Jack Carr, once again, puts his years as a Navy SEAL to splendid use in In the Blood (Atria), his fifth book to feature his literary doppelgänger James Reece, which reads like a hybrid combination of Trevanian’s Shibumi and the best of Robert Ludlum.
The classic opening features a plane destroyed by terrorists, with the Israeli Mossad’s top assassin, a woman, on board. Her face as one of the victims broadcast on cable news is spotted by Reece who comes to suspect the plane was not targeted randomly and sets out after the individuals and group responsible. The phrase “let sleeping dogs lie” has never been more appropriate as the bad guys have clearly crossed the wrong guy.
Like all of Carr’s thrillers, In the Blood is carved more from the school of Alistair MacLean and less from that of Tom Clancy. He displays a knack for character on top of action and plotting, making Carr every bit the equal of Vince Flynn, Brad Thor and Brad Taylor.
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One of the exploding trends in crime-thriller fiction these days is bad things coming to small-town America, which is clearly and wondrously on display in Samantha Jayne Allen’s Pay Dirt Road (Minotaur).
The book, which won the Tony Hillerman prize, features down-on-her-luck Annie McIntyre who comes back home to wait tables at a local diner. Her grandfather Leroy thinks a better option would be to join him as a private investigator, a skill she puts to immediate good use when another server in the same diner vanishes. At that point, the book evolves into a journey of self-discovery as well as crime story in the tradition of such streaming small town-based stalwarts as American Rust, Hightown and especially HBO’s brilliant Mare of Easttown.
Pay Dirt Road not only finds itself riding that wave, but also helping to define it. And Allen proves herself as adept as the likes of David Baldacci, Lisa Gardner and Lisa Scottoline when it comes to stuffing great big things into a small package.
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Michael Benson’s nonfiction masterpiece Gangsters vs. Nazis (Citadel Press) reads like speculative fiction at its very best, even though the incidents the book portrays are very much real.
Did you know that as Adolph Hitler rose to power in 1930s Germany a dedicated Fascist movement tried to make inroads in America? Did you know they were stopped by none other than Jewish mobsters who had helped build organized crime empires for the top gangsters of the time? Well, neither did I. And, the brilliant historical irony given what was to come aside, the book actually exceeds the expectations of that setup.
“Gangsters vs. Nazis” is one of the most rivetingly relevant reads I’ve ever encountered, chock full or real-life heroes and villains who are every bit the match for the best thriller fiction has to offer.
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Brian Klingborg and his already iconic hero, Inspector Lu Fei of the Chinese Police, make a triumphant return in the exemplary Wild Prey (Minotaur), expanding on a series already bristling with originality.
This time out, to freshen things even further, Klingborn dispatches his masterful creation to Myanmar, where a female warlord has run afoul of both the Chinese government and Lu Fei himself. That’s because in addition to illegally trafficking in wild animals, she has branched out into humans as well. The fun this time out is watching Lu Fei go undercover to uncover the whereabouts of a missing girl and bring down the woman who’s threatening stability in the region.
I compared Klingborg’s series debut, Thief of Souls, to Martin Cruz’s Smith seminal Gorky Park and its hero Arkady Renko. The same comparison applies here, but let’s add Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole and even Stieg Larsson’s Lizbeth Salander to the mix as well. Terrific in all respects.
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In 2009, Richard Doetsch thrilled us with his groundbreaking The Thirteenth Hour. Now, 13 years later, appropriately enough, he’s back with the equally thrilling The Thirteenth Hour: Chaos (Permuted Press).
Once again, our hero Nick Quinn finds himself struck by tragedy he can magically reverse, this time with the help of a pocket watch that winds time backwards. Play his cards right and that means Nick can rewind the world long enough to prevent a catastrophic terrorist attack on his small town in the heart of suburbia that claims the life of his wife and daughter. In true Twilight Zone fashion, though, the magic proves as much curse as blessing and Nick finds himself stuck in a constant loop where no matter what he does, tragedy results.
The Thirteenth Hour: Chaos boasts a blistering original structure that propels the story along at a relentless pace. It’s a thinking man’s thriller for sure, interactive in the sense that we play along with Nick through his various manipulations of that magical pocket watch. Time travel tales bring their own baggage along for the ride, but with Doetsch driving, it’s a wild ride indeed.
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Don Bentley’s latest high-octane page-turner to feature Matt Drake, Hostile Intent (Berkley), is easily the best and most ambitious in the series yet.
That’s because, in large part, this hardboiled thriller harks back to the classic spy novels from the likes of Len Deighton, Fredrick Forsythe and John le Carre, plunging Drake into a cat-and-mouse game with the fate of the very world at stake. Still an agent for the Defense Intelligence Agency, Drake heads to Vienna after former ally Nolan Burke shows up at the American embassy with a story he’ll only tell to his old friend. Unfortunately, Russian spies kidnap Burke before Drake can learn the secret he’s holding, setting the stage for World War III.
The Vienna setting helps make Hostile Intent a post-modern version of Graham Greene’s classic The Third Man. Thriller fiction of the highest order. (BookTrib’s review.)
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Tori Eldridge’s wildly entertaining Dance Among the Flames (Running Wild Press) is one of those genre-benders that defies categorization. But the book works so well on so many levels, it really doesn’t matter.
The book’s hero, Serafina Olegario, is the feature player in this tale that spans years and the globe itself in which anything can happen. That includes Serafina being possessed by a warrior goddess that makes her a fitting rival for all manner of evil that’s determined to seize control of the known world circa late 16th century. And, as with all classic heroes, Serafina will have to pay a price for her actions.
Dance Among the Flames features a bold and bracing vision that makes for an apt allegory for our own trying times. Since this is a period piece, though, Eldridge didn’t have to worry about changing names to protect the guilty, and the result is a pitch perfect adventure tale.
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Warriors Descend (Suspense Publishing), the third book in J. M. LeDuc’s Evil Awakened series, is one of those books that makes you feel like a kid again.
A fantasy tale with a vision that rivals the likes of Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, Warriors Descend serves up a smorgasbord of heroes and villains, myths and magic, monsters and muses. The young hero, Pamoon, carved from classic lines as well, finds herself fighting for nothing less than the future of her entire race, a quest that sees her doing battle with all manner of creature culled from the Spirit World and Netherworld. Along the way, she also finds allies to help her triumph over an enemy with unlimited power.
Warriors Descend requires us to suspend all of our disbelief, which is nothing new for this genre. But if the aforementioned classics are your cup of tea, this is a great book — and series — to sample and sip.
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