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Thrillers and SuspenseApril 2016
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"When I found my husband at the bottom of the stairs, I tried to resuscitate him before I ever considered disposing of the body." ~ from Lisa Lutz's The Passenger
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| All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth BrundagePsychological Suspense. Did art history professor George Clare brutally murder his wife in their eerie farmhouse, then leave their toddler alone for hours while he returned to work? It seems likely, especially as the story of their more-than-shaky union unspools. But though both husband and wife carried secrets, so too did the unwelcoming town they'd recently moved to. Part mystery, part horror, and wholly unnerving, this riveting novel has been compared to Gillian Flynn's runaway bestseller Gone Girl, and may also appeal to fans of Jennifer McMahon's The Winter People. |
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| Hidden Bodies by Caroline KepnesPsychological Suspense. In this follow up to You, bookstore manager/serial killer Joe Goldberg is still mourning the loss of his girlfriend Beck, and is devastated when his new love takes off for L.A. without him. Determined to find (and punish) her, Joe heads west...where, despite his disdain for Hollywood mores, he fits right in. And then he meets, and falls in love with, a beautiful heiress named Love. Will this relationship flourish? Or will Joe's past catch up with him? With a charming (if murderous) protagonist, both You and Hidden Bodies will have you in the distinctly odd position of empathizing with a serial killer. |
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Family jewels
by Stuart Woods
Stone Barrington’s newest client seems to be a magnet for trouble. A poised lady of considerable wealth, she’s looking for help discouraging the attentions of a tenacious gentleman. But no sooner does Stone fend off the party in question than his client becomes involved in two lethal crimes.
With suspects aplenty, Stone must probe deep into his client’s life to find the truth, and he discovers that the heart of the mystery may be a famous missing piece of history, a stunningly beautiful vestige of a bygone era. It’s a piece with a long and storied past and untold value . . . the kind of relic someone might kill to obtain.
Among the upper crust nearly everyone has buried a skeleton or two, and it will take all of Stone’s investigative powers to determine whose secrets are harmless, and whose are deadly..
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No one knows
by J. T. Ellison
The day Aubrey Hamilton’s husband is declared dead by the state of Tennessee should bring closure so she can move on with her life. But Aubrey doesn’t want to move on; she wants Josh back. It’s been five years since he disappeared, since their blissfully happy marriage—they were happy, weren’t they?—screeched to a halt and Aubrey became the prime suspect in his disappearance. Five years of emptiness, solitude, loneliness, questions. Why didn’t Josh show up at his friend’s bachelor party? Was he murdered? Did he run away? And now, all this time later, who is the mysterious yet strangely familiar figure suddenly haunting her new life?
In No One Knows, the New York Times bestselling coauthor of the Nicholas Drummond series expertly peels back the layers of a complex woman who is hiding dark secrets beneath her unassuming exterior. This masterful thriller for fans of Gillian Flynn, Liane Moriarty, and Paula Hawkins will pull readers into a you’ll-never-guess merry-go-round of danger and deception. Round and round and round it goes, where it stops…no one knows.
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| The Passenger by Lisa LutzPsychological Suspense. Readers expecting the quirky charm of author Lisa Lutz's Spellman Files should prepare for something completely different: this dark novel starts with a fatal fall for the unfortunate Frank Dubois, which prompts his wife Tanya to flee, changing her name and appearance -- apparently not for the first time. A tenuous friendship with a mysterious bartender named Blue eases her loneliness, but may cause new problems as Tanya (now Amelia) tries to settle into yet another new life, under yet another new name. "Binge-worthy fare," says Booklist. |
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Most wanted
by Lisa Scottoline
Donor 3319 Profile: Tall. Blonde. Blue eyes. Medical Student. Wanted for Serial Murder. Christine Nilsson and her husband, Marcus, are desperate for a baby. Unable to conceive, they find themselves facing a difficult choice they had never anticipated. After many appointments with specialists, endless research, and countless conversations, they make the decision to use a donor. Two months pass, and Christine is happily pregnant. But one day, she is shocked to see a young blond man on the TV news being arrested for a series of brutal murders―and the blond man bears an undeniable and uncanny resemblance to her donor. Delving deeper to uncover the truth, Christine must confront a terrifying reality and face her worst fears. Riveting and fast-paced with the depth of emotionality that has garnered Lisa Scottoline legions of fans, Most Wanted poses an ethical and moral dilemma: What would you do if the biological father of your unborn child was a killer?.
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Dark debts
by Karen Lynne Hall
In Dark Debts, Karen Hall masterfully combines southern gothic, romantic comedy, and mystery in a wildly original theological thriller that has become a cult favorite since being published twenty years ago. In this new anniversary edition, the author has reimagined her work. The result is a suspenseful, irreverent, and deeply spiritual novel that captivates from the very beginning and doesn’t let go.
When Randa, a reporter for an alternative newspaper in Los Angeles, receives an urgent phone call from her estranged lover, Cam, she rushes to his apartment. She arrives to discover that he’s leapt from the building to his death. Police believe that before committing suicide, Cam also murdered someone in a convenience store, but Randa does not believe Cam is capable of such an act. She seeks out Cam’s brother, Jack, who is living off the grid, somewhere near Atlanta, in hope of figuring out what really happened.
Meanwhile, a Jesuit priest named Michael Kinney has been exiled from New York City to the boondocks of Georgia after making controversial public statements. He has said things that educated people of faith are not supposed to express. Even more problematically, he has fallen in love with a woman, and the last surviving member of his family has kept a shocking family secret from him.
How these characters converge is part of the thrilling mystery of Dark Debts, a cult favorite first published twenty years ago. In this new edition, author Karen Hall has re-imaged her southern gothic tale and the result is a work of even greater power—a brilliantly realized and suspenseful evocation of the conflict between good and evil..
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Redemption road
by John Hart
In a town on the brink and on a road with no mercy, a boy with a gun waits for the man who killed his mother, a detective finally confronts her troubled past, a good cop walks free after serving 13 years in prison and the unthinkable happens on the altar of an abandoned church. By the New York Times best-selling author of The Last Child
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Darkness
by Karen Robards
BOOM. That’s the sound that changes everything for Dr. Gina Sullivan, a renowned ornithologist on a group research grant trip on the remote island of Attu, Alaska. When an everyday outing turns sinister at the onset of one of Attu’s infamous storms, Gina expects thunder and lightning—but what she doesn’t see coming is the small jet plane that drops out of the sky and into the water mere feet from her boat. Even more unprecedented: there’s a sole survivor from the crash, and he needs Gina’s help. But it turns out that rescuing the stranger and getting them both out of the oncoming storm is just the beginning. Because the more Gina learns about James “Cal” Callahan, he of brooding eyes and muscled frame, the more she fears—for herself, and for him.
Cal has made a career of trading on government secrets and emerging unscathed—until a routine pickup goes horribly wrong and lands him in ice-cold water. Literally. He knows the plane crash was no accident and that there could very well be an enemy force currently combing the Alaskan island ensuring there were no survivors. Now if only the arrestingly beautiful bird-watcher with the clear-blue gaze would stop watching him, well, like a hawk. Cal convinces Gina to return to base camp and help him covertly get off the island. But when Gina makes it safely back to camp and finds her entire team murdered, all bets are off, and as darkness envelops the island, she must decide: trust a man she barely knows, or go it alone and risk running straight into the arms of a killer?
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The capitalist
by Peter Steiner
The villains who abuse our monetary system get what’s coming to them in this ingenious fifth novel in the critically acclaimed Louis Morgon series, written by cartoonist, painter, and novelist Peter Steiner. St. John Larrimer is a Wall Street investment banker, a pure capitalist by his own definition. Thanks to the Larrimer Fund’s spectacular returns, everyone wants a piece of the action. The only problem is that the whole operation is phony. And with the collapse of the markets and the demise of some of the biggest investment banks, Larrimer’s scam is revealed, and he has to skedaddle to his luxurious Caribbean retreat. Unfortunately for Larrimer, though, Louis Morgon, an old, long ago defrocked CIA operative now living in France, is one of our bad guy’s victims. For Louis Morgon injustice is an itch that has to be scratched. And he hatches a clever scheme of his own to bring Larrimer down. Using some forged paintings as bait and with the invaluable assistance of an Algerian computer wiz, a Newark hair stylist, a fake-English art buyer, Larrimer’s former secretary, and a cat named Arthur, Louis Morgan tries to reel in a master crook..
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| The Travelers by Chris PavoneSpy Fiction. In this complex, intelligent novel, travel writer Will Rhodes is completely unaware that his boss is running a spy agency alongside his travel magazine. In fact, he only learns about it when a woman shows up at his door with a gun and firm orders to recruit him, willingly or not, to the CIA. From there, an international chase ensues, while Will's marriage gets increasingly tense as he spins more and more lies. If John Le Carré doesn't pack enough punch, and Robert Ludlum isn't cerebral enough, The Travelers might be right up your alley. |
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| Bloodmoney: A Novel of Espionage by David IgnatiusThriller. There's a new, off-the-books unit of the CIA working in Pakistan, and despite the secrecy that cloaks it, the unit's operatives are being killed off, one by one. Newly minted head of counterintelligence Sophie Marx is tasked with finding the killer (or killers) and with figuring out how the officers' identities were leaked. What she uncovers -- U.S. bribery in Pakistan, highly illegal financial activities -- is terrifying, and will leave you wondering how much author David Ignatius' day job as a Washington Post columnist (specializing in the Middle East and the CIA) influences his fiction. |
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| Our Kind of Traitor by John Le CarréSpy Fiction. In Antigua for a vacation, former Oxford don Perry Makepiece and his girlfriend Gail are befriended by a Russian gangster named Dima, who wants them to help him escape an increasingly dangerous criminal underworld. But Dima, a big-time money launderer, knows a lot about which international financiers are above board -- and which are not -- and MI5 is mighty interested in him. Advised by operatives, Perry begins liaising with Dima, but it seems as if everyone has a slightly different agenda. This tale of treachery, infighting, and the trail of money is a "chamber symphony of exquisite delicacy" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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The summons
by John Grisham
A pillar of the community who towered over local law and politics for forty years, Judge Atlee is now a shadow of his former self—a sick, lonely old man who has withdrawn to his sprawling ancestral home in Clanton, Mississippi. Knowing that the end is near, Judge Atlee has issued a summons for his two sons to return to Clanton to discuss his estate. Ray Atlee is the elder, a Virginia law professor, newly single, still enduring the aftershocks of a surprise divorce. Forrest is Ray’s younger brother, the family’s black sheep.
The summons is typed by the Judge himself, on his handsome old stationery, and gives the date and time for Ray and Forrest to appear in his study. Ray reluctantly heads south to his hometown, to the place he now prefers to avoid. But the family meeting does not take place. The Judge dies too soon, and in doing so leaves behind a shocking secret known only to Ray . . . and perhaps to someone else..
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Life or death
by Michael Robotham
Brutalized in prison for a decade for his alleged knowledge about where a fortune in stolen money is hidden, Audie mysteriously escapes the day before his scheduled release in a determined effort to save someone else's life.
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Two-dollar bill
by Stuart Woods
Reluctantly taking in a smooth-talking Texan who possesses a cache of rare two-dollar bills and who survives an apparent attack on his life, Manhattan attorney Stone Barrington becomes increasingly concerned about the man's credibility when a dead body is found in his own house.
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| Portobello: A Novel by Ruth RendellPsychological Thriller. The catalyst for this leisurely paced but tense suspense novel is an envelope full of cash, which gallery owner Eugene Wren finds on Portobello Road after its owner is felled by a heart attack and carted off to the hospital. Eugene doesn't need the money himself, so he posts notices about the find and is soon contacted by other Londoners, all with their own obsessions and despairs. His good act leads, ultimately, to terrible consequences. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Prince George's County Memorial Library System 9601 Capital Lane Largo, Maryland 20774 301-699-3500www.pgcmls.info/ |
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