, but as he gets wrapped up in their amateur investigation, Dustin starts to believe that there’s more to the deaths than coincidence. Soon he becomes obsessed, crossing all professional boundaries and putting his own family in harm’s way.
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| Dead Letters: A Novel by Caite Dolan-LeachPsychological Suspense. Irresponsible Zelda Antipova has apparently died in a barn fire, but her twin sister Ava doesn't really believe it -- especially not after she starts receiving cryptic messages from Zelda and discovering the clues her sister seems to have purposefully left behind. Their relationship a complicated one, Ava (who has her own issues) embarks on a scavenger-hunt-like quest to figure out what actually happened, hampered by her alcoholic, dementia-addled mother, her estranged father, and her hyper-critical grandmother. If you like twisted, manipulative games full of red herrings, you'll devour Dead Letters. |
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The Last Time She Saw Him
by Jane Haseldine
Julia Gooden remembers nothing about the worst night of her life. Thirty years ago, her nine-year-old brother Ben was abducted from the room they shared. There is a black hole where Julia’s memories of that terrible event should be. Now a crime reporter at a Detroit newspaper, Julia tries to give others the closure she’s never found. But guilt and grief over Ben’s disappearance have left her fearful that whoever took her brother is going to come back. On the anniversary of Ben’s disappearance, Julia’s worst fears are realized when her two-year-old son, Will, is snatched from his bed. Convinced that the crimes are related, Julia tries to piece together memories from her final day with Ben. Are the sudden reminders of her brother clues that will lead her to her son’s abductor, or merely coincidence? Julia knows she has hours at best to find Will alive, but the deeper she digs, the more personal and terrifying the battle becomes, and an undying promise may be her only hope of saving herself and her son.
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| Spook Street by Mick HerronSpy Fiction. This one's a tough one to talk about without giving too much away. But if you're unfamiliar with the Slough House series (this is the 4th entry), you should know that it's about English spies who have been forcibly desk-bound. Not content to just fade away, they manage to get involved in plenty of escapades (start with Slow Horses if you want to get in at the beginning). Here, failed spook River Cartwright is worrying about his grandfather's increasing senility and paranoia (it's causing him to spill secrets from his own -- spectacular -- career as a spy). Dark humor and engaging characters abound in both this book and the series as a whole. |
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| The Loving Husband by Christobel KentPsychological Suspense. Nathan and Fran Hall have left crowded, dirty London to create a new life for their children on a farm in Nathan's hometown. But when Fran finds Nathan dead -- and is unable to answer any questions the local police have for her -- she struggles with both the isolation and the slowly earned knowledge that her marriage to Nathan wasn't what she thought it was. With a powerfully rendered, bleak environment that highlights the gaps in Fran's understanding of what actually happened, The Loving Husband is a "truly, chilling read" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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Lola : A Novel
by Melissa Scrivner Love
The Crenshaw Six are a small but up-and-coming gang in South Central LA who have recently been drawn into an escalating war between rival drug cartels. To outsiders, the Crenshaw Six appear to be led by a man named Garcia . . . but what no one has figured out is that the gang's real leader (and secret weapon) is Garcia's girlfriend, a brilliant young woman named Lola. Lola has mastered playing the role of submissive girlfriend, and in the man's world she inhabits she is consistently underestimated. But in truth she is much, much smarter--and in many ways tougher and more ruthless--than any of the men around her, and as the gang is increasingly sucked into a world of high-stakes betrayal and brutal violence, her skills and leadership become their only hope of survival.
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| Shining City by Tom RosenstielPolitical Thriller. Political fixers Peter Rena and Randi Brooks have been hired by the U.S. president to vet his nominee for the Supreme Court, Roland Madison. It turns out that in the 1960s Madison was involved in some radical activities, spurring his critics to denounce him, but this problem is soon overshadowed when someone starts killing people connected to Madison. Rena and Brooks must now not only find out who's behind the murders (and why), but also protect the president from any political backlash. A veteran political journalist, debut author Tom Rosenstiel has filled this novel with plenty of Washington insight. |
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| Sharp Objects: A Novel by Gillian FlynnPsychological Suspense. Dysfunctional family relationships, long-buried secrets, and manipulative women lie at the heart of this compelling novel. After eight years away, reporter Camille Preaker has returned to her hometown to investigate the recent murders of two young girls. Haunted by memories of her long-dead sister, she must also deal with a Lolita-like half-sister and their mother, who may have caused Camille's childhood illnesses. As Camille investigates, she uncovers horrible family secrets and relives the childhood that led her to self-mutilation. Though you likely know author Gillian Flynn from the bestselling Gone Girl, this debut won both the Steel Dagger and the New Blood Dagger awards in 2007. The HBO television series based on this book (with Amy Adams in the lead role) is filming now and will premiere in 2018. |
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| The Dinner: A Novel by Herman KochPsychological Suspense. Over the course of an evening at a fashionable Amsterdam restaurant, two couples move from small talk during the appetizer to weightier issues as the meal continues. Brought together by their sons -- who have done something awful -- we learn more about what ties the families together, and what seems to be a skewering of upper-class values turns into something far darker. It will be interesting to see how the literary prose, taut suspense, dark humor, and unlikeable, unreliable narrators translate to screen next month. (Interestingly, author Herman Koch refused to attend the post-premiere reception.) |
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| Live by Night by Dennis LehaneHistorical Crime Fiction. During the heady days of Prohibition, Boston cop's son Joe Coughlin defies his strict upbringing and chooses instead to "live by night": from trading in narcotics and bootleg booze in Boston to life as a respected Mafioso in Florida and Cuba, he loves and lives dangerously. Live by Night, which is the 2nd in a loosely planned trilogy that began with The Given Day and is followed by World Gone By, was released as a feature film this past November. With only a 35% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, you might be better off with the utterly compelling novel instead, which won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel in 2013. |
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| Red Sparrow: A Novel by Jason MatthewsSpy Fiction. Former ballerina Dominika Egorova serves Vladimir Putin's regime by seducing, then spying on, enemies of the state. CIA officer Nate Nash has been reassigned to Helsinki after nearly blowing the cover of a highly valuable Russian mole, and this is where Dominika latches on, determined to learn the mole's identity. But Dominika is more than a pretty lady -- she's smart, and her synesthesia allows her to tell when someone is lying. As they try to outwit and out-spy each other, readers are treated to vivid, authentic details of spycraft; author Jason Matthews worked for the CIA for more than 30 years, and there are shades of John le Carré in his writing. This one you'll have to wait a while before seeing -- Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Lawrence are set to star, but it won't be in theaters until November. |
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