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Thrillers and Suspense
January 2023
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In her blood by Nikki CrutchleyJac Morgan never planned on going back to her hometown. Seven years after the fatal house fire that killed her mother and branded Jac a killer she's back but for only one reason. Her sister, Charlie, has gone missing. Charlie's the only good thing in Jac's life, and she doesn't believe she would ever run away. Jac is certain the answer to her sister's disappearance is somewhere in the town.
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River Woman, River Demon
by
Jennifer Givhan
What it's about: Eva Santos Moon has a deep connection with her Chicana heritage and the spiritual practices that go along with it, which she relies on to cope with PTSD-induced blackouts and memory gaps -- a condition that gets even worse when her husband is accused of a murder similar to the one that traumatized Eva in her youth. Read it for: the well-developed characters, cultural fluency, and pervasive sense of psychological uncertainty. You might also like: All the Broken Girls by Linda Hurtado Bond; My Sweet Girl by Amanda Jayatissa.
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The Bequest
by
Joanna Margaret
What it's about: Grad student Isabel Henley trades Boston for a university in Scotland only to learn that the renowned scholar who was to be her thesis advisor has just died in a hiking accident. When Isabel's only friend at the university gets kidnapped, she sets out on an international journey to discover the truth about both incidents. Read it for: the informative research and obvious passion that author Joanna Margaret brings to Isabel's area of study, Renaissance art history. F or fans of: The Maidens by Alex Michaelides; Madam by Phoebe Wynne.
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Anywhere You Run
by
Wanda M. Morris
What it is: the atmospheric, intricately plotted story of two sisters fleeing separately from Mississippi after Jim Crow injustices, gendered expectations, and the desire for self-determination make staying home impossible.
How it's told: in chapters that alternate between each sister's perspective as they leave for Cleveland and Washington D.C. respectively.
Reviewers say: Anywhere You Run is a " viscerally frightening novel of the Jim Crow era" and a "stunning, heartbreaking portrayal of being Black in the 1960s U.S. South" (Library Journal).
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The Flock
by
J. Todd Scott
What it is: an intricately plotted near future thriller about climate change apocalypse, the doomsday cults that arose in its wake, and the lengths a determined mother will go to in order to protect her daughter from the burdens of her past. For fans of: the Passage series by Justin Cronin; How to Survive Everything by Ewan Morrison.
Why you might like it: the alternating narrative perspectives, which keep the suspense high; the inclusion of "supplementary" documents throughout, including trial transcripts and contemporary news reports.
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Malice House
by
Megan Shepherd
What it's about: In need of the money, artist Haven Marbury has agreed to illustrate a creepy unpublished manuscript found in her Pulitzer Prize-winning father's home after his death. As the project progresses, Haven begins to learn things about the house, the nearby town, and her own family that undermine everything she once thought was true.
Is it for you? Malice House will probably appeal most to readers who don't mind when the line between thriller and horror gets a little fuzzy. About the author: Malice House is the adult fiction debut of YA author Megan Shepherd, whose previous work includes the Madman's Daughter series.
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Vicious Creatures
by Ashton Noone
What it's about: Ava Mongomery left her small Oregon hometown 15 years ago after her the death of her friend Adam Albright. Now in her thirties and fleeing an abusive husband, Ava returns to her parents house with her teenage daughter Marjorie, who develops a troubling fascination with the forest where Adam's body was found.
Read it for: the menacing tone, well-developed characters, and class conflicts at the heart of the small town's gothic atmosphere.
You might also like: Sundial by Catriona Ward; The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld.
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The Tattoo Murder Case
by Akimitsu Takagi
Kenzo Matsuchita, a young repatriated doctor specializing in the study of forensic medicine, joins his brother, the police detective in charge of the case, to investigate the brutal murder of a young woman--Kenzo's secret lover--whose killing may be tied to her beautiful full-body tattoos.
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Back to the garden : a novel
by Laurie R. King
Inspector Raquel Laing investigates a 50-year-old case at a storied and glamourous California estate after renovations turn up a human skull that may have been the work of a serial killer.
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Broken summer
by Chŏng-myŏng Yi
After his wife mysteriously disappears, artist Lee Hanjo discovers a novel she has written about secrets from his past, as he reflects on a summer in his youth when a nefarious deception resulted in tragedy for two families
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Hunting time
by Jeffery Deaver
A wealthy entrepreneur hires Colter Shaw to track down and protect his employee, Allison Parker, a brilliant engineer, who is on the run from her ex-husband with her teenage daughter, in the fourth novel of the series following Hunting Time. Simultaneous.
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Leda and the swan
by Anna Caritj
"It's Halloween, Saturday night, on a pastoral East coast college campus. Scantily-costumed students ride the fine line between adolescence and adulthood as they prepare for a night of debauchery. Alcohol is flowing. Sex is in the air. Expectations are high as Leda flirts with her thrilling new crush, Ian, and he flirts back. But by the end of the night things will have taken a turn. When Leda later wakes up in Ian's room, she is unsure exactly what happened between them. Meanwhile, the young woman that Leda last spoke to upon leaving the party is now missing. As the campus rouses itself to respond to Charlotte's disappearance, rumors swirl, suspicious facts pile up, and Leda's obsession with her missing classmate grows. Is it just a coincidence that Leda's slightly scary new boyfriend and the missing woman used to be a couple? Is Leda herself in danger? Or only in danger of falling in love? How are you supposed to tell the difference, anyway, if you're a twenty-year-old alone in the world and have neverfelt any of this before? As Leda becomes more and more dangerously consumed with the mystery of Charlotte and questions about Ian, her motivations begin to blur. Is Leda looking for Charlotte, or trying to find herself?"
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Long overdue at the Lakeside Library
by Holly Danvers
When Wallace, a local man, is found dead during the annual Ice Fishing Jamboree, librarian Rain Wilmot finds an enigmatic note to her from Wallace in the books he had returned and seeks to understand the message, while trying to catch a slippery killer.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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