The Bottom Line: Lush and evocative. The perfect introduction to Sibel Hodge, one of the decade’s most dynamic literary talents. Set in the fictional West African country of Narumbe (you thought I was going to say Wakanda, didn’t you?), author Sibel Hodge delivers a taut thriller that could be a bonafide blockbuster. While Hodge commits the […]
The Bottom Line: A blend of non-fiction and fiction that works on many levels. Alice Sandoval’s The New Holy Warriors adds a potent new layer to the canon of post-9/11 political thriller literature. The primary story begins on September 13, 2001, as Dr. Rodrigo Bravo and his wife Sally, both Doctors Without Borders volunteers vanish […]
The Bottom Line: A wonderfully claustrophobic murder mystery with a razor-sharp amateur sleuth. As long as there have been artists, there have been long-suffering personal assistants. But author Laura Stewart Schmidt, author of the deftly-written Until Proven Innocent, manages to deliver plenty of surprises in Don’t Fear, My Darling. In 1987, twenty-two-year-old Louisa Berry is […]
The Bottom Line: Original, audacious and raw. A truly dark treat for fans of the serial killer genre. Russell Pisarek, the budding killer at the heart of The Bedwetter, is truly in a class of his own. Should Lee Allen Howard’s The Bedwetter be adapted for TV, the money line in the series trailer will surely be, […]
The Bottom Line: Exceptional pacing and a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller make this a top pick for military thriller fans. Brad Thor fans awaiting the next Scott Harvath thriller should check out The Persian Gamble, a believable novel about a fictional nuclear alliance formed by Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Shot out of the air in enemy territory […]
The Bottom Line: A masterfully crafted murder mystery that spins a small town’s dark secrets about family, faith and racial tensions into pure gold. Within a week of returning to her hometown to care for her father, struggling actress Brooklyn Anderson finds herself at the epicenter of two brutal crimes. Just hours before her arrival, […]
The Bottom Line: A believable thriller about the lengths to which parents will go to protect their children. You’d never know by looking at her, but drug addict Paige Green is the daughter of a Wall Street financial adviser and a pediatrician. When her father, Simon, spots her playing guitar and panhandling in Central Park, […]
Almost since the FBI was founded during the Teddy Roosevelt presidency in 1908, novelists and filmmakers alike have been cooking up fictional episodes of the legendary G-men. Some of these classic tales are tributes, and many more are conspiracy theories. More often than not in books about the FBI, the feds are positioned as the […]
The Bottom Line: Atmospheric and engrossing, Damned is a perfect read for fans of gothic paranormal fiction. The first entry in the Magnus Blackwell series takes place on an island off the coast of Maine, more than a century after the series prequel. Architect Will Bennett has purchased Altmover Manor as a surprise for his […]
The Bottom Line: A gritty tour-de-force medical thriller that showcases both the wonders and horror of 20th-century medicine. One of the year’s best thrillers. The Madhouse is the story of New Orleans native Alex Gage, who struggles out of poverty to become not only a respected psychiatrist, but also an aspiring reformist. The story begins […]
