Ever since I discarded the Hardy Boys in favor of H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds as a grade-schooler, I have embraced the dark. From Ahab in Moby Dick to Alex in A Clockwork Orange to Sophie and Nathan in Sophie’s Choice, I gravitate toward stories that show humans at their most depraved and immoral.…
Reviewing a great book is easy. Reviewing a bad book is easy. Reviewing a book that walks the fine line between those two subjective terms is much harder. Peter Colt’s The Off-Islander inhabits that space. On one hand, it is an interesting narrative about a man suffering from PTSD who ran away from his family…
John Vercher’s debut, Three-Fifths, is about a biracial black man, passing for white, who is forced to confront the lies of his past while facing the truth of his present when his best friend, just released from prison, involves him in a hate crime.
Venture to the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana in The Bitterroots from New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author C. J. Box. To uncover the truth in an assault case, former sheriff’s investigator Cassie Dewell must fight against a family whose roots are tangled and deadly…
Aaron Elkins’ Old Bones, the fourth novel in the Gideon Oliver Mysteries series, won the Edgar Award in 1988 and has been continuously in print since then. With its elegant prose and dialogue-heavy writing, the book is a master class in classic whodunits and one of the first modern novels to delve deep into forensic…
Too Close by Natalie Daniels is a haunting, edge-of-your-seat debut psychological thriller about a woman who has been institutionalized for a heinous crime and the psychiatrist assigned to her case who must uncover the truth beneath the madness. Natalie Daniels’s Too Close is a fine psychological thriller that delves into the darkest corners of friendship…
Journalist and author Maureen Callahan’s American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century exposes readers to one of the most calculating, coldblooded, and mysterious serial killers ever, Israel Keyes. While most people can easily name serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, few know about Keyes, and there…
A glimpse into the mind of a man who has pierced the heart of human darkness, The Killer Across the Table by John Douglas & Mark Olshaker unlocks the ultimate mystery of depravity and the techniques and approaches that have countered evil in the name of justice. John Douglas is perhaps the premier authority on serial…
Ilaria Tuti’s debut thriller explores a remote community in Northern Italy—a place of secrets, eerie folktales, and primal instincts. Ilaria Tuti’s Flowers Over the Inferno is an action-packed thriller with a unique serial killer and a multilayered, deep, and incredibly entertaining main character battling at its core. Set in a quiet village surrounded by ancient…
Girl Most Likely from New York Times bestselling and award-winning crime master Max Allan Collins follows Krista Larson, 28-year-old police chief of a small midwest town. Krista braces for more excitement than usual when the town hosts the high school reunion, which is followed up by a triple murder investigation. Max Allan Collins’ new novel, Girl Most Likely,…
