| The Sandman by Lars KeplerWhat it's about: A terrifying, manipulative serial killer imprisoned in a high-security psychiatric ward may hold the key to saving the life of a young woman believed dead for 13 years.
Is it for you? Blood-soaked and fast-paced, this 4th in the series starring Det. Insp. Joona Linna highlights his intuition and strategic sense -- and his willingness to dangle his colleagues as bait.
For fans of: Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter. |
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| Sirens by Joseph KnoxWhat it's about: While deep undercover in Manchester's club scene and attempting to infiltrate the hostile drug empires active there, disgraced cop Aidan Waits is asked to look for a politician's runaway daughter, who has fallen in with the dangerous leader of one of those organizations.
Is it for you? Though it's somewhat leisurely paced, this noirish debut novel is also brutally violent, with flawed characters who loom larger than life.
Look for: a sequel, The Smiling Man, available through U.K. sources in March; the rest of us will have to wait a little longer. |
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Our little secret : a novel
by Roz Nay
The interrogation-weary, longtime ex of a man whose wife has gone missing imparts the story of their relationship a decade earlier to a criminologist who appears to be the first person who believes her, an account that raises troubling possibilities about a group of retribution-seeking suspects.
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The bomb maker
by Thomas Perry
A threat is called into the LAPD Bomb Squad, a team dispatched to a house whose owner is away, and a bomb disguised inside photography equipment exploded in the kitchen. But it is a second bomb hidden in the basement that has devastating consequences half of the entire Bomb Squad is obliterated within seconds. The fragmented unit turns to Dick Stahl, a former Bomb Squad commander who now operates his own private security company. Having just returned from a grueling job in Mexico, Stahl is reluctant to accept the offer, but senior technicians he had trained were among those killed. On his first day back at the head of the squad, Stahl's team is dispatched to a suspected car bomb outside a gas station. It quickly becomes clear to him that they are dealing with the same mastermind behind the weapon that killed fourteen highly trained men and women barely twenty-four hours before and that the intended target may be the Bomb Squad itself.
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The perfect stranger : a novel
by Megan Miranda
A journalist sets out to find a missing friend, a friend who may never have existed at all. Confronted by a restraining order and the threat of a lawsuit, failed journalist Leah Stevens needs to get out of Boston when she runs into an old friend, Emmy Grey, who has just left a troubled relationship. Emmy proposes they move to rural Pennsylvania, where Leah can get a teaching position and both women can start again. But their new start is threatened when a woman with an eerie resemblance to Leah is assaulted by the lake, and Emmy disappears days later. Determined to find Emmy, Leah cooperates with Kyle Donovan, a handsome young police officer on the case. As they investigate her friend's life for clues, Leah begins to wonder: did she ever really know Emmy at all?
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| The Innocent Wife by Amy LloydStarring: Dennis Danson, a high-profile death row inmate convicted of killing a teenager in his hometown 20 years ago. And British schoolteacher Samantha, who has fallen in love with Dennis -- and has traveled to the U.S. to meet and ultimately marry him.
What it's about: Released after someone else confesses, Dennis and Sam return to the Danson family home, where they deal with hostile locals, vandals, and an unsympathetic police force. And Sam starts wondering if Dennis really is as innocent as she'd believed. |
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| Chicago by David MametAuthor alert: Though better known as a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright or an Oscar-nominated screenwriter (take your pick), this is not David Mamet's first novel -- just his first in nearly 20 years.
What it's about: Set in 1920s Chicago and featuring a whole crew of unsavory gangsters, the novel stars former WWI pilot Mike Hodge, who's now a reporter. When his girlfriend is gunned down in his own home, he's immediately on the hunt for those responsible.
Read it for: real-life gangsters; evocative dialogue; fast-paced action. |
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Books You Might Have Missed
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| It's Always the Husband by Michele CampbellWhat it's about: The events that led to the death of a friend will always link the three very different former college roommates featured in this twisty debut. As adults, they find themselves thrown together once more -- and the result is yet another death under suspicious circumstances.
Reviewers say: The "edge-of-your-seat pace and dark atmosphere" (Booklist) and depiction of complex female friendship will appeal to fans of domestic suspense novels like Rebecca Drake's recent Just Between Us. |
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| Kill the Father by Sandrone Dazieri; translated by Antony ShugaarBook buzz: Bestselling Italian author Sandrone Dazieri made his U.S. debut with this series opener (it's followed by Kill the Angel), a disturbing, violent tale of murder and captivity starring an Italian police detective and a traumatized missing-persons consultant.
Read it for: the complex and captivating plot, the Italian setting, and the dynamic relationship between the two damaged main characters.
Reviewers say: "original and brutal" (The Times of London); "outstanding" (Booklist). |
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| You Belong to Me by Colin HarrisonWhat it's about: Immigration attorney Paul Reeves wants a rare, priceless map of 19th-century Manhattan; his deepening obsession with it turns him into an accessory to abduction and throws him into the path of some angry hit men.
Why you might like it: Obsession is the primary motivator, not just for Paul but for the rest of the characters in this action-packed, noirish crime drama. The New York City setting provides plenty of well-drawn atmosphere, too. |
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| The Believer by Joakim Zander; translated by Elizabeth Clark WesselTopics of note: the privatization of police forces, the radicalization of young Muslim men, neighborhood violence in Stockholm spurred on by outsiders, and a vast conspiracy that connects all three.
Starring: Three Swedes -- human rights researcher and functional alcoholic Klara Walldéen (first seen in The Swimmer), trendspotter Yasmine Ajam, and her depressed, radicalized brother, Fadi.
What reviewers say: "Impressively complex characters and stark atmospherics" (Publishers Weekly). |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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