FullReviews Index - page 2
Family Secrets
After their father's death, sisters Vanessa, Ellie, and Georgiana are stunned to learn a well-kept family secret. A yellowed letter tucked away in a family Bible reveals that the woman who gave birth to their late father had not died when he was born, as they had always believed. Their paternal grandmother gave up her son shortly after his birth, leaving this note with instructions to never reveal her name or background to him. The letter is signed, simply, Hattie.
Love Kills
Bringing together intrepid journalist Britt Montero and the Cold Case Squad - the lead characters from Edna Buchanan's two successful mystery series - Love Kills is a satisfying, two-for-one deal of a thriller.
The Penguin Who Knew Too Much
Donna Andrews' ability to create colorful characters is the greatest success of "The Penguin Who Knew Too Much." Meg Lanslow, a blacksmith by trade, doles out death-grip handshakes and Googles her suspects for background information. Lanslow is smart and likable and super-funny; she catches details like a spiderweb snagging flies. This heroine is quick to jump on the trail of her suspects, and just as quick to drive her beat-up blue Toyota out to the investigation site.
Exposure
In this sometimes bizarre look into the future, author Kurt Wenzel seems to be telling us that he has something against society's commercialization, the Hollywood system, media advertising overload ("advertising is the new fascism"), and other gripes. His story is enough years ahead for a new ad device to have been developed, a more engaging and more ubiquitous version of billboards as we currently know them...
Dead Connection
In Alafair Burke's thriller,"Dead Connection," a rookie detective goes undercover on the Internet dating scene to draw out a serial killer targeting single women in Manhattan.
I Heard That Song Before
In the psychological thriller,"I Heard That Song Before," Mary Higgins Clark takes the reader deep into the mysteries of the human mind, where memories may be the most dangerous things of all.
Shell Game
Good things do come in small packages. In only 210 pages Sarah Shaber has created a tightly woven murder mystery, the fifth in the Simon Shaw series. This slim volume reveals her continued growth as a novelist and her increasing mastery of the suspense genre. This is a book not to be missed. Of course, one would be best served by beginning at the beginning with "Simon Said," but that is not necessary to enjoy this excellent novel.
The Spellman Files
Meet Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors - but the upshot is she's good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family's firm, Spellman Investigations.
Christine Falls
In Christine Falls, the debut crime novel from Booker-winning author, John Banville (aka Benjamin Black), a Dublin pathologist follows the corpse of a mysterious woman into the heart of a conspiracy among the city’s high Catholic society.
Heart-Shaped Box
Readers who enjoy frightening themselves will enjoy Joe Hill's debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box. The plot suffers from some holes, the writing is invisible more than it is literary, and the story depends upon cheap sentimentalism-but taken together it's still stunningly effective, even if you know exactly what to expect. All of which raises one question: how exactly does that work?
The 5th Horseman
A young mother is recuperating in a San Francisco hospital when she is suddenly gasping for breath. The call button fails to bring help in time. The hospital's doctors, some of the best in the nation, are completely mystified by her death. How did this happen? This is not the first such case at the hospital. Just as patients are about to be released with a clean bill of health, their conditions take a devastating turn for the worse.
Mary, Mary
People make enemies easily in Hollywood. To track down a merciless killer, Alex must navigate a world where the stars and players sip San Pellegrino at the Ivy as hopefuls hover around studio gates armed with 8 x 10 glossies. Everyone is desperate for a close-up, but this is one fan Hollywood could do without. Members of the A-list fear they're next on Mary's list, and the case catapults into blockbuster proportions as Cross and the LAPD scramble to find a pattern.
Step On a Crack
In his bestselling novel, Step on a Crack, James Patterson introduces Detective Michael Bennett, an NYPD homicide detective thrust into the middle of a mass kidnapping. Patterson is the well-known author of 39 books(The Fifth Horseman and Mary, Mary are both reviewed on this site). Step on a Crack is James Patterson's first book with mystery-suspense author, Michael Ledwidge (The Narrowback, Bad Connection, and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead).
The Collectors
The four aging misfit crime solvers are back from David Baldacci's The Camel Club to solve a mystery surrounding a murder at the Library of Congress while simultaneiously trying to foil a con artist in Atlantic City.
Metro Girl
Buckle your seat belts. Number one New York Times bestselling author, Janet Evanovich, is moving into the fast lane with Metro Girl, a thrilling, high-octane misadventure with high stakes, hot nights, cold-blooded murder, sunken treasure, a woman with a chassis built for speed, and one very good, very sexy NASCAR driver who’s along for the ride.
Motor Mouth
Alexandra "Barney" Barnaby, first introduced in the #1 New York Times bestseller Metro Girl, returns in Motor Mouth, another wild and crazy ride. Miami is still freakin' humid. The nights are even hotter. And there's a body on ice. And that's just the beginning of this adrenaline-rush of a hot-wired ride from phenomenal #1 New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich.
The Mephisto Club
PECCAVI - The Latin is scrawled in blood at the scene of a young woman's brutal murder: I HAVE SINNED. It's a chilling Christmas greeting for Boston medical examiner Maura Isles and Detective Jane Rizzoli, who link the victim to celebrity psychiatrist Joyce O'Donnell - Jane's professional nemesis and member of a sinister cabal called the Mephisto Club.
Lisey's Story
Lisey Debusher Landon lost her husband Scott two years ago, after a twenty five year marriage of the most profound and sometimes frightening intimacy. Lisey knew there was a place Scott went -- a place that both terrified and healed him, could eat him alive or give him the ideas he needed in order to live. Now it's Lisey's turn to face Scott's demons.
The Mission Song
Bruno "Salvo" Salvador, a half-British, half-Congolese interpreter finds himself caught in the midst of a political struggle in the Congo that highlights the downfall of "countries that choose to invade another for financial gain, cloaked in the language of establishing a just and democratic government." The Mission Song is John le Carre's 20th novel, and even without its eye towards controversy on the world stage, is a compelling addition to the well known espionage author's body of work.
One Good Turn
Two years after the events of Case Histories left him a retired millionaire, former detective Jackson Brodie has followed Julia to Edinburgh for its famous summer arts festival. But when he watches a man brutally attacked in a traffic jam--the apparent victim of an extreme case of road rage--a chain of events is set in motion that will pull the wife of an unscrupulous real estate tycoon, a timid but successful crime novelist, and a hardheaded female police detective into Jackson's orbit.
Ordinary Heroes
Stewart Dubinsky knew his father had served in World War II. And he'd been told how David Dubin had rescued Stewart's mother from the horror of the Balingen concentration camp. But when he discovers, after his father's death, a packet of wartime letters to a former fiancée, and learns of his father's court-martial and imprisonment, he is plunged into the mystery of his family's secret history and driven to uncover the truth about this enigmatic man who'd always refused to talk about his war.
Twelve Sharp
New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum sets out on her latest rounds to haul in bonds-jumping "skips." She soon finds herself followed by a strange woman looking for Carlos "Ranger" Manoso, a bounty hunter of the dark and mysterious persuasion. Stephanie does happen to find him attractive, much to the chagrin of her pseudo-boyfriend, cop Joe Morelli. Their romantic triangle sets the stage for a story of light action, quirky (if clichéd) characters, and a little bit of intrigue.
The Old Wine Shades
The latest in Martha Grimes’s Richard Jury mystery series. The story is told by Harry Johnson, a stranger who sits down next to Richard Jury as he’s drinking in a London pub called the Old Wine Shades. Over three successive nights Harry spins this complicated story about a good friend of his whose wife and son (and dog) disappeared one day as they were viewing property in Surrey. They’ve been missing for nine months—no trace, no clue, no lead as to what happened.
The Husband
With each and every new novel, Dean Koontz raises the stakes -- and the pulse rate -- higher than any other author. Now, in The Husband, he brings us the story of an ordinary man whose extraordinary commitment to his wife will take him on a harrowing journey of adventure, sacrifice, and redemption to the mystery of love itself -- and to a showdown with the darkness that would destroy it forever.
Death Dance
World famous dancer, Natalya Galinova has disappeared at the Metropolitan Opera House during intermission of a performance. The theatre, the three colleagues quickly discover, is not all sound and light. Much of what seems to be is not. Politics and intrigue behind the scenes prop up this story and create the illusion that all is well. At the same time, Alex is devising a creative means of capturing a corrupt physician who assaults his female patients by drugging them.