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Thrillers and Suspense January 2020
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| Just Watch Me by Jeff LindsayWhat it is: an engaging caper novel starring Riley White, a flawed but compelling master thief with a reputation for audacious and daring heists.
The thrill is gone...Riley is starting to feel like his job is getting too easy so he sets his sights on an impossible target: a museum exhibit of the Iranian Crown Jewels, and the layers of security protecting them.
Read it for: Riley's parkour skills, complex moral code, and occasional acts of vigilante justice a la Robin Hood. |
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| The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire NorthWhat it's about: As World War I rages in the background, English doctor William Abbey recounts his experiences in colonial South Africa decades earlier and the (figurative and literal) shadow that has followed him since the day he failed to save the life of a local child.
Who it's for: fans of thought-provoking and emotionally moving horror fiction; anyone interested in the legacy of colonialism and the nature of concepts like guilt and culpability. |
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Cold Storage
by David Koepp
What happens: A deadly, highly contagious fungus that kills humans for nourishment has already wiped out a remote Australian town. And it's about to escape its no-longer-secure storage facility in the U.S....
Author alert: This terrifying debut is by a screenwriter and director who has worked on numerous big Hollywood films (Jurassic Park and Mission: Impossible among them).
Reviewers say: "this is a terrific thriller: ambitious, audacious, gory, scary, flamboyant, and funny" (Booklist).
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The Mausoleum
by David Mark
1967. In a quiet village in the wild lands of the Scottish borders, disgraced academic Cordelia Hemlock is trying to put her life back together. Grieving the loss of her son, she seeks out the company of the dead, taking comfort amid the ancient headstones and crypts of the local churchyard. When lightning strikes a tumbledown tomb, she glimpses a corpse that doesn't belong among the crumbling bones. But when the storm passes and the body vanishes, the authorities refuse to believe the claims of a hysterical 'outsider'. Teaming up with a reluctant witness, local woman Felicity Goose, Cordelia's enquiries all lead back to a former POW camp that was set up in the village during the Second World War. But not all Gilsland's residents welcome the two young women's interference. There are those who believe the village's secrets should remain buried, whatever the cost.
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Lock every door : a novel
by Riley Sager
Jules takes a job as an apartment sitter at a posh Manhattan building to escape heartbreak and earn some cash, but when a fellow apartment sitter disappears, Jules digs into the building's past and what she finds sends her racing to unmask a killer
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| The Sacrament by Olaf OlafssonWhat it is: a haunting, character-driven, literary thriller that grapples with the legacy of child abuse in the Catholic Church and the decades-old secrets surrounding a priest's mysterious suicide.
Starring: Sister Johanna, a nun who seems to be an unlikely thriller protagonist -- at least until the truths she's been hiding from for the last 40 years begin to catch up with her.
Reviewers say: a "gripping, masterfully constructed story" that bends "toward redemption and justice" (Booklist). |
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| Reputation by Sara ShepardWhat it's about: When the hacked emails of the students, faculty, and staff of the elite Aldrich University are leaked online, tensions on campus escalate until someone is driven to kill a prominent medical professor.
Why you might like it: the story's multiple perspectives make each narrator a complex blend of sympathetic and suspicious.
About the author: Although Sara Shephard is best known for her young adult series Pretty Little Liars, she has written other works of adult fiction such as Everything We Wanted and The Elizas. |
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Thirteen : The Serial Killer Isn't on Trial. He's on the Jury
by Steve Cavanagh
They were Hollywood's hottest power couple. They had the world at their feet. Now one of them is dead and Hollywood star Robert Solomon is charged with the brutal murder of his beautiful wife. This is the celebrity murder trial of the century and the defence want one man on their team: con artist turned lawyer Eddie Flynn. All the evidence points to Robert's guilt, but as the trial begins a series of sinister incidents in the court room start to raise doubts in Eddie's mind. What if there's more than one actor in the courtroom? What if the killer isn't on trial? What if the killer is on the jury?
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If You Like: Classic Spy Novels
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| Lenin's Roller Coaster by David DowningSeries alert: This 3rd entry in David Downing's richly detailed series of Jack McColl spy novels takes Jack to Russia shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 on a mission critical to the still-raging World War I.
Fancy meeting you here: Jack's mission and personal life get a lot more complex when he crosses paths with his old flame, American journalist Caitlin Hanley, who is firmly on the side of the revolutionaries.
For fans of: atmospheric espionage tales such as Robert Harris' An Officer and a Spy. |
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| Tightrope by Simon MawerWhat it is: the compelling sequel to Trapeze, which finds British SOE agent Marian Sutro free from Ravensbruck but struggling with the trauma of the war and reluctantly getting pulled back into spywork.
Her mission: turn Russian journalist David Absolon, who is secretly an intelligence agent charged with turning her into a double agent.
For fans of: Graham Greene's The Human Factor, which also muddies the waters between a character's personal loyalties and their mission. |
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| The Girl from Venice by Martin Cruz SmithThe premise: Italian fisherman Cenzo Vianello has been trying to keep his head down and stay off the radar of the Nazis who are occupying his city, until the day he pulls a young Jewish woman from the lagoon and impulsively decides to help her hide from the Germans.
The problem: Although the German surrender is just around the corner, tension is still high and the occupiers may decide to take as many Venetians as they can down with them.
For fans of: The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure, which takes place in occupied France and also features a character pulled deeper into the resistance by unexpected events. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Christchurch City Libraries Ngā Kete Wānanga o Ōtautahi PO Box 73045 Christchurch 8154 +64-3-941-7923
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