One Step Too Far by Lisa Gardner
In the superb One Step Too Far (Dutton), former Rhode Island resident Lisa Gardner stretches her legs — literally. Gardner’s latest finds her swapping her typical suburban-set mysteries for the great outdoors.
Returning for a second go-round, missing persons expert Frankie Elkin is summoned to a Wyoming national forest on the trail of a young man named Tim O’Day who vanished without a trace while celebrating his upcoming wedding. Elkin, who sees her work as a kind of penance and accepts no fee for her efforts, immediately suspects something awry. And that’s before more disappearances mount, with Frankie squarely in the villain’s sights if she doesn’t find him (or her) first.
One Step Too Far reads like a hybrid combination of C. J. Box and Nevada Barr at their level best but is distinguished by Frankie’s troubled, haunted character. More agoraphobic than Gardner’s purposefully-claustrophobic crime tales, this is thriller writing of the absolute highest order, as great a novel as it is a page-turner. (Read the review here.)
End of Days by Brad Taylor
The amazing thing about Brad Taylor is how effortlessly his thrillers blend high and low stakes, the macro with the micro. That proclivity is more on display than ever in End of Days (William Morrow).
This time out Pike Logan and his stalwart TaskForce are tracking an international assassin single-handedly capable of igniting a virtual World War III. What starts out as an investigation into the assassination of the former head of Israel’s Mossad quickly morphs into a frantic and desperate race against time to prevent a cataclysm of epic proportions. Add a serial killer operating on the streets of Rome, and Logan and company have their work cut out for them like never before.
As before, though, Taylor has fashioned a wondrously structured tale that’s complex without being confounding. Once deemed the heir apparent to the likes of W.E.B. Griffin, Taylor is now laying claim to be the American John le Carré and his End of Days is a stunning triumph.
The Good Son by Jacquelyn Mitchard
Some might argue with my including Jacquelyn Mitchard in a thriller column, to whom I challenge to try putting down her latest page-turner, The Good Son (Mira). Definitions aside, she’s fashioned a taut, tantalizing tremor of a tale.
Parents delving into, and often covering up, the crimes of the children has long been prime storytelling fodder in the psychological thriller genre. But Mitchard smashes that paradigm by eliminating any doubt that Thea Demetriou’s son Stefan really did murder his girlfriend. Instead, the book opens with the boy’s release at the age of 21 after spending four years in prison. We’re then treated to a riveting tale of emotional turmoil on two fronts: Thea’s efforts to renew her relationship with Stefan, and the community’s response to his release which suggests vengeful, nefarious forces are afoot.
The book’s first-person narrative limits us to Thea’s perspective, adding to her angst-riddled predicament. The Good Son is a can’t-miss tale of tortuous relationships that reminded me of Judith Guest’s Ordinary People in all the right ways, regardless of label.
Targeted by Stephen Hunter
Reading a Stephen Hunter book featuring Bob Lee Swagger is like reuniting with an old friend you haven’t seen in much too long. That’s especially true when the reunion results in a great time, which is precisely the case with Targeted (Atria).
Turnabout, as they say, is fair play — a good thing, in this case, since Swagger becomes the only possible savior of a government watchdog group that’s taken hostage in the midst of a hearing where he’s appearing as a hostile witness. The notion of a scenario like that unfolding with a man of Swagger’s prowess present is pure literary gold, eerily well-timed in the wake of January 6. The rapid pace is fueled by psychological war games as much as physical ones, and highlighted by the delicious irony of an anti-gun group needing the best gun of them all to survive.
My only quibble with Targeted is that it somewhat mirrors Hunter’s similarly themed Soft Target from a decade back. But Bob Lee Swagger was nowhere to be found in those pages, while here he shines brightly in his typical folksy, downhome fashion that belies a steely spine and soul. An action-thriller extraordinaire.
Desolation Canyon by P. J. Tracy
It may be early in 2022, but it’s hard to imagine a better crime thriller emerging than P. J. Tracy’s Desolation Canyon (Minotaur).
Fresh from the events portrayed in Deep in the Dark, Los Angeles police detective Margaret Nolan returns to take on a complex case, involving the murder of an upper-crust lawyer, that seemingly no one wants her to solve. It’s a great set-up on its own before you even consider Nolan’s personal life rife with problems and obstacles she’ll have to overcome if she’s going to triumph over the powerful forces committed to bringing her down.
With Desolation Canyon, Tracy rises onto the rarified ground of Michael Connelly and David Baldacci. At its best, which is pretty much all the time, the book packs in political shenanigans and power-grabs on a level rivaling the classic film Chinatown. And Tracy draws each scene with the skill of a brilliant artist and hits every note like a master maestro.
A Thousand Steps by T. Jefferson Parker
As great a writer as T. Jefferson Parker has been since he debuted three decades-plus ago with Laguna Heat, his writing and storytelling have never been better than in A Thousand Steps (Forge), a psychedelic mind-trip of a tale.
In large part, that’s due to one of the most captivating and original heroes we will see this year in 16-year-old Matt Anthony. Make no mistake about it, though, this is no young adult novel. Set in 1968 California, Vietnam is in full swing, hippies are everywhere,and Woodstock is on the horizon. Matt’s parents are pretty much absent, his older sister is missing and his older brother is off fighting a war halfway around the world. That leaves Matt on his own as he tries to find his sister, redoubling his efforts when the body of another girl washes up on the beach.
A Thousand Steps will go down as Parker’s masterwork, showcasing his considerable talents as never before. Written in the present tense with a lyricism worthy of a poet’s pen, A Thousand Steps is an exquisite coming-of-age journey that reads like Catcher in the Rye as channeled through The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. That’s how good the book is and how great a writer Parker continues to be.
A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham
Stacy Willingham’s haunting A Flicker in the Dark (Minotaur) is one of those thrillers that stays with you long after the final page is turned.
The book’s cinematic structure opens with 12-year-old Chloe Davis dealing with her father being imprisoned for murdering six girls not much other than she. Nearly a generation later, Chloe has managed to put the past behind her as a soon-to-be-wed psychologist with a thriving practice. That is, until local teenage girls start to go missing, dredging up the past and making her wonder if maybe her father wasn’t guilty, after all. Or maybe he had an accomplice. Or maybe . . .
A Flicker in the Dark is a tension-soaked stunner of a tale that never lets up or lets us down, as flawlessly structured as it is magnificently realized. (Read the review here.)
