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Thrillers and Suspense January 2021
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What it's about: the untenable position that Bobby Saraceno, a mixed-race man who has been passing for white, finds himself in after one of his friends commits a hate crime.
Read it for: the multifaceted characters, including Bobby's white alcoholic mother and long-absent Black father; the heightened tension as the story unfolds against the ever-present backdrop of the O.J. Simpson trial.
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Final cut : a novel
by S. J. Watson
What it's about: set in the small English town of Blackwood Bay, this atmospheric thriller stars Alex Young, an award winning documentarian who follows an anonymous invitation to tell the town's story. When she arrives, however, Alex is sidetracked by unresolved disappearances of three teenage girls, one of whom might be her.
Read it for: unreliable narrator, which is doubly compelling given Alex's documentarian career and alleged commitment to truth in storytelling; the story's intricate plotting, which unfolds at a breakneck pace
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| Fool Me Twice by Jeff LindsaySeries alert: Fool Me Twice is the 2nd entry in the series of thrillers starring likeable rogue Riley Wolfe, an ambitious master thief always up for a challenge.
The prize: This time, Riley is strong-armed into stealing a priceless Raphael painting from deep in the Vatican by "an arms dealer who scares the crap out of other arms dealers."
The problem: It's not just any Renaissance painting -- Riley's target is a fresco, meaning he has to find a way to steal an actual wall. |
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What it's about: Grieving the loss of her daughter, recovering alcoholic Julie Weathers is hoping for a fresh start after accepting a teaching job on an island off the coast of Maine, in a quaint town called Mercy. But beneath Mercy's charming surface is a knotty web of secrets, and Julie's arrival in town risks unearthing everything.
Read it for: The well-rendered atmosphere, which alternates between appealing small-town scenes, gothic-tinged moments of building suspense, and the ever-present menace of the open sea.
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Winter Counts
by David Heska Wanbli Weiden
Starring: half-Lakota Virgil Wounded Horse, who is the local enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota
What it's about: After his sister's death, Virgil takes in his teenage nephew Nathan. But when Nathan gets pulled into the heroin epidemic engulfing their reservation, Virgil decides it's time to dust off his vigilante past and take on the drug pushers outside the bounds of the shady tribal police force.
Reviewers say: "Weiden combines funny, complex, and unforgettable characters with strong, poetic prose." (Publishers Weekly)
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What it's about: Abbie Cullen-Scott doesn't remember why she's in the hospital, although her high-profile tech innovator husband tells says she's been in a coma for five years after a major accident. But while she rebuilds her life, Abbie starts to notice other things she can't account for, including her mysterious inability to taste or smell anything.
Why you might like it: high suspense, deception, surprising twists, and unusual setup.
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The premise: More than a decade after it happened, Beth Leeson still feels pangs of guilt about the way things ended with her closest friend Flora. After hearing that Flora has returned to town with her husband and children, Beth follows an impulse and drives to their upmarket neighborhood to see how life is treating her friend.
The problem: Flora looks good, but instead of the teenagers she expects, she sees two small children that appear not to have aged a day in the last 12 years.
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What it is: a character-driven, witty take on the suspense trope of a group of strangers thrown together by circumstances, this time at a chichi wellness retreat that may be more than it seems.
Featuring: wealthy but unhappy people like a couple whose marriage is suffering after winning the lottery, a young woman haunted by the death of her twin, a washed-up romance novelist, and an out-of-shape former Olympian. And overseeing it all is a preternaturally beautiful fitness guru with an unorthodox new regime to test out on her clients.
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What it's about: Living undercover as a high school baseball coach, ATF agent Curt Abbott is investigating a potential domestic terror plot inspired by the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing. But he didn't anticipate the complex web of connections underpinning the school's picturesque little town, nor the forces waiting to reel him into it.
Who it's for: readers looking for sophisticated thrillers; anyone who enjoys parallel narratives; readers curious about the pitfalls of modern technology and its ability to radicalize vulnerable young people.
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What it is: a twisted, compelling psychological thriller first published in France, which is told from multiple perspectives and raises troubling questions about the demands of modern motherhood.
Back to work: Attorney Myriam is returning to her career after taking time off to spend with her young children, so she and her husband begin to search for a nanny. Forty-something Louise seems perfect and the children take to her immediately, but what role will Louise play in the tragedy revealed in the story's first pages?
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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