Harlan Coben continues his fabulous flirtation with postmodern horror in The Match (Grand Central), a Frankenstein-esque tale that picks up where The Boy from the Woods left off.
Wilde, who literally grew up in the wild as a boy, has abandoned his attempt to live in society, realizing the forest and mountains suit him much better. But he hasn’t given up hope of finding his true lineage, a clue to which lures him back to civilization. A DNA match allows Wilde to find his birth father at long last. What should be a long-awaited reunion, though, draws the attention of a ruthless human killing machine set on Wilde’s trail before he can get to the truth of his own origins that must be kept secret at all costs.
The brilliance of The Match lies in Coben’s capacity to weave staples of the horror genre into a pure, high-octane thriller full of twists and turns that’s not to be missed. Here, the deepest, darkest evil lies in the heart of man himself, and the true monsters who haunt our sleep could be living next door.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
In the bracing psychological thriller What Happened to the Bennetts (Putnam), Lisa Scottoline does a deep dive into how a single moment can change entire lives and, in this case, set those lives down a cruel and unforgiving path into a netherworld of uncertainty and despair.
The single moment in question for Jason Bennett is a simple drive home from his daughter’s lacrosse game, when he’s violently carjacked. The ultimately tragic event seems totally random at first glance, but it’s the second glance and all that follows that makes for a great thriller. And what follows here is the FBI reporting that Jason has run afoul of dangerous drug traffickers. His family ends up in Witness Protection and, as their lives unravel, Jason uncovers the truth behind that fateful night.
What Happened to the Bennetts just might be the best book Scottoline has ever written. A masterpiece of misdirection, where nothing is as it seems, and a scorching character study of a man at the end of his rope not about to go down without a fight. A great thriller and novel to boot.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
Brad Meltzer’s The Lightning Rod (William Morrow) is about as close to perfect as a thriller can get. Unless memory escapes me, this is the first time he’s brought back the same characters and does so here with sterling results.
Those characters are led once again by Nola Brown, a military artist who once specialized in painting historic events, and now uses her keen powers of observation to identify anomalies in the present. This time out Nola is on the trail of a soldier’s killers, which reunites her with military mortician Jim “Zig” Zigarowski. The murdered soldier, it turns out, was attached to a special unit whose members are being systematically executed, and our intrepid heroes must race to expose and destroy the deadly forces responsible before they join the growing list.
Nola and Zig make for an appealing, polished pairing, a key component in making The Lightning Rod terrific in all respects. A book that definitely deserves to be placed at the top of your To Be Read pile.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
I don’t know how he does it. 22 books in now, C. J. Box’s brilliant Joe Pickett series just keeps getting better, reaching new heights with Shadows Reel (Putnam).
It might be March in real time, but it’s Thanksgiving in the Pickett home in what should be reserved for quiet, family time — emphasis on “should.” No sooner than his three daughters arrive home for turkey, Joe is called away to look into animal poaching (appropriately enough). That investigation quickly morphs into an investigation of a brutal murder with roots that stretch all the way back to World War II
Those new heights I mentioned are thanks, in large part, to a big role for Joe’s wife Marybeth. Yes, Joe’s personal enforcer, Nate Romanowski, is along for the ride, too, but mostly on a separate track. Shadows Reel is Box’s most ambitious, sprawling, intricately plotted novel yet, taking him onto the hallowed ground of James Lee Burke. A brilliant exercise in form and function.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
Jessica Strawser carves out a place for herself alongside the likes of Alice Hoffman, Jodi Picoult and Judith Guest with A Million Reasons Why (St. Martin’s), high praise that’s much deserved.
A Million Reasons Why is melodramatic in all the right ways, a kind of throwback to seminal works like Willard Motley’s Let No Man Write My Epitaph, or Fannie Hurst’s Imitation of Life. Our two protagonists, Caroline and Sela, turn out to be half-sisters. Sela is in desperate need of a kidney transplant but has good reason not to approach Caroline, who might be her only hope for survival. Caroline, meanwhile, has recently learned that her rock-solid life is filled with fissures and fracture. Both women are living in self-imposed bubbles that could burst at any time, at which point they may have only each other to rely upon.
I’m not sure Strawser’s novel is a thriller per se, but it certainly reads like one. A Million Reasons Why is a deep and penetrating character-driven story about choices or the lack thereof, wondrously conceived and beautifully written. (Read BookTrib’s review here.)
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
Alex Finlay burst onto the scene last year with the terrific Every Last Fear. Now, Finlay’s back with another shattering psychological thriller in The Night Shift (Minotaur), which is even better.
Sticking true to the form, Finlay serves up a horrifically tragic event in the form of a random (or is it?) killing spree in, of all places, a Blockbuster Video store. Fast forward 15 years and we’re treated to a “Rashomon”-like structure of three different characters dealing with both the original incident as well as new truths that have been revealed about it: Starting with the fact that the thought-to-be perpetrator may not have been guilty at all and the real culprit might still be out there.
Elegantly carved from the niche of Harlan Coben, Lisa Gardner and the aforementioned Lisa Scottoline, The Night Shift is a masterpiece of misdirection and misplaced motivation, further establishing Finlay as a literary force to be reckoned with.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
Classic spy novels by the likes of Len Deighton, Helen MacInnes and John le Carré helped spawn the modern-day thriller. In that respect, William Maz’s The Bucharest Dossier (Oceanview) boasts both a retro feel and modern sensibility.
Maz’s version of le Carré’s George Smiley, Bill Hefflin, arrives in 1989, pre-revolution Bucharest, a dark homecoming for our conflicted protagonist given that he’s a Romanian ex-pat. Hefflin is the handler of a CIA mole inside the KGB. As he desperately searches for his lost love, he also finds himself searching for the truth behind a rebellion that swiftly morphs into a revolution. Heflin’s existential quest turns into a race for survival with enemies from all sides converging upon him.
The Bucharest Dossier is the first book I’ve ever reviewed that’s also worthy of comparison with the great Graham Greene of The Third Man fame. This is spy writing of the highest order, an homage not only to the roots of the thriller, but also the genre’s pop culture endurance. (Read BookTrib’s review here.)
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop
Bookstores don’t have a section labeled Wildly Imaginative, but if they did that’s where you’d find G. Wayne Miller’s fantastical Traces of Mary (Macabre Ink).
The Mary in question is Mary McAllister, who’s overcome a traumatic childhood to carve out a normal, happy life, until that life crumbles around her, and Mary crumbles under the weight. She ends up in a mental hospital and emerges even worse than when she came in, convinced she’s possessed by a being from another universe. Returning home, she adds her surviving child to the delusional mix, which begs the question, what if it’s not a delusion at all?
Miller wondrously explores the line between fantasy and reality, and how far even the hardiest among us will retreat to escape trauma and tragedy. In the best tradition of Stephen King and Robert R. McCammon, Traces of Mary expertly blends genres to fashion a world drenched in chaos that mirrors the condition of Mary’s soul in this psychedelic mindbender of a tale.
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The Match by Harlan Coben
Harlan Coben continues his fabulous flirtation with postmodern horror in The Match (Grand Central), a Frankenstein-esque tale that picks up where The Boy from the Woods left off.
Wilde, who literally grew up in the wild as a boy, has abandoned his attempt to live in society, realizing the forest and mountains suit him much better. But he hasn’t given up hope of finding his true lineage, a clue to which lures him back to civilization. A DNA match allows Wilde to find his birth father at long last. What should be a long-awaited reunion, though, draws the attention of a ruthless human killing machine set on Wilde’s trail before he can get to the truth of his own origins that must be kept secret at all costs.
The brilliance of The Match lies in Coben’s capacity to weave staples of the horror genre into a pure, high-octane thriller full of twists and turns that’s not to be missed. Here, the deepest, darkest evil lies in the heart of man himself, and the true monsters who haunt our sleep could be living next door.
What Happened to the Bennetts by Lisa Scottoline
In the bracing psychological thriller What Happened to the Bennetts (Putnam), Lisa Scottoline does a deep dive into how a single moment can change entire lives and, in this case, set those lives down a cruel and unforgiving path into a netherworld of uncertainty and despair.
The single moment in question for Jason Bennett is a simple drive home from his daughter’s lacrosse game, when he’s violently carjacked. The ultimately tragic event seems totally random at first glance, but it’s the second glance and all that follows that makes for a great thriller. And what follows here is the FBI reporting that Jason has run afoul of dangerous drug traffickers. His family ends up in Witness Protection and, as their lives unravel, Jason uncovers the truth behind that fateful night.
What Happened to the Bennetts just might be the best book Scottoline has ever written. A masterpiece of misdirection, where nothing is as it seems, and a scorching character study of a man at the end of his rope not about to go down without a fight. A great thriller and novel to boot.
The Lightning Rod by Brad Meltzer
Brad Meltzer’s The Lightning Rod (William Morrow) is about as close to perfect as a thriller can get. Unless memory escapes me, this is the first time he’s brought back the same characters and does so here with sterling results.
Those characters are led once again by Nola Brown, a military artist who once specialized in painting historic events, and now uses her keen powers of observation to identify anomalies in the present. This time out Nola is on the trail of a soldier’s killers, which reunites her with military mortician Jim “Zig” Zigarowski. The murdered soldier, it turns out, was attached to a special unit whose members are being systematically executed, and our intrepid heroes must race to expose and destroy the deadly forces responsible before they join the growing list.
Nola and Zig make for an appealing, polished pairing, a key component in making The Lightning Rod terrific in all respects. A book that definitely deserves to be placed at the top of your To Be Read pile.
Shadows Reel by C. J. Box
I don’t know how he does it. 22 books in now, C. J. Box’s brilliant Joe Pickett series just keeps getting better, reaching new heights with Shadows Reel (Putnam).
It might be March in real time, but it’s Thanksgiving in the Pickett home in what should be reserved for quiet, family time — emphasis on “should.” No sooner than his three daughters arrive home for turkey, Joe is called away to look into animal poaching (appropriately enough). That investigation quickly morphs into an investigation of a brutal murder with roots that stretch all the way back to World War II
Those new heights I mentioned are thanks, in large part, to a big role for Joe’s wife Marybeth. Yes, Joe’s personal enforcer, Nate Romanowski, is along for the ride, too, but mostly on a separate track. Shadows Reel is Box’s most ambitious, sprawling, intricately plotted novel yet, taking him onto the hallowed ground of James Lee Burke. A brilliant exercise in form and function.
A Million Reasons Why by Jessica Strawser
Jessica Strawser carves out a place for herself alongside the likes of Alice Hoffman, Jodi Picoult and Judith Guest with A Million Reasons Why (St. Martin’s), high praise that’s much deserved.
A Million Reasons Why is melodramatic in all the right ways, a kind of throwback to seminal works like Willard Motley’s Let No Man Write My Epitaph, or Fannie Hurst’s Imitation of Life. Our two protagonists, Caroline and Sela, turn out to be half-sisters. Sela is in desperate need of a kidney transplant but has good reason not to approach Caroline, who might be her only hope for survival. Caroline, meanwhile, has recently learned that her rock-solid life is filled with fissures and fracture. Both women are living in self-imposed bubbles that could burst at any time, at which point they may have only each other to rely upon.
I’m not sure Strawser’s novel is a thriller per se, but it certainly reads like one. A Million Reasons Why is a deep and penetrating character-driven story about choices or the lack thereof, wondrously conceived and beautifully written. (Read BookTrib’s review here.)
The Night Shift by Alex Finlay
Alex Finlay burst onto the scene last year with the terrific Every Last Fear. Now, Finlay’s back with another shattering psychological thriller in The Night Shift (Minotaur), which is even better.
Sticking true to the form, Finlay serves up a horrifically tragic event in the form of a random (or is it?) killing spree in, of all places, a Blockbuster Video store. Fast forward 15 years and we’re treated to a “Rashomon”-like structure of three different characters dealing with both the original incident as well as new truths that have been revealed about it: Starting with the fact that the thought-to-be perpetrator may not have been guilty at all and the real culprit might still be out there.
Elegantly carved from the niche of Harlan Coben, Lisa Gardner and the aforementioned Lisa Scottoline, The Night Shift is a masterpiece of misdirection and misplaced motivation, further establishing Finlay as a literary force to be reckoned with.
The Bucharest Dossier by William Maz
Classic spy novels by the likes of Len Deighton, Helen MacInnes and John le Carré helped spawn the modern-day thriller. In that respect, William Maz’s The Bucharest Dossier (Oceanview) boasts both a retro feel and modern sensibility.
Maz’s version of le Carré’s George Smiley, Bill Hefflin, arrives in 1989, pre-revolution Bucharest, a dark homecoming for our conflicted protagonist given that he’s a Romanian ex-pat. Hefflin is the handler of a CIA mole inside the KGB. As he desperately searches for his lost love, he also finds himself searching for the truth behind a rebellion that swiftly morphs into a revolution. Heflin’s existential quest turns into a race for survival with enemies from all sides converging upon him.
The Bucharest Dossier is the first book I’ve ever reviewed that’s also worthy of comparison with the great Graham Greene of The Third Man fame. This is spy writing of the highest order, an homage not only to the roots of the thriller, but also the genre’s pop culture endurance. (Read BookTrib’s review here.)
Traces of Mary by G. Wayne Miller
Bookstores don’t have a section labeled Wildly Imaginative, but if they did that’s where you’d find G. Wayne Miller’s fantastical Traces of Mary (Macabre Ink).
The Mary in question is Mary McAllister, who’s overcome a traumatic childhood to carve out a normal, happy life, until that life crumbles around her, and Mary crumbles under the weight. She ends up in a mental hospital and emerges even worse than when she came in, convinced she’s possessed by a being from another universe. Returning home, she adds her surviving child to the delusional mix, which begs the question, what if it’s not a delusion at all?
Miller wondrously explores the line between fantasy and reality, and how far even the hardiest among us will retreat to escape trauma and tragedy. In the best tradition of Stephen King and Robert R. McCammon, Traces of Mary expertly blends genres to fashion a world drenched in chaos that mirrors the condition of Mary’s soul in this psychedelic mindbender of a tale.
Hey Jon!
Hope all is well in your world! Great reviews!