Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/19/2013
ISBN-13: 9780312583194
ISBN-10: 0312583192

Crime Thriller. Nick Reid and his friend Desmond are on a crazed meth dealer's hit list, but they're not alone, so when they learn that "that Boudrot," as lowlife Guy Baptiste Boudrot is known, has escaped prison, they set out to warn everyone who had a hand in putting him away. In the Mississippi Delta and Louisiana, in Arkansas and Alabama, mayhem breaks out as Nick and Desmond, trying to stay under the radar, end up in fight after fight. This is the 3rd entry in a relatively new series; fans of Tim Dorsey's Serge Storms novels or Joe Lansdale's Hap Collins and Leonard Pine books might be interested in this smart, comic series featuring some seriously dimwitted bad guys.

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Publisher: Bantam Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/26/2013
ISBN-13: 9780385342766
ISBN-10: 0385342764

Psychological Suspense. This latest from Scottish author Morag Joss is as much an exploration of family -- the ties that bind, and also suffocate -- as it is a novel of suspense. Deborah and Howard Morgan, who live in the Scottish countryside, are forced to take in lodgers to make ends meet. Their property and their sheep suffer as they age, and their relationship -- never particularly loving -- is strained even more after Howard suffers a stroke. Their son would prefer never to return. And when a visitor who cannot pay his bill continues to stay with them, his presence upends their fragile stability and forces a confrontation with secrets long buried.

Publisher: Soho
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/05/2013
ISBN-13: 9781616953041
ISBN-10: 1616953047

Thriller. In this 3rd entry of a bestselling Danish series, nurse Nina Borg continues to do good, protecting the young daughter of imprisoned Ukrainian refugee Natasha Doroshenko after a kidnapping attempt. She's also looking into Natasha's past, especially after Natasha escapes police custody and is suspected of killing her fiancé. Interwoven with this story of a desperate mother on the lam is that of two sisters starving through a grim childhood in Stalinist Ukraine. What connects them all isn't immediately clear but eventually provides a satisfyingly twisty resolution for the two different threads of this dark, chilly thriller.

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Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 12/03/2013
ISBN-13: 9781250000385
ISBN-10: 1250000386

Crime Fiction. Professional thief Crissa Stone has stolen quite a lot of money from a Detroit drug lord, resulting in the deaths of her two "partners." She's fled to Florida to try to make restitution. Too bad she's being followed by the kingpin's morally repugnant heavy, who doesn't care who gets in his way as long as he gets the money. But Crissa is not about to let a widow and her young daughter get any more hurt than they already are. The 3rd in a compelling, violent series, Shoot the Woman First is as lean and meticulous as its predecessors, Cold Shot to the Heart and Kings of Midnight.

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Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 05/10/2011
ISBN-13: 9780312573553
ISBN-10: 0312573553

Psychological Suspense. The Fletchers should have known better than to move next to a graveyard, particularly one in the English village of Heptonclough, where the villagers slaughter their livestock in an annual "blood harvest" ritual...and where several young girls have been killed. Soon, ten-year-old Tom Fletcher and his younger brother report strange sightings, their toddler sister narrowly escapes an attempt on her life, and blood is exchanged for communion wine at the church (which seems to be the center of all sorts of creepy stuff). With Gothic undertones, Blood Harvest "excels at summoning up the claustrophobic atmosphere of rural village life" (The Guardian).

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Publisher: Random House
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 08/13/2013
ISBN-13: 9780375425363
ISBN-10: 0375425365

Scandinavian Crime Fiction. The "Kentucky Killer," a sadist who likes to torture his victims, has been presumed dead for decades. But he appears to have struck again -- this time in an airport, taking his victim's seat on a flight to Stockholm and escaping police at his destination. As Swedish bodies begin to pile up thanks to yet another American import (the feared Americanization of Swedish culture being a weighty theme), Stockholm's A-Unit finds themselves always a step behind, with few clues to the killer's true identity -- or his whereabouts. Distinctive characters and touches of dark humor are only two of the appeals of this intelligent, resonant book, the 2nd in the Intercrime series (which itself is the basis for the BBC program Arne Dahl).

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Publisher: Harper
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 01/08/2013
ISBN-13: 9780062109842
ISBN-10: 0062109847

Legal Thriller. Jack Swyteck has recently earned an acquittal for his client, Sydney Bennett, a party girl accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter. When an angry mob attacks a woman who looks just like Sydney, putting the coed in a coma, the girl's family convinces him to file lawsuits against the institutions they feel are responsible for firing up the mob. But that's just the beginning of a case that might be Swyteck's most dangerous yet, as a thug beats him and threatens his loved ones when he persists in continuing his investigation and Sydney disappears just in time for the jury foreman to admit to taking a bribe.

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Publisher: W.W. Norton
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/06/2011
ISBN-13: 9780393078114
ISBN-10: 0393078116

Thriller. There's a new, off-the-books unit of the CIA working in Pakistan, and despite the secrecy that cloaks it, the unit's operatives are being killed off, one by one. Newly minted head of counterintelligence Sophie Marx is tasked with finding the killer (or killers) and with figuring out how the officers' identities were leaked. What she uncovers -- U.S. bribery in Pakistan, highly illegal financial activities -- is terrifying, and will leave you wondering how much author David Ignatius' day job as a Washington Post columnist (specializing in the Middle East and the CIA) informs his fiction.

Publisher: William Morrow
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 01/08/2013
ISBN-13: 9780061991042
ISBN-10: 006199104X

Thriller. In this supernaturally tinged religious thriller, the forces of good and evil race to recover a book said to be written by Christ himself, in his own blood. On the side of good are the Sanguines, an order of priests, while the evil is represented by the striogi, ghoulish vampire-like creatures with deadly ambitions. Caught in the middle are archaeologist Erin Granger, Sergeant Jordan Stone, and Father Rhun Korza. Comparisons to The Da Vinci Code are unavoidable, but The Blood Gospel stands quite well on its own; Booklist says "the pacing is heart-pounding and the conceit irresistible." And if you enjoy it, the 2nd in the series, Innocent Blood, was published last month.

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Publisher: Mariner Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 06/11/2010
ISBN-13: 9780547335872
ISBN-10: 0547335873

Police Thriller. Helping to track down the bombers responsible for a terror attack in Seville, Inspector Jefe Javier Falcón finds the case further complicated by the suspicious death of a gangster and a drug-and-prostitution turf war. Not to mention what's going on in his personal life -- his ex-wife's killer is still at large, his lover's son has been kidnapped, and his best friend is being blackmailed by Islamist extremists. There's a lot happening in this complex book, so readers new to the series may want to start at the beginning, with The Blind Man of Seville. Fans, however, will enjoy following all the connections.