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Thrillers and Suspense February 2018
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The bomb maker
by Thomas Perry
"A bomb is more than a weapon. A bomb is an expression of the bomber's thoughts about you, his predictions of your behavior--a performance designed to fool you into making one fatally wrong move. In The Bomb Maker, Edgar Award-winning author Thomas Perryintroduces us to the dark corners of a mind intent on transforming a simple machine into an act of murder--and to those committed to preventing that outcome at any cost. A threat is called into the LAPD Bomb Squad, a team dispatched to a house whose owner is away, and a bomb disguised inside photography equipment exploded in the kitchen. But it is a second bomb hidden in the basement that has devastating consequences--half of the entire Bomb Squad is obliterated within seconds. The fragmented unit turns to Dick Stahl, a former Bomb Squad commander who now operates his own private security company. Having just returned from a grueling job in Mexico, Stahl is reluctant to accept the offer, but senior technicians he had trained were among those killed. On his first day back at the head of the squad, Stahl's team is dispatched to a suspected car bomb outside a gas station. It quickly becomes clear to him that they are dealing with the same mastermind behind the weapon that killed fourteen highly trained men and women barely twenty-four hours before--and that the intended target may be the Bomb Squad itself. As the shadowy organization sponsoring this campaign of terror puts increasing pressure on the bomb maker, and Stahl becomes dangerously entangled with amember of his own team, the fuse on this high-stakes plot only burns faster. The Bomb Maker is Thomas Perry's biggest, most unstoppable thriller yet"
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City of endless night
by Douglas J Preston
""FOR GOD'S SAKE, TELL US WHAT'S HAPPENED!" "VENGEANCE. VENGEANCE IS WHAT'S HAPPENED." It begins as a manhunt for Grace Ozmian, the missing daughter of a wealthy tech billionaire. At first, the NYPD assumes Grace, beautiful, reckless, and a regular feature of the local tabloids, has simply sped off on another wild adventure. But the case becomes something altogether different when the young woman's body is discovered in an abandoned warehouse in Queens, the head nowhere to be found. Lieutenant CDS Vincent D'Agosta quickly takes the lead. He knows his investigation will attract fierce scrutiny, so D'Agosta is delighted when FBI Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast shows up at the crime scene also assigned to the case. "I feel rather like Brer Rabbit being thrown into the briar patch," Pendergast tells D'Agota, "because I have found you here, in charge. Just like when we first met, back at the Museum of Natural History." D'Agosta hopes the case will give Pendergast an opportunity to demonstrate his considerable abilities back in the city he has made home. But neither Pendergast nor D'Agosta are prepared for what lies ahead. It quickly becomes clear that a diabolical presence is haunting the greater metropolitan area, and Grace Ozmian was only the first of many victims to be murdered...and decapitated. Worse still, there's something unique to the city itself that has attracted its evil eye of the killer--or killers. As mass hysteria sets in, Pendergast and D'Agosta find themselves in the crosshairs of an opponent who has threatened the very lifeblood of the city. It'll take all of Pendergast's skill to unmask this most dangerous foe--let alone survive to tell the tale.
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A death in Live Oak
by James Grippando
When the body of Jamal Cousin, president of the pre-eminent black fraternity at the Florida's flagship university, is discovered hogtied in the Stygian water swamps of the Suwanee River Valley, the death sets off a firestorm that threatens to rage out of control when a fellow student, Mark Towson, the president of a prominent white fraternity, is accused of the crime. Contending with rising political tensions, racial unrest, and a sensational media, Towson's defense attorney, Jack Swyteck, knows that the stakes could not be higher--inside or outside the old Suwanee County Courthouse. The evidence against his client, which includes a threatening text message referencing "strange fruit" on the river, seems overwhelming. Then Jack gets a break that could turn the case. Jamal's gruesome murder bears disturbing similarities to another lynching that occurred back in the Jim Crow days of 1944. Are the chilling parallels purely coincidental? With a community in chaos and a young man's life in jeopardy, Jack will use every resource to find out. As he navigates each twist and turn of the search, Jack becomes increasingly convinced that his client may himself be the victim of a criminal plan more sinister than the case presented by the state attorney. Risking his own reputation, this principled man who has devoted his life to the law plunges headfirst into the darkest recesses of the South's past, and its murky present, to uncover answers. For Jack, it's about the truth. Traversing time, from the days of strict segregation to the present, he'll find it--no matter what the cost--and bring much-needed justice to Suwanee County.
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The deceivers
by Alex Berenson
"The Russians don't just want to influence American elections--they want it all. Former CIA agent John Wells confronts a plot of astonishing audacity as New York Times-bestselling author Alex Berenson goes beyond today's headlines to tomorrow's all-too-real threats. It was supposed to be a terrorist sting. The guns were supposed to be disabled. Then why was there so much blood? The target was the American Airlines Center, the home of the Dallas Mavericks. The FBI had told Ahmed Shakir that his drug bustwould go away if he helped them, and they'd supply all the weaponry, carefully removing the firing pins before the main event. It never occurred to Ahmed to doubt them, until it was too late. When John Wells is called to Washington, he's sure it's to investigate the carnage in Dallas, but it isn't. The former CIA director, now president, Vinnie Duto has plenty of people working in Texas. He wants Wells to go to Colombia. An old asset there has information to share--and it will lead Wells to the deadliestmission of his life, an extraordinary confluence of sleeper cells, sniper teams, false flag operations, double agents high in the U.S. government--and a Russian plot to take over the government itself. If it succeeds, what happened in Texas will only be a prelude"
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The Devil's Song
by Lauren Stahl
"Kate Magda, an up-and-coming prosecutor and the privileged daughter of the politically connected President Judge Tommy Magda, has been given the assignment of a lifetime--lead prosecutor on a string of murders rocking Mission County, Pennsylvania. Kate views the assignment as her chance to not only convict a serial killer, but to make a name for herself--one other than "the judge's daughter." She is determined to show her boss, her family, and the public that she is more than her father's shadow. As Kate delves into the case, she becomes convinced that she shares a personal link with the killer, who seems to know intimate details about a tragic childhood event Kate suffered--an event she thought she'd left in the past. It's the way the victims are being posed--naked and dumped in open graves. Paranoia sets in, the night terrors return, and Kate has an imminent sense that she's the killer's next victim. Kate no longer feels assigned to the case... she is the case, and solving it is her only chance for survival."
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This Fallen Prey
by Kelley Armstrong
"When Casey Duncan first arrived at Rockton, the off-the-grid, isolated community built as a haven for people running from their pasts, she had no idea what to expect. There are no cell phones, no internet, no mail, and no way of getting in or out without the town council's approval. She certainly didn't expect to become the town homicide detective. But, the very last thing she expected was for the council to drop a dangerous criminal into their midst without a plan to keep him imprisoned. And she never thought that she'd have to be responsible for him. The longer Oliver Brady stays in town, the more people seem to die around him. When evidence begins piling up that someone inside Rockton is working as his accomplice, Casey races to figure out who exactly Brady is and what crimes he's truly responsible for committing."
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The glass forest
by Cynthia Swanson
"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Bookseller comes a gripping literary suspense novel set in the 1960s about a deeply troubled family and three women who will reveal its dark truths. In the autumn of 1960, Angie Glass is living an idyllic life in her Wisconsin hometown. At twenty-one, she's married to charming, handsome Paul, and has just given birth to a baby boy. But one phone call changes her life forever. When Paul's niece, Ruby, reports that her father, Henry, has committed suicide, and that her mother, Silja, is missing, Angie and Paul drop everything and fly to the small upstate town of Stonekill, New York to be by Ruby's side. Angie thinks they're coming to the rescue of Paul's grief-stricken young niece, but Ruby is a composed and enigmatic seventeen-year-old who resists Angie's attempts to nurture her. As Angie learns more about the complicated Glass family, staying in Henry and Silja's eerie and ultra-modern house on the edge of the woods, she begins to question the very fabric of her own marriage. Through Silja's flashbacks, Angie's discovery of astonishing truths, and Ruby's strategic dissection of her parents' state of affairs, a story of love, secrets, and ultimate betrayal is revealed"
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Hellbent
by Gregg Andrew Hurwitz
Taken from a group home at age twelve, Evan Smoak was raised and trained as an off-the-books government assassin: Orphan X. After he broke with the Orphan Program, Evan disappeared and reinvented himself as the Nowhere Man, a man spoken about only in whispers and dedicated to helping the truly desperate. But this time, the voice on the other end is Jack Johns, the man who raised and trained him, the only father Evan has ever known. Secret government forces are busy trying to scrub the remaining assets and traces of the Orphan Program and they have finally tracked down Jack. With little time remaining, Jack gives Evan his last assignment: find and protect his last protege and recruit for the program. But Evan isn't the only one after this last Orphan--the new head of the Orphan Program, Van Sciver, is mustering all the assets at his disposal to take out both Evan (Orphan X) and the target he is trying to protect.
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House of Secrets
by V. C. Andrews
Ever since Fern could remember, she and her mother have lived as servants in Wyndemere House, the old gothic mansion of the Davenport family. She may have been a servant, but Fern developed a sweet friendship with Dr. Davenport's son, Ryder, and she was even allowed free range of the estate. But Dr. Davenport has remarried and his new wife has very different ideas about a servant's place. Now Fern and her mother are subject to cruel punishments, harsh conditions, and aren't even allowed to use the front door. Yet, for all her wrath, the cruel woman cannot break the mysterious bond between Ryder and Fern. And when Ryder invites Fern to join his friends at prom, there's nothing Mrs. Davenport can do to stop them nor can she continue to guard the secret that haunts the women of Wyndemere--but there's nothing she won't try. After all, reputation is everything.
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Ill will : a novel
by Dan Chaon
A psychologist is unwittingly embroiled in two spectacular unsolved murders, three decades apart, when the foster brother convicted of killing their family years earlier is exonerated, making him question the testimony that led to the conviction. By the award-winning author of Among the Missing.
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The Imam of Tawi-Tawi : The Triad Years: an Ava Lee Novel
by Ian Hamilton
"In the latest novel in the bestselling Ava Lee series, Ava is contracted by a senator in the Philippines to quietly investigate a college on an island province that he suspects is training terrorists. While working with a CIA agent to uncover an international plot, horrific in size and scope, Ava's judgement and morals are tested like never before."
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The job of the wasp : a novel
by Colin Winnette
A new arrival at an isolated school for orphaned boys quickly comes to realize there is something wrong with his new home. He hears chilling whispers in the night, his troubled classmates are violent and hostile, and the Headmaster sends cryptic messages, begging his new charge to confess. As the new boy learns to survive on the edges of this impolite society, he starts to unravel a mystery at the school's dark heart. And that's when the corpses start turning up.
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Killer choice
by Tom Hunt
"The electrifying debut thriller that asks the question: To save the one you love, is there any price you wouldn't pay? His wife is sick. He needs $200,000 to save her. A mysterious man offers to give him the money with just one catch: He has to murder someone to get it. Gary Foster's life is finally heading in the right direction. After years of trying, his wife, Beth, is pregnant, and he recently opened a business with his brother. But one phone call changes everything.... After collapsing suddenly, Beth has been rushed to the hospital. Tests reveal a devastating diagnosis: an inoperable brain tumor. Their only hope is an expensive experimental treatment available abroad, with a cost that's out of their reach. And Beth's time is running out....Then a strange man approaches Gary and offers the money he needs, on one condition: that he kill someone, no questions asked. End one life to save another. In this nail-biting debut novel of domestic suspense, one man makes a choice that forces him to confront the darkest reaches of his soul and betray those closest to him. As he's swept up in a nightmare of escalating violence, he must question his own morality--and determine just how far he's willing to go to save the woman he loves"
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Look for Me
by Lisa Gardner
The home of a family of five is now a crime scene: four of them savagely murdered, one--a sixteen-year-old girl--missing. Was she lucky to have escaped? Or is her absence evidence of something sinister? Detective D. D. Warren is on the case--but so is survivor-turned-avenger Flora Dane. Seeking different types of justice, they must make sense of the clues left behind by a young woman who, whether as victim or suspect, is silently pleading, Look for me.
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The Perfect Nanny
by Leila Slimani
When Myriam, a French-Moroccan lawyer, decides to return to work after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect nanny for their two young children. They never dreamed they would find Louise: a quiet, polite, devoted woman who sings to the children, cleans the family's chic apartment in Paris's upscale tenth arrondissement, stays late without complaint, and hosts enviable kiddie parties. But as the couple and the nanny become more dependent on one another, jealousy, resentment, and suspicions mount, shattering the idyllic tableau.
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Robicheaux
by James Lee Burke
Between his recurrent nightmares about Vietnam, his battle with alcoholism, and the sudden loss of his beloved wife, Molly, his thoughts drift from one irreconcilable memory to the next. Images of ghosts at Spanish Lake live on the edge of his vision. During a murder investigation, Dave Robicheaux discovers he may have committed the homicide he's investigating, one which involved the death of the man who took the life of Dave's beloved wife. As he works to clear his name and make sense of the murder, Robicheaux encounters a cast of characters and a resurgence of dark social forces that threaten to destroy all of those whom he loves. What emerges is not only a propulsive and thrilling novel, but a harrowing study of America: this nation's abiding conflict between a sense of past grandeur and a legacy of shame, its easy seduction by demagogues and wealth, and its predilection for violence and revenge.
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The Take
by Christopher Reich
"Simon Riske is a freelance industrial spy who, despite his job title, lives a mostly quiet life above his auto garage in central London. He is hired to perform the odd job for a bank, an insurance company, or the British Secret Service, when he isn't expertly stealing a million-dollar watch off the wrist of a crooked Russian oligarch. Riske has maintained his quiet life by avoiding big, messy jobs; until now. A gangster by the name of Tino Coluzzi has orchestrated the greatest street heist in the history of Paris: a visiting Saudi prince had his pockets lightened of millions in cash, and something else. Hidden within a stolen briefcase is a secret letter that could upend the balance of power in the Western world. The Russians have already killed in an attempt to get it back by the time the CIA comes knocking at Simon's door. Coluzzi was once Riske's brother-in-arms, but their criminal alliance ended with Riske in prison, having narrowly avoided a hit Coluzzi ordered. Now, years later, it is thief against thief, and hot on their trail are a dangerous Parisian cop, a murderous Russian femme fatale, her equally unhinged boss, and perhaps the CIA itself. In the grand tradition of The Day of the Jackal and The Bourne Identity, Christopher Reich's The Take is a stylish, breathtaking ride."--
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Two girls down : a novel
by Louisa Luna
When two young sisters disappear from a strip mall parking lot in a small Pennsylvania town, their devastated mother hires an enigmatic bounty hunter, Alice Vega, to help find the girls. Immediately shut out by a local police department already stretched thin by budget cuts and the growing OxyContin and meth epidemic, Vega enlists the help of a disgraced former cop, Max Caplan. Cap is a man trying to put the scandal of his past behind him and move on, but Vega needs his help to find the girls, and she will not be denied. With little to go on, Vega and Cap will go to extraordinary lengths to untangle a dangerous web of lies, false leads, and complex relationships to find the girls before time runs out, and they are gone forever.
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Unbound
by Stuart Woods
In the wake of a personal tragedy, former CIA operative Teddy Fay--now a successful Hollywood film producer known as Billy Barnett--takes a leave of absence to travel and grieve, and lands in Santa Fe in the company of his friends Stone Barrington and Ed Eagle. There, fate hands him an unexpected opportunity to exact quiet revenge for his recent loss, from a man who helped to cover up the crime. But when his enemy wises up to Teddy's machinations, a discreet game of sabotage escalates to a potentially lethal battle. From the arid splendor of the New Mexico desert to the glamour of Hollywood's rolling hills, it will take all of Stone Barrington's diplomacy and skill to maneuver for Teddy's advantage while keeping innocents out of the crossfire.
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The wanted
by Robert Crais
Investigator Elvis Cole and his partner, Joe Pike, embark on a seemingly simple case involving a client who fears her troubled teen son is dealing drugs, an investigation that reveals the young man's dangerous role in a string of high-end burglaries that have resulted in a murder and a disappearance. By the award-winning author of The Promise.
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The Wife
by Alafair Burke
When Angela met Jason Powell while catering a dinner party in East Hampton, she assumed their romance would be a short-lived fling, like so many relationships between locals and summer visitors. To her surprise, Jason, a brilliant economics professor at NYU, had other plans, and they married the following summer. For Angela, the marriage turned out to be a chance to reboot her life. She and her son were finally able to move out of her mother's home to Manhattan, where no one knew about her tragic past. Six years later, thanks to a popular book and a growing media career, Jason has become a cultural lightning rod, placing Angela near the spotlight she worked so carefully to avoid. When a college intern makes an accusation against Jason, and another woman, Kerry Lynch, comes forward with an even more troubling allegation, their perfect life begins to unravel. Jason insists he is innocent, and Angela believes him. But when Kerry disappears, Angela is forced to take a closer look--at both the man she married and the women she chose not to believe.
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| The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah PekkanenWhat it's about: Told from the perspective of three adults -- wealthy, charming Richard, his shattered ex-wife, and his sweet young fiancée -- this novel calls everything into question.
Why you might like it: After a leisurely start, the fast-paced plot, complex relationships, and hair-raising twists make for addictive reading along the lines of Clare Mackintosh's I Let You Go.
Book buzz: The Wife Between Us is slated for big-screen treatment, and the coauthors are already at work on their next collaboration. |
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| The Woman in the Window by A.J. FinnWhat it's about: Anna Fox, agoraphobic and alcoholic (which doesn't mix well with her medications), likes to sit by the window and spy on her neighbors. When she sees what looks like a murder, no one will take her seriously. In fact, they claim the victim doesn't even exist.
Why you might like it: With plenty of references to thriller novels and films, this is a pop culture paradise for fans of Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train or Hitchcock's Rear Window.
Book buzz: Interest has been swirling around this debut since it was announced; there's already a film in development. |
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