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Thrillers and Suspense September 2017
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| Vector by James AbelBio-Thriller. Joe Rush is a former Marine medical officer with a particular expertise in bioterrorism. Right now, he and his friend Eddie Nakamura are in Brazil with two goals: to study resistant forms of malaria, and to look for signs of bioterrorist activity. When Eddie gets sick and is then kidnapped, Joe discovers just how closely linked those two goals are. All too soon, a global pandemic threatens. A blistering pace, plausible medical concerns, advanced technologies, and plenty of twists and turns make this series an excellent choice for fans of Michael Crichton.
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| Lovemurder by Saul BlackSuspense Fiction. Katherine Glass has been in prison for six years. So why are her grisly murders being replicated now? Turns out, the beautiful serial killer had a partner, who's demanding that Katherine be released -- or more will die. San Francisco Homicide detective Valerie Hart risks being toyed with, but she turns to Katherine for help in identifying the next victim before it's too late. With complex personalities on both sides of the good/evil divide, plenty of tension, and a pace that doesn't let up, this raw, intricately plotted serial killer thriller is a good choice for fans of Chelsea Cain's Heartsick. |
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Snap Judgment
by Marcia Clark
When the daughter of prominent civil litigator Graham Hutchins is found with her throat slashed, the woman’s spurned ex-boyfriend seems the likely suspect. But only days later, the young man dies in what appears to be a suicide. Or was it? Now authorities are faced with a possible new crime. And their person of interest is Hutchins. After all, avenging the death of his daughter is the perfect reason to kill. If he’s as innocent as he claims, only one lawyer has what it takes to prove it: his friend and colleague Samantha Brinkman. It’s Sam’s obligation to trust her new client. Yet the deeper she digs on his behalf, the more entangled she becomes in a thicket of family secrets, past betrayals, and multiple motives for murder. To win her case, she’s prepared to bend any law and cross any boundary that stands in her way. Sam has always played by her own rules, and it’s always worked…so far. But this case cuts so deep and so personal that one false move could cost her everything.
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Charlatans
by Robin Cook
Newly minted chief resident at Boston Memorial Hospital Noah Rothauser is swamped in his new position, from managing the surgical schedules to dealing with the fallouts from patient deaths. Known for its medical advances, the famed teaching hospital has fitted several ORs as “hybrid operating rooms of the future”—an improvement that seems positive until an anesthesia error during a routine procedure results in the death of an otherwise healthy man. Noah suspects Dr. William Mason, an egotistical, world-class surgeon, of an error during the operation and of tampering with the patient’s record afterward. But Mason is quick to blame anesthesiologist, Dr. Ava London. When more anesthesia-related deaths start to occur, Noah is forced to question all of the residents on his staff, including Ava, and he quickly realizes there’s more to her than what he sees. A social-media junkie, Ava has created multiple alternate personas for herself on the Internet. With his own job and credibility now in jeopardy, Noah must decide which doctor is at fault and who he can believe—before any more lives are lost.
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| Every Day Above Ground by Glen Erik HamiltonCrime Fiction. A former Army Ranger who was raised by a professional thief, Van Shaw is trying to stay on the right side of the law while taking whatever odd jobs he can to make ends meet and restore the Seattle home he recently inherited. But the promise of a big score proves too tempting, and soon Shaw is in the middle of a heist gone bad, scrambling to figure out who set him up and why. Every Day Above Ground is the 3rd in a gritty, atmospheric series, the 1st of which, Past Crimes, won both an Anthony and a Macavity Award. |
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| The Driver: A Novel by Hart HansonThriller. In this debut by the creator of the TV series Bones, violence should be expected -- as well as memorable dialogue and a sensitive portrayal of the trials faced by returning veterans. Former Army Special Forces officer Michael Skellig has been chauffeuring reality TV star/skateboard mogul Bismarck Avila for 28 hours straight when he saves him from a shooting at a hotel. Promoted to full-time bodyguard/driver, Skellig now needs to find out who's targeting his client. To complicate matters a bit, Skellig's also hearing the voice of a terrorist he killed in Yemen...and he's in love with the foul-mouthed cop who thinks Skellig might have been involved in the hotel shooting. |
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Assassin's Code : A David Slaton Novel
by Ward Larsen
Former assassin David Slaton discovers a cryptic message: on a memory stick, a photograph of the man who will soon assume command of DGSI, France’s elite counterterrorism force. With that country reeling under a wave of ISIS attacks, Zavier Baland will be trusted to make the Republic safe again. The problem—Slaton has seen Baland’s face before. He is Ali Samir, a terrorist Slaton is certain he killed fifteen years earlier. Unable to reconcile this frightening disconnect, he attempts to raise the alarm. Thousands of miles away, the chief information officer of ISIS tries to keep networks running amid crumbling infrastructure. With the caliphate’s very survival at stake, the leadership commits to a last-ditch gambit: France must be attacked on a massive scale, forcing the West into the battle of the Apocalypse.
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The Room of White Fire
by T. Jefferson Parker
Roland Ford—once a cop, then a marine, now a private investigator—is good at finding people. But when he’s asked to locate Air Force veteran Clay Hickman, he realizes he’s been drawn into something deep and dark. He knows war, having served as a Marine in first Fallujah; he also knows personal pain, as only two years have passed since his wife, Justine, died. What he doesn’t know is why a shroud of secrecy hangs over the disappearance of Clay Hickman—and why he’s getting a different story from everyone involved. To begin with, there’s Sequoia, the teenage woman who helped Clay escape; she’s smart enough to fend off Ford’s questions but impetuous enough to be on the run with an armed man. Then there’s Paige Hulet, Clay’s doctor, who clearly cares deeply for his welfare but is impossible to read, even as she inspires in Ford the first desire he has felt since his wife’s death. And there’s Briggs Spencer, the proprietor of the mental institution who is as enigmatic as he is brash, and ambitious to the point of being ruthless. What could Clay possibly know to make this search so desperate?
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| Emma in the Night by Wendy WalkerPsychological Suspense. Three years after teenage sisters Cassandra and Emma disappeared, Cass has returned alone. Though she spins a tale of a couple who had held them captive in order to get their hands on the baby that no one knew Emma was carrying, the FBI psychiatrist assigned to the case has her doubts -- from the very beginning, Abby Winter had thought the girls' narcissistic mother had something to do with their disappearance. As she listens to Cass tell her story, Abby is determined to find out what actually happened. With a twisty plot, unreliable narrators, and a compelling family dynamic, this book "aims for the heart and never lets go" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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| The Forgers by Bradford MorrowSuspense Fiction. In this literary novel of suspense, we begin with the gruesome murder of rare book collector Adam Diehl. Narrated by a semi-reformed forger of literary works named Will, who is dating Adam's sister, The Forgers describes in rich detail the pleasures of rare books -- and the thrill of forging them. This latter is especially important, as Will's past as a forger is quickly catching up with him. Will, an unreliable narrator from the start, appears to have a stalker, and the question soon becomes -- did he kill Adam, or is he the next victim? |
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| The Red Room by Ridley PearsonSpy Fiction. Ok, this one's a little different -- the main appeal here for art fans is the fact that a work of art is at the center of the action. Security expert (and art trader) John Knox and his partner, former Chinese spy Grace Chu, are in Istanbul, having agreed to orchestrate a brief meeting and broker a trade. But they quickly find that they're prey to some unknown threat -- and that's before Grace is kidnapped and John is shot at. Plenty of tradecraft and political commentary will satiate Gabriel Allon fans in particular -- and there are four books in the series (starting with The Risk Agent) for those who get hooked. |
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| Unbecoming by Rebecca SchermPsychological Suspense. Working as an antiques and jewelry restorer in Paris, 23-year-old Grace from Tennessee is hiding from her past with a new identify as Julie from California. She's also keeping an eye on the news from her hometown, where her husband and his best friend are incarcerated for art theft. Told in flashbacks that fill the novel with double-crosses, this leisurely paced tale combines both character study and suspense -- and plenty of details from the art and antiques world. |
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| The Heist by Daniel SilvaSpy Fiction. A collection of art-related suspense novels would be incomplete without one by Daniel Silva starring art restorer and Israeli intelligence agent Gabriel Allon. In The Heist, Allon is manipulated into hunting down a stolen Caravaggio masterpiece; in the course of his investigation, he learns that tyrants across the world are collecting stolen art as a form of currency. Soon, Allon has Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in his sights, and has set in motion a plan to flush out al-Assad's buyer. Though many series characters appear in this fast-paced, detailed 14th in the series, newcomers needn't fear starting here. |
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