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Autopsy by Patricia Cornwell
The Starless Crown by James Rollins
Head Shot by Otho Eskin
At First Light by Barbara Nickless
The Return of the Pharaoh by Nicholas Meyer
The Kill Box by H. Ripley Rawlings IV

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The holidays are all about time spent with family and friends. That makes Patricia Cornwell’s triumphant return of our old friend Kay Scarpetta in Autopsy (Morrow) all the more appropriate. 

Last seen in 2016’s Chaos, Scarpetta and her trusty coroner’s scalpel return to her original stomping grounds of Virginia where she is now chief medical examiner, and her latest case is literally out of this world. That’s because one of the two cases demanding the stalwart Scarpetta’s attention includes a crime scene in outer space. And if that’s not enough for you, there’s also a particularly heinous serial killer on the loose who’s threatening the idyllic lifestyle she thought she’d settled into.

Autopsy is the first thriller I’ve read unafraid to take on both the societal costs of the pandemic and the wreckage of our political system. It’s also the best book Cornwell has written in years, a tale penned from the heart as well as the mind. A seminal forensics thriller that reminds us that this is a sub-genre she basically invented. The last must-read book of 2021 is not to be missed.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop

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Cut equally from the cloth of Game of Thrones and The Wheel of Time series, James Rollins’ stupendous The Starless Crown (Tor) reminds us how much fun a great, epic adventure can be.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, as they say, a planet stopped turning on its axis, plunging half that world into perpetual darkness and the other into constant light. Geophysical changes have further rendered this planet barely recognizable from its older form. Thankfully, a ragtag group of reluctant heroes bands together to save their world, but gathering forces of evil prefer the current status quo, meaning our not-quite magnificent seven has their work cut out for them.

The Starless Crown is a seismic tremor of a tale that Rollins himself terms a “scientific fantasy.” Labels aside, this is storytelling at its level best, rich in detail to wondrously build a whole new world and mythology. Genre fans will be doing cartwheels over this one and Rollins deserves a crown of his own for penning it.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop

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Otho Eskin didn’t publish his first thriller until he was in his eighties. But if his second, the nearly flawless Head Shot (Oceanview), is any indication, let’s hope he’s got a bunch more titles in the Marco Zorn series to come.

Zorn, whom we first met in The Reflecting Pool, is a Washington, DC homicide detective with exorbitant lifestyle tastes and a true dark side when it comes to supporting them. This time out, though, he’s all business as he investigates the bizarre murder of a former lover while playing bodyguard to a visiting political dignitary. The mystery deepens when Zorn’s own life turns out to be in danger as well. The question is why and which of his parallel cases is responsible for a John Wick-like army of assassins out to kill him?

Head Shot is more sprawling, ambitious and better realized than Eskin’s first effort. This is a thinking man’s thriller that would make David Baldacci or Brad Meltzer proud. And Zorn is one of the most unique and colorful voices in thriller fiction today. (Read BookTrib’s review of Head Shot here and The Reflecting Pool here.)

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop

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Barbara Nickless kicks off a new series in high gear with the superb At First Light (Thomas & Mercer), a serial killer procedural that’s as good as it gets in the sub-genre.

The SE7EN-like setup features ritual murders that suggest Viking lore, of all things. Fortunately, forensic semiotician (first time I’ve heard that term, too!) Evan Wilding is every bit a match for the genius of the villain, aka “the Viking Poet.” Wilding may not know the motives of his nemesis, but he does know there are a lot more victims to come. As he closes in on the killer in a cat-and-mouse game akin to the classic Silence of the Lambs, the killer closes in on him.

Thriller and crime fiction have been looking for a successor to the throne formerly occupied by the likes of Thomas Harris, James Patterson and Jeffery Deaver. We can stop looking now. At First Light is a mind-numbing stunner of a tale that never lets up or lets us down. 

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop

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It takes true literary fortitude to redefine a classic series, which is exactly what Nicholas Meyer has done with Sherlock Holmes, letting Holmes’s sidekick Dr. John Watson drive the action. The Return of the Pharaoh (Minotaur) is the latest to shift the Arthur Conan Doyle paradigm to sterling results.

With his wife still struggling with tuberculosis, Watson finds hope in a Cairo clinic. While in Egypt, he happens to run into, you guessed it, Sherlock Holmes, who’s working a case that involves a missing duke who doubles as an archaeologist. And he’s not the first Egyptologist to die or disappear. A sinister plot, as Holmes himself might say, is afoot, but the stakes turn out to be much higher than either Dr. Watson or Holmes could possibly have imagined.

Meyer’s experience in film as a writer and director provides him a great sense of pacing, suspense and surprises. Return of the Pharaoh fits the mold Arthur Conan Doyle established while not being bound to it. A slam-bang literary reinvention.  

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop

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H. Ripley Rawlings IV’s The Kill Box (Kensington) excels as an exercise in speculative fiction that hits almost too close to the mark in these tumultuous times.

The great screenwriter John Milius turned Hollywood upside down in 1984 with the release of Red Dawn, which postulated a Russian takeover of the United States utterly lacking in logic. Rawlings, on the other hand, has envisioned a comparable military and political scenario that seems all too plausible. The high school heroes of Red Dawn are replaced by a loose amalgam of professional and civilian warriors, led by their de facto leader Tyce Asher, a Marine who embraces the lone wolf nature of the charge before him as he endeavors to retake the country.

The Kill Box reads like Tom Clancy at his best with all the filler stripped out. Rawlings proves himself an adept storyteller and superb tactician in laying out what in lesser hands would border on the absurd, but in his grasp becomes everything a high-action thriller is supposed to be.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop

Autopsy by Patricia Cornwell

Autopsy by Patricia Cornwell

The holidays are all about time spent with family and friends. That makes Patricia Cornwell’s triumphant return of our old friend Kay Scarpetta in Autopsy (Morrow) all the more appropriate. 

Last seen in 2016’s Chaos, Scarpetta and her trusty coroner’s scalpel return to her original stomping grounds of Virginia where she is now chief medical examiner, and her latest case is literally out of this world. That’s because one of the two cases demanding the stalwart Scarpetta’s attention includes a crime scene in outer space. And if that’s not enough for you, there’s also a particularly heinous serial killer on the loose who’s threatening the idyllic lifestyle she thought she’d settled into.

Autopsy is the first thriller I’ve read unafraid to take on both the societal costs of the pandemic and the wreckage of our political system. It’s also the best book Cornwell has written in years, a tale penned from the heart as well as the mind. A seminal forensics thriller that reminds us that this is a sub-genre she basically invented. The last must-read book of 2021 is not to be missed.


The Starless Crown by James Rollins

The Starless Crown by James Rollins

Cut equally from the cloth of Game of Thrones and The Wheel of Time series, James Rollins’ stupendous The Starless Crown (Tor) reminds us how much fun a great, epic adventure can be.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, as they say, a planet stopped turning on its axis, plunging half that world into perpetual darkness and the other into constant light. Geophysical changes have further rendered this planet barely recognizable from its older form. Thankfully, a ragtag group of reluctant heroes bands together to save their world, but gathering forces of evil prefer the current status quo, meaning our not-quite magnificent seven has their work cut out for them.

The Starless Crown is a seismic tremor of a tale that Rollins himself terms a “scientific fantasy.” Labels aside, this is storytelling at its level best, rich in detail to wondrously build a whole new world and mythology. Genre fans will be doing cartwheels over this one and Rollins deserves a crown of his own for penning it.


Head Shot by Otho Eskin

Head Shot by Otho Eskin

Otho Eskin didn’t publish his first thriller until he was in his eighties. But if his second, the nearly flawless Head Shot (Oceanview), is any indication, let’s hope he’s got a bunch more titles in the Marco Zorn series to come.

Zorn, whom we first met in The Reflecting Pool, is a Washington, DC homicide detective with exorbitant lifestyle tastes and a true dark side when it comes to supporting them. This time out, though, he’s all business as he investigates the bizarre murder of a former lover while playing bodyguard to a visiting political dignitary. The mystery deepens when Zorn’s own life turns out to be in danger as well. The question is why and which of his parallel cases is responsible for a John Wick-like army of assassins out to kill him?

Head Shot is more sprawling, ambitious and better realized than Eskin’s first effort. This is a thinking man’s thriller that would make David Baldacci or Brad Meltzer proud. And Zorn is one of the most unique and colorful voices in thriller fiction today. (Read BookTrib’s review of Head Shot here and The Reflecting Pool here.)


At First Light by Barbara Nickless

At First Light by Barbara Nickless

Barbara Nickless kicks off a new series in high gear with the superb At First Light (Thomas & Mercer), a serial killer procedural that’s as good as it gets in the sub-genre.

The SE7EN-like setup features ritual murders that suggest Viking lore, of all things. Fortunately, forensic semiotician (first time I’ve heard that term, too!) Evan Wilding is every bit a match for the genius of the villain, aka “the Viking Poet.” Wilding may not know the motives of his nemesis, but he does know there are a lot more victims to come. As he closes in on the killer in a cat-and-mouse game akin to the classic Silence of the Lambs, the killer closes in on him.

Thriller and crime fiction have been looking for a successor to the throne formerly occupied by the likes of Thomas Harris, James Patterson and Jeffery Deaver. We can stop looking now. At First Light is a mind-numbing stunner of a tale that never lets up or lets us down. 

 


The Return of the Pharaoh by Nicholas Meyer

The Return of the Pharaoh by Nicholas Meyer

It takes true literary fortitude to redefine a classic series, which is exactly what Nicholas Meyer has done with Sherlock Holmes, letting Holmes’s sidekick Dr. John Watson drive the action. The Return of the Pharaoh (Minotaur) is the latest to shift the Arthur Conan Doyle paradigm to sterling results.

With his wife still struggling with tuberculosis, Watson finds hope in a Cairo clinic. While in Egypt, he happens to run into, you guessed it, Sherlock Holmes, who’s working a case that involves a missing duke who doubles as an archaeologist. And he’s not the first Egyptologist to die or disappear. A sinister plot, as Holmes himself might say, is afoot, but the stakes turn out to be much higher than either Dr. Watson or Holmes could possibly have imagined.

Meyer’s experience in film as a writer and director provides him a great sense of pacing, suspense and surprises. Return of the Pharaoh fits the mold Arthur Conan Doyle established while not being bound to it. A slam-bang literary reinvention.  


The Kill Box by H. Ripley Rawlings IV

The Kill Box by H. Ripley Rawlings IV

H. Ripley Rawlings IV’s The Kill Box (Kensington) excels as an exercise in speculative fiction that hits almost too close to the mark in these tumultuous times.

The great screenwriter John Milius turned Hollywood upside down in 1984 with the release of Red Dawn, which postulated a Russian takeover of the United States utterly lacking in logic. Rawlings, on the other hand, has envisioned a comparable military and political scenario that seems all too plausible. The high school heroes of Red Dawn are replaced by a loose amalgam of professional and civilian warriors, led by their de facto leader Tyce Asher, a Marine who embraces the lone wolf nature of the charge before him as he endeavors to retake the country.

The Kill Box reads like Tom Clancy at his best with all the filler stripped out. Rawlings proves himself an adept storyteller and superb tactician in laying out what in lesser hands would border on the absurd, but in his grasp becomes everything a high-action thriller is supposed to be.


Jon Land

Jon Land is the bestselling author over 25 novels. He graduated from Brown University in 1979 Phi Beta Kappa and Magna cum Laude and continues his association with Brown as an alumni advisor. Jon often bases his novels and scripts on extensive travel and research as well as a twenty-five year career in martial arts. He is an associate member of the US Special Forces and frequently volunteers in schools to help young people learn to enjoy the process of writing. Jon is the Vice-President of marketing of the International Thriller Writers (ITW) and is often asked to speak on topics regarding writing and research. In addition to writing suspense/thrillers, Jon is also a screenwriter with his first film credit in 2005. Jon works with many industry professionals and has garnered the respect and friendship of many author-colleagues. He loves storytelling in all its forms. Jon currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island and loves hearing from his readers and aspiring writers.

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