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Thrillers

6 Thrillers to Binge While Social Distancing from the World

Harlan Coben’s blistering and bracing The Boy from the Woods (Grand Central) is a hybrid mystery-thriller featuring a unique blend of concepts and themes. Starkly original, in fact. Our hero is Wilde, who as a boy was (almost) quite literally raised by wolves — at least, in the same wild…

Jon LandMarch 27, 2020

Thrillers

“A Child Lost” in 1930s Chicago Grips Professional Sleuthing Family

Michelle Cox's Henrietta and Inspector Howard series is a delightful mix of historical fiction and intrigue with a bit of saucy lovemaking tossed in. In A Child Lost (She Writes Press), the fifth book, she adds spooky. Right away, we get swept into the story. We meet little Anna, the…

Sherri DaleyMarch 23, 2020

Thrillers

Peter Swanson’s Latest Thriller Rediscovers the “Eight Perfect Murders” in Mystery Fiction

Oh, the guilt of the books we haven’t read. The classics, the bestsellers, the touchstones of a genre … and then there’s that ever-increasing stack of newer releases that you’ll get to, one of these days. You’ll love these books, or at least admire them, but great ones will forever…

Casey BarrettMarch 3, 2020

Book Club Network Thrillers

Labyrinth of Lies, Secrets and Apprehension in “The Other Mrs.”

“There’s something off about the house,” begins Mary Kubica’s spine-chilling The Other Mrs. (Park Row Books). Maybe there’s something off about the novel, too, because it’s unnervingly difficult to put down. Kubica’s meticulous writing draws the reader into a labyrinth of lies, secrets and apprehension, with a more than a…

Judy MorenoFebruary 18, 2020

Thrillers

“The Heartless” Delivers a Police Thriller with Deeper Surprises

If you come to The Heartless (Oceanview) expecting a solid, fast-moving police thriller, you’ll be satisfied. But you’ll also discover much more. David Putnam’s seventh novel about the world of Los Angeles County officer Bruno Johnson involves a hunt for escaped convicts through the meanest streets of Los Angeles. The…

Dennis HetzelFebruary 12, 2020

Thrillers

Haunted Heroine Rushes “Toward the Light” in Debut Thriller

There’s nothing quite like discovering a new, exotic city through the pages of a thriller. Through fast-paced fiction, the sights and sounds and smells of a place come through in technicolor. A city feels so much more, well, thrilling. It beats any guidebook. Bonnar Spring’s beautifully executed first novel Toward…

Casey BarrettJanuary 16, 2020

Thrillers

ITW Spotlight: Corruption, Class and Dangerous Obsession in “Dreamland”

Nancy Bilyeau had always wanted to write a historical novel set in New York City — but she’d already started carving out a niche for herself in the Tudor era. Her first novel, The Crown, became a number-one bestseller on Amazon and launched a brilliant trilogy that continued to garner…

Dawn IusJanuary 16, 2020

Thrillers

Murder Amid the Terrors of Solovetsky in “The Body Outside the Kremlin”

While the little over 400 pages in James L. May’s The Body Outside the Kremlin (Delphinium Books) may not look intimidating, there’s so much there: the isolated emptiness, the cold, the beauty and the violence. It’s a weighty murder mystery that slowly unfolds, in competition with its setting. It takes…

Sherri DaleyJanuary 14, 2020

Thrillers

Bradley Harper’s Margaret Harkness is Back in “Queen’s Gambit”

Victorian scholars rejoice because Bradley Harper is back with the sequel to his literary mystery odyssey A Knife in the Fog (our review here). While that novel took place in 1888 and followed Arthur Conan Doyle and Margaret Harkness pursuing Jack the Ripper, Queen’s Gambit (Seventh Street Books) hands the…

Jeff DaughertyJanuary 10, 2020

Thrillers

Hardboiled P.I. Tries to Resolve Murder, His Own Fate in “Lost Tomorrows”

“What kind of a man are you?” That is the question posed to Rick Cahill after he’s forced to serve notice of a custody lawsuit to his acquaintance, Irene. Serving papers is just a way for Rick — a former police officer-turned-private investigator — to pay his rent, but Irene’s…

Nikki ErlickDecember 3, 2019

Thrillers

High Crimes in High Society in Shepard’s “Reputation”

In some murder mysteries, we struggle to figure out who the killer is because everybody’s alibi seems so darn plausible — we keep looking for holes. But in Sara Shepard’s newest novel Reputation (Dutton), nobody’s story rings true. Even Kit, the character who pretty much launches the whole plot, begins…

Sherri DaleyDecember 2, 2019

Thrillers

50th Book in “Murder, She Wrote” Series Hits the Market

When it comes to TV series, anniversary episodes are always the best. Usually the writers create their first anniversary script on the 100th episode, and it is something special. Old characters return. Present characters reminisce. Yet it all fits within a new and often remarkable or death-defying storyline. In all…

James R. HannibalNovember 27, 2019

Thrillers

A Chilling Tale of Murder and Secrets in P.J. Tracy’s Latest

Maybe you’re sweating through the last-gasp heat wave of summer. As perspiration slides down your nose, you feel stickier than a Hershey bar in tropical sun. Your air conditioning is busted, so you sit on your porch as an ineffective fan mainly swirls the rancid, steamy air in a different…

Dennis HetzelSeptember 5, 2019

Thrillers

Tall Poppy Review: Thriller Fans Will Be Legally Fond of “The Murder List”

When I tried to think through the twisty, spiraling plot of Hank Phillippi Ryan’s latest thriller The Murder List (Forge Books), I couldn’t figure it out. As soon as I thought I had the answer and knew what was going on, it would slither away as new facts surfaced. Rachel…

Cathy LambAugust 29, 2019

Book Club Network Thrillers

A Druggie, a Dominatrix and a Tower of Songs

Who doesn’t love an irreverent badass who admits he’s a screw-up? Duck Darley is the most damaged anti-hero you’d never want to meet in a dark corner of New York City. In Casey Barrett’s The Tower of Songs: A Duck Darley Novel (Kensington) East meets West when a Chinese power…

K.L. RomoAugust 20, 2019

Fiction

A Jack the Ripper Romp with Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle teams up with radical social critic Margaret Harkness to find and apprehend the yet-unnamed Jack the Ripper. Along for the ride is Doyle’s former professor, Joseph Bell, a masterful surgeon who just so happens to be the inspiration for the character of Holmes. Now…

Jeff DaughertyJuly 29, 2019

6 Thrillers to Binge While Social Distancing from the World

“A Child Lost” in 1930s Chicago Grips Professional Sleuthing Family

Peter Swanson’s Latest Thriller Rediscovers the “Eight Perfect Murders” in Mystery Fiction

Labyrinth of Lies, Secrets and Apprehension in “The Other Mrs.”

“The Heartless” Delivers a Police Thriller with Deeper Surprises

Haunted Heroine Rushes “Toward the Light” in Debut Thriller

ITW Spotlight: Corruption, Class and Dangerous Obsession in “Dreamland”

Murder Amid the Terrors of Solovetsky in “The Body Outside the Kremlin”

Bradley Harper’s Margaret Harkness is Back in “Queen’s Gambit”

Hardboiled P.I. Tries to Resolve Murder, His Own Fate in “Lost Tomorrows”

High Crimes in High Society in Shepard’s “Reputation”

50th Book in “Murder, She Wrote” Series Hits the Market

A Chilling Tale of Murder and Secrets in P.J. Tracy’s Latest

Tall Poppy Review: Thriller Fans Will Be Legally Fond of “The Murder List”

A Druggie, a Dominatrix and a Tower of Songs

A Jack the Ripper Romp with Arthur Conan Doyle

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