In my line of work, training is great, but nothing beats experience. As the two SUVs careened toward me, my experience in shitholes the world over allowed me to process several things at once: One, my Glock’s slide had locked to the rear, revealing an empty chamber. Two, my spare magazine was in the truck’s…
It’s hard to believe that this highwire act of tight plotting, alternating perspectives, and shifting timelines is a debut novel, but Alex Finlay’s Every Last Fear is a remarkable addition to the thriller genre, juggling all its many plot points so deftly that it kept me guessing whodunnit and why till the very end. Matt…
Chapter 4 That evening, Stoker amused himself with the earl’s latest purchase for the Rosemorran Collection—an enormous walrus that had required the combined strength of numerous porters to wheel into the Belvedere, the freestanding ballroom that had been given over to the various artifacts and works of art hoarded by seven generations of earls. It…
Missing and Endangered by J. A. Jance is an evocative and atmospheric mystery, where Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady’s professional and personal lives collide when her college-age daughter is involved in a missing persons case. It pleases me to no end to be reviewing a title from legendary author J. A. Jance, whom I have…
The cover of the haunting Tibetan-based novel The Ghost Moths by Harry Farthing features a quote that really cuts directly to the undercurrent that runs beneath the entire narrative: ‘The past can only determine the future if it survives the present.’ Sounds like a fortune cookie at a progressive Asian restaurant, but it really nails…
Some titles and opening words have the power to propel us instantly into an unsolved mystery, as with Nalini Singh’s Quiet in Her Bones: My mother vanished ten years ago. So did a quarter of a million dollars in cash. Thief. Bitch. Criminal. Now, she’s back. Her bones clothed in scarlet…
The Mission House by Carys Davies is a captivating and propulsive novel following an Englishman seeking refuge in a remote hill town in India who finds himself caught in the crossfire of local tensions and violence. Award-winning novelist Carys Davies’s latest novel opens on the wilting Hilary Byrd, an Englishman abroad whose dissatisfaction with his…
Some people are so happy with their lives, that for a split-second, they label it perfect. The ancient Greek philosopher Solon had a stark antidote to such folly: Call no man happy before he is dead. Keep that in mind when you meet Detective Nate Sweeney, his wife Emma, a doctor at the local hospital,…
Lola on Fire by Rio Youers combines vengeance and deceit, love and bullets, and secrets and twists in this high-octane action thriller with a vibrant emotional core that sees a desperate brother caught in a dangerous world that he and his sister must battle to survive. Brody Ellis is desperate. He’s 24 and has no…
The Diabolical Bones by Bella Ellis is the second book in the Brontë Sisters Mystery series, where the bones of a child are found bricked up in an abandoned fireplace, and the famous sisters must investigate before more get hurt. The Brontë sisters—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—are eagerly anticipating word from their publisher on whether or…
