I’m not a HUGE Ruth Ware fan…in fact, she has been consistently inconsistent for me. In 2016, The Woman in Cabin 10 was a big hit, and I was among those who enjoyed it – a LOT. 2019’s Turn of the Key was a 3-star “meh” for me, then One By One and The It Girl, were both four …
In 2015, I read Michael Robotham’s The Night Ferry, then in 2016 I was KNOCKED OUT by Close Your Eyes! 2017’s The Secrets She Keeps was not quite as terrific (for me) as the other two, so maybe that is how I missed 2019’s Good Girl, Bad Girl, the first in a series featuring Cyrus …
I kept seeing the word noir used to describe Edgar Award winner Jordan Harper’s latest, Everybody Knows. After a few hmmms, I looked it up, thinking I was unclear as to what it really meant. I got this: “a genre of crime film or fiction characterized by cynicism, fatalism, and moral ambiguity.” Thanks to Mulholland …
Earlier this year, when I reviewed T. Jefferson Parker’s book A Thousand Steps, I wrote: When I first read T. Jefferson Parker’s Laguna Heat back in 1985, I had recently moved to Santa Cruz and was ecstatic to be living in a small beach town again — because I grew up in South Orange County …
Seems like it is an actual THING to make a living as an “influencer,” and while I had read a couple of stories about the risks and rewards of this way of life (!), reading about Kimberly Belle’s female protagonist, a young woman named Alex, really made it all seem real/possible. Alex and her husband …
Several years ago, I read Jane Harper’s The Dry – and I was hooked. Could not WAIT for her next book! The Dry, Force of Nature, and The Lost Man (all of which featured Federal Investigator Aaron Falk) were all five-star reads…and while I admit to being “an easy grader,” they all really were terrific. …
In the mid-1990s, Dennis Lehane published A Drink Before The War, the first in a series of mystery novels featuring Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. I was hooked. His writing includes both standalone novels as well as series – and in my opinion all can be read in any order (although as is often the …
Years ago, I read and loved Defending Jacob, and I was thrilled to receive a copy of William Landay’s new book, All That Is Mine I Carry With Me. I’m a big fan of legal thrillers/courtroom dramas, and this promised to MAYBE be the Landay book I had waited so long for… In 1975, ten-year-old …
I am a big fan of “unputdownable psychological thrillers,” and a huge fan of B.A. Paris’s Behind Closed Doors (2016), Bring Me Back (2018), The Dilemma (2020), and last year’s The Therapist, I was happy to receive a copy of The Prisoner from St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley in return for my honest review. …
I’ve been reading books in Robert Dugoni’s Tracy Crosswhite series since 2014, when I first stumbled across My Sister’s Grave. I found it fascinating over the years to watch as Detective Crosswhite evolved as she worked to solve the long-cold case of her sister Sarah’s murder, then went on to other cases, along the way …
I’m a big fan of thrillers. I’ll Never Tell, and You Can’t Catch Me by Catherine McKenzie are in this vein, so when I had the chance to read her latest, Please Join Us (thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley) I was ready to read! As the story begins, the protagonist Nicole Mueller appears to …
I love twisty psychological thrillers (think Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl), so when I read that David Ellis’s latest, Look Closer, was “part Gone Girl, part Strangers On A Train, I was READY! Thank you to Penguin Group/G.P. Putnam’s Sons and NetGalley for providing a copy in exchange for this honest review. There is a wealthy …
I haven’t read ALL of the 21 books in Kathy Reichs’s series featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance (“Tempe” Brennan, but I have most, and always enjoyed them. So I was happy to receive a copy of Cold, Cold Bones from Scribner and NetGalley. Tempe divides her time between North Carolina and Canada, and in this one, …
I tend to enjoy stories where the setting is a character on its own, if you know what I mean (think Jane Harper’s novels set in arid Western Australia. Oh, and BTW, if you enjoy mysteries, you really should check her out — start with The Dry). In Lee Goldberg’s Movieland, while Malibu Creek State …
I’ve been a regular reader of Linwood Barclay’s books for several years, generally awarding 4 or 5 stars, so I was pleased to get a copy of Take Your Breath Away from William Morrow and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. But then I looked at the last book of his I reviewed, which …
When I got this book, I knew it was a police procedural/political thriller, but I didn’t realize it had been published in 1982, a full forty (gasp!) years ago. So I had a “hmmm” moment before I started to read. I wasn’t sure a story about a female police officer in Washington, D.C. in the …
Good Rich People by Eliza Jane Brazier is a highly anticipated book, and it sounded like it was just my type of thing: a woman in danger, in a psychological thriller, the kind of book that you just CANNOT. PUT. DOWN. You know, pandemic escapism at its best. The story revolves around a couple, Lyla …
If you enjoy stories with unreliable narrators, possibly unstable women, annoying characters in general, and a nice dose of gaslighting, here’s a book for you! Or possibly you just want something twisty and turny to get your mind off the death of democracy and a worldwide pandemic for a day or two, well, buckle up! …
Author Karen Cleveland has a solid background for writing thrillers that revolve around intelligence agencies and personnel: she was a Fulbright Scholar, earned a master’s degree from Trinity College in Dublin and Harvard, and was a CIA analyst for eight years, focused on counterterrorism – and she also worked with the FBI. So, bottom line: …
David Baldacci’s series featuring FBI agent Atlee Pine began in 2018, with Long Road to Mercy. Subsequent titles included A Minute to Midnight and Daylight, continuing the story of Atlee’s search for her twin sister Mercy. I was pleased to receive a copy of Mercy, #4 in the series, from Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley …