“I’d stuck an icepick through the spleen of the conversation.” ~ from Tom Piccirilli's The Last Whisper in the Dark |
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New and Recently Released!
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| Five Minutes Alone by Paul CleavePsychological Suspense. Would you look the other way while victims of violent crimes or their families had five minutes alone with their savage tormentors? A vigilante killer in Christchurch, New Zealand, has been granting people that very wish -- and neither the public nor the police force seems inclined to stop him. Featuring detective Theodore Tate and his former partner Carl Schroeder, each trying to recover from their own troubled pasts and saddled with what seems like extraordinarily bad luck, this chilling novel offers a complex and swiftly moving plot, extremely detailed characters, and an ambiguous ending. |
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| My Sister's Grave by Robert DugoniSuspense Fiction. Twenty years ago, Tracy Crosswhite's teenage sister, Sarah, disappeared. Her remains have just been found in a shallow grave near the Washington mountain town where they grew up, and Tracy, now a Seattle homicide detective, is determined to reopen the case. She's unconvinced that the man convicted for the crime 20 years previously is actually guilty, but there are those who will do anything to prevent the investigation from moving forward. Try My Sister's Grave if you liked the similarly emotionally wrenching set-up of Michael Koryta's The Prophet. |
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| The Laughing Monsters: A Novel by Denis JohnsonSpy Fiction. Scandinavian operative Roland Nair is back in Africa at the behest of an old friend, attaché Michael Adriko, who's getting married. Or perhaps he's there on orders to find Michael, who may have deserted. This, like many of Roland's motivations, is unclear. And there's a lot more going on, not all of it above board, as shifting loyalties, secrets, and simple greed complicate an already murky situation. Though most frequently compared to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, this complex novel may also appeal to fans of Graham Greene. |
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| Sometimes the Wolf: A Novel by Urban WaiteSuspense Fiction. After 12 years, former sheriff turned drug smuggler Patrick Drake has been paroled from prison. His son Bobby, the current sheriff of Silver Lake, WA, reluctantly offers to host him, straining his relationship with his wife and putting them all in danger when two ex-cons arrive, seeking money they believe Patrick has hidden away. Though there's plenty of suspense (and violence), much of the pleasure of this 2nd in the series (following The Terror of Living) comes from the relationship between father and son, the sparse writing style, and the beautifully depicted Cascade mountains. |
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| The Last Minute: A Thriller by Jeff AbbottThriller. In Adrenaline, ex-CIA agent Sam Capra's pregnant wife disappeared; in The Last Minute, Capra steps up his efforts to find the infant son he's never met. Everything leads to a dead end, until he's offered a moral quagmire of a chance: kill someone for the people who have his son, and Capra might get baby Daniel back. As action-packed as it gets, this pulse-pounding series should probably be read in order; if you like Adrenaline and The Last Minute, check out Downfall and Inside Man next. |
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| The Last Talk With Lola Faye by Thomas H. CookPsychological Suspense. Years ago, just as high school student Luke Page was planning his Harvard-bound escape from their dreary town, his father was killed by his mistress' husband. Now a historian on a mediocre book tour, Luke's sold a copy of his book to the woman he's always blamed for his father's death, Lola Faye Gilroy. That sale leads to a drink, and then several more, and as their conversation continues, Luke finds himself peeling back layers of history he never knew existed -- and seeing himself, and the murder, in a different light. Take a Richard Russo-style bleak blue-collar town, set it in Alabama, and add a helping of self-deceit, and you've got The Last Talk with Lola Faye. |
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| The Last Alibi by David EllisLegal Thriller. In this 4th novel starring defense attorney Jason Kolarich, Jason's addiction to painkillers is affecting his work. Hired by a man who fears being framed for murder, it's ultimately Jason who's charged with a string of murders, having missed important red flags about his new client. Jason's law partner, Shauna Tasker, handles Jason's defense and -- in a change from previous books in the series -- narrates part of the story, too. Intricately plotted, this book provides "lip-chewing thrills," says Booklist. |
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| Last to Die: A Novel by Tess GerritsenSuspense Fiction. Deep in the Maine wilderness, a boarding school known as Evensong houses children traumatized by violence. Three of the children there share an unhappy coincidence -- years after their families were killed violently, their foster families were also killed. The most recent set of deaths land on Boston detective Jane Rizzoli's desk, and the more she investigates, the less she believes it's a coincidence. Meanwhile, medical examiner Maura Isles is actually at Evensong, visiting the 16-year-old boy who saved her life. When two adults are found dead, both Rizzoli and Isles are convinced that the school itself may be tied to the murders. This fast-paced novel is the 10th in the Rizzoli & Isles series; the 11th, Die Again, is due out this month. |
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| The Last Child by John HartPsychological Suspense. In Raven County, NC, 13-year-old Johnny Merrimon is still obsessed with his twin sister's disappearance a year ago. Convinced that Alyssa is alive, he looks for her everywhere, even staking out the homes of local sex offenders. Detective Clyde Hunt hasn't been able to let go of the case either, to the detriment of both his marriage and his relationship with his son. And that's before a second girl disappears... A dark novel full of broken adults making poor choices and keeping dangerous secrets, The Last Child offers both intriguing characters and a well-depicted rural setting.
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| The Last Whisper in the Dark: A Novel by Tom PiccirilliCrime Fiction. In this gritty follow-up to The Last Kind Words, Terry Rand really is trying to go straight, but events keep conspiring against him. His former best friend, Chub, provides getaway cars for robberies, and when one of these leaves three cops dead, Terry knows Chub's in trouble. Meanwhile, his mother's family has appeared after decades of estrangement, and they don't offer much -- his maternal grandfather, in fact, wants Terry to kill someone for him. Terry desperately just wants to keep those he loves safe -- they've all lost so much already. As usual with author Tom Piccirilli's crime novels, atmospheric writing and clever dialogue mixes well with a haunted "hero" beset by terrible violence. |
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