Featuring Brad Thor, Lisa Scottoline, Megan Abbott and more, Jon Land returns with a pulse-pounding roundup of thrillers that dig deep into power plays, hidden agendas, and psychological unraveling. This month’s Thrill List is not for the faint of heart.
Edge of Honor by Brad Thor
Everything, some say, is cyclical, a reality especially born out in thrillers in general and Brad Thor’s pitch perfect Edge of Honor in particular. That’s because this time out stalwart series hero Scot Harvath faces an enemy at home instead of abroad in the form of a shadowy cabal that would make Robert Ludlum proud.
That cabal of all-powerful Elon Musk-types is after the kind of national and global domination seldom done this effectively since the days of James Bond’s battles with SPECTRE. The problem for Harvath is he can’t shoot or kill his way out of this battle fought in boardrooms and cyberspace, meaning he’s going to need a different kind of firepower to stop the greatest threat to America’s future he has ever faced. Worse, under different names and positions, these are the kind of folks he’s used to working for when the goals align, which is clearly not the case here.
Thor’s last few books were international spy fests worthy of John le Carre by way of the military action form he has mastered. Managing that in Edge of Honor, while evoking a Ludlum-like conspiracy, proves to be a creative masterstroke that mines the best current events have to offer. A bracing, blistering and brilliant thriller.
The Unraveling of Julia by Lisa Scottoline
Lisa Scottoline returns in spectacular fashion with The Unraveling of Julia, a standalone psychological thriller with a hefty dose of the paranormal added for good measure.
Julia Pritzker is struggling to recover from the murder of her husband, an event she’s convinced was foretold by astrology. Amid the life crisis she finds herself mired in, she learns she’s inherited a sprawling Tuscan vineyard from someone named Emilia Rossi, whom she’s never met and doesn’t know. As if that wasn’t enough of a mystery in its own right, it turns out she has plenty in common with the late woman. Not only does that include a fascination with astrology but also in appearance to the point they appear to be related, even as Julia realizes she’s being targeted and stalked.
Taking creative risks is nothing new for Scottoline. She just keeps getting better and The Unraveling of Julia is her boldest book yet. A scorching, scintillating read that’s not to be missed.
The List by Steve Berry
The press materials for Steve Berry’s The List mention the fact that the book has been in his drawer for years. That being the case, my only question is what took him so long to dig it out? This distinct departure from Berry’s long string of bestselling international thrillers trades the global arena for the courtroom with splendid results.
After his father dies, Brent Walker returns home to his smalltown Georgia roots to take care of his sick mother. Brent had moved away in the wake of his wife’s death that cost him his happiness as well as ambition. He’s currently working as general counsel for a cost- and corner-cutting paper manufacturing company which comes to exemplify the depths of his moral descent. When he realizes his employer’s sordid actions are threatening the safety and sanctity of the world he came back to, Brent is confronted with an impossible choice that will define the rest of his life.
The List reads like a cross between Greg Isles’ Penn Gage legal thrillers and both John Grisham and Scott Turow at their level best, as well as Jonathan Harr’s stellar nonfiction effort “A Civil Action.” This beautifully constructed Southern noir features Berry at his level best, a terrific and timeless tale leaves us hoping the next tale featuring Brent Walker never ends up in a drawer at all.
Eldorado Drive by Megan Abbott
Megan Abbott’s seismic rumble of a thriller Eldorado Drive feels lifted from the very best morality tales played out on classic anthology shows like “The Twilight Zone” and “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” The question such tales pose is something to the effect of How far would you go to get what you want, or keep what you have?
That’s the dilemma facing the Bishop sisters of tony Gross Point, Michigan. The lives of all three are on a descending spiral, when they are mysteriously provided with the unique opportunity to join an exclusive club known only as the Wheel. The Wheel promises a second chance to women in dire straits, a way to get their storied means and money back without a catch. What could go wrong? Plenty, as it turns out, when the sisters learn the Wheel’s bargain comes with its own costs.
In spirit, Eldorado Drive resembles the classic Richard Matheson story “Button, Button” and W.W. Jacobs’ stunner of a tale “The Monkey’s Paw,” both culled from the Be careful what you wish for school of thought. Abbott’s latest is a stunner in its own right, as starkly original as it is brilliantly executed.
Buffalo Justice by Michael and Kathleen Gear
Michael and Kathleen Gear take a break from their seminal historical novels to pen a contemporary thriller with Buffalo Justice, set against the backdrop of the New West instead of the Old.
True to its title the book centers around a legal battle over the fate of a massive buffalo herd that calls Yellowstone National Park its home. Things spiral out of control after a noted environmental conservation lawyer is murdered and local rancher John Cody is famed for the crime by power brokers for whom the battle is as much one of wills as territory. It’s left to Montana Department of Justice agent Jillian Masterson to sort through the morass to expose the ruthless corruption at the heart of everything, but first she’ll have to stay alive.
Buffalo Justice is a one-sitting read that brings little-known but vital issues to the forefront of our psyches. No writers know the west, old and new, as well as the Gears and their latest reads like the best of C. J. Box or Nevada Barr in its effortless fashioning of a sprawling landscape juxtaposed against the small minds of those fighting over it. A masterpiece of form and function.
Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell by Gillian French
Gillian French has fashioned a superb psychological thriller in Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell, transporting us deep into one woman’s personal nightmare.
That woman is fingerprints analyst Shaw Connolly. Unfortunately, no amount of crimes she helps solve can relieve the lingering pain of her younger sister’s disappearance sixteen years before, which haunts her nights and roils her days. Then a stranger surfaces claiming to be the man responsible as a prelude to psychologically torturing and tormenting Shaw, threatening her career and what’s left of her personal life in the process. Anders Jensen becomes her boogeyman, certain to destroy her even as she closes in on the long-hidden truth behind her sister’s fate.
The brilliance of Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell lies in French’s ability to project her protagonist’s plight onto us, turning her latest into a mesmerizing white-knuckled thrill ride into the darkest depths of the soul.
The Price of Everything by Jon McGoran
Jon McGoran has crafted a cutting-edge humdinger of a science fiction tale in The Price of Everything, sure to please fans of William Gibson, Phillip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison.
Imagine a world without the Internet, credit cards, and pretty much the way we do business electronically today. Stepping into a portion of that void are specialized couriers who transport vital information and documents locked in old-fashioned briefcases secured in retro style by a chain to the holder’s risk. Fail to get the contents where they’re supposed to go is absolutely, positively punishable by death. So imagine courier Armond Pierce finding his briefcase empty when he arrives at his destination. That forces him to become both detective and fugitive, as he tries to figure out the nature of the elusive contents and who made them disappear.
Though somewhat reminiscent of William Gibson’s “Johnny Mnemonic,” The Price of Everything carves out its own pop culture place as a masterstroke of contemporary commentary on the state of our digitally-dominated world. This is accessible science fiction storytelling of the absolute highest order.
The Bachelorette Party by Camilla Sten
Fans of the wildly successful HBO show “The White Lotus” are sure to love Camilla Sten’s darkly beautiful The Bachelorette Party.
Our hero, Tessa Nilsson, has long been consumed by the disappearance of four friends while on their annual reunion retreat to a remote island a decade before. She’s been trying to solve the crime, without success, for years and has finally given up the ghost. That is, until her best friend’s bachelorette party of the title is held on an island that’s a near replica of the one where the four friends vanished ten years before. And, in true thriller form, events appear to be repeating themselves with Tessa cast as the one person who can stop the guests, and herself, from finding the same fate.
The Bachelorette Party is a splendid treatise on the dangers of obsession and how it can twist even the most rational of minds. The fun lies in determining whether Tessa is descending into a nightmare of her own making or one being visited upon her and her friends in a thriller straight out of the school of Alfred Hitchcock.
The Painkillers by Dr. Glenn Parris
Dr. Glenn Parris serves up a savory hybrid mix of the traditional and medical thriller in his exceptional debut The Painkillers.
Jack Wheaton is a third-year medical resident edging ever closer to hanging up his shingle as a full practicing physician. A sterling mentor, he’s assigned to coach intern Anita Thomas, hardly a cause for concern in itself obviousoy. Except for the fact that Anita seems to have materialized out of nowhere and knows more about medicine than Jack does. Jack tries to take things in stride, until more incongruities arise ultimately leading to Anita, and thus Jack, being targeted by assassins.
Parris writes wondrously about a medical world he knows exceedingly well from the inside. With medical thriller genre king Robin Cook well into his eighties, the need is there for someone to claim the crown. And with the pulse-pounding, exceptional The Painkillers, Parris ably stakes his claim to do just that.
