Thrillers and Suspense May 2026 |
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Mad Mabel
by Sally Hepworth
Meet Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick: eighty-one years old, gloriously grumpy, fiercely independent, and never without a hot cup of tea--or a cutting remark. She minds her own business in her quiet Melbourne suburb, until a neighbor turns up dead and the whispers start flying. Because Elsie hasn't always been Elsie. Once upon a headline, she was Mad Mabel Waller--Australia's youngest convicted murderer. But was she really mad, or just misunderstood? Either way, she's kept her secret buried for decades. Enter seven-year-old Persephone, a relentless little chatterbox who has just moved in across the road (armed with stickers, questions, and no sense of personal boundaries); Joan, who appears to have it in for Elsie; and a healthy dose of public interest--the cops are sniffing around, and the media is circling like seagulls at a picnic. So Mabel does what she's always done best--she takes matters into her own hands. Is she a cantankerous old lady with a shady past? A cold-blooded killer with arthritis? Or just someone who's finally ready to tell her side of the story? Sharp, surprising, and wickedly funny, this is the unforgettable story of a woman who's spent a lifetime being underestimated--and is about to prove everyone wrong. Again.
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Yesteryear: A GMA Book Club Pick
by Caro Claire Burke
Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie's followers--all 8 million of them--don't know won't hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They're sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn't simply living the good life, she's living the ideal--and just so happens to be building an empire from it. Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn't hers. Her home, her husband, her children--they're all familiar, but something's off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she's expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible. A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.
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| The Survivor by Andrew ReidAfter being fired on his first day, Ben Cross boards a New York City subway and becomes the target of a killer who taunts him with secrets from Ben's past. As bodies fall, disgraced detective Kelly Hendricks races to stop the threat in this tense, fast-paced thriller packed with twists and claustrophobic suspense. |
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| Last One Out by Jane HarperFive years after her son vanished, Ro Crowley returns to a dying Australian mining town still shadowed by grief and suspicion. As she revisits the past, overlooked clues emerge, exposing buried secrets and rising danger in a haunting, slow-burning mystery about loss, family, and a community unraveling under pressure. |
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As Far as She Knew
by Diana Awad
A devoted wife and mother unravels her late husband's secret life in an emotional and suspenseful novel about betrayal, lies, love, and loss.For twenty-three years, Amira Abadi believed she had a strong, loving marriage. But when her husband, Ali, dies suddenly, that certainty shatters with the discovery of a house she never knew existed. As whispers of betrayal spread through their tight-knit Arab American community, Amira refuses to let others define her husband's legacy--or her path forward.Diving into an investigation of Ali's final days, Amira uncovers decades-old secrets that challenge everything she thought she knew. With her children struggling to process their father's death, Amira must balance protecting her family with pursuing the truth, even as each revelation brings her closer to danger.As Amira peels back layers of lies, she discovers that the greatest mystery isn't what her husband was hiding--it's how far she'll go to uncover the truth.
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What Happened Next
by Edwin Hill
Charlie Kilgore was too young to remember anything, really, about how events on the lake unfolded twenty-five years ago. He just knows what he's been told: that his father stabbed a man to death, left Charlie's mother critically wounded, and then disappeared, never to be seen again. Now Charlie believes there must be more to what happened.Using the shards of the story he's uncovered so far as the heart of a true crime podcast, Charlie returns to his hometown in the foothills of New Hampshire's White Mountains. Old friends, family, authorities, and even collateral victims have moved on, and no one wants to dredge up what's long forgotten. Except Charlie. He wants to know what could have transformed a quiet man into a monster. And what happened next.But when Charlie starts asking questions of people with so much to hide, getting to the truth becomes dangerous. Because on this lake--in this family--the past isn't dead and buried at all. In fact, it's back with a vengeance.
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The Girls Trip
by Ally Condie
From the author of Reese's Book Club Pick and instant USA Today bestseller The Unwedding, a novel of suspense and friendship about three friends who decide to disappear from their lives for a few days while on a trip to a national park--only to have one of them vanish. Hope, Ash, and Caro met at an online book club. Over the past two years, they've been there for each other in every way--except in person. When each of their lives reach a crossroads, they decide to meet in real life at the gorgeous Sonnet Resort at Eden National Park. Hope, an actress, has become entirely too famous and needs to get away from it all. Ash, a successful online entrepreneur, isn't sure what has happened to her marriage. Caro, a doctor, has lost a patient and doesn't know if she wants to carry on or start all over. And none of them are telling each other the full story ...
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Too Close to Home
by Seraphina Nova Glass
Nothing in this idyllic community is quite what it seems...Those lucky enough to live in the elite lakefront community of Cloverhill Lakes are drawn to it for its safety and top-notch school district. The moms meet for coffee at the park while their kids play, they're heavily involved in the PTA, and the summers are filled with chardonnay, brunch, sundresses, and backyard bonfires.But everything changes when Regan Hoffman's car explodes at the annual Labor Day party. The wrong person is killed, but it was meant for her. As the carefully crafted walls of her community begin to crumble, Regan tries to keep it together--something made infinitely harder when she sees her dead husband...alive.When a Cloverhill Lakes resident suddenly goes missing, dark secrets begin to surface from underneath the idyllic veneer of their beautiful community--and the truth threatens to destroy them all as Regan finds herself in a fight for her life.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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