Thrillers and Suspense
August 2022

Recent Releases
My Summer Darlings
by May Cobb

What it's about: Recently divorced Jen Hansen has just returned to her small East Texas hometown and reconnected with her childhood best friends Cynthia and Kittie. The happy reunion is cut short by the arrival of mysterious and handsome Will Harding, whose entanglements with each woman set off a chain reaction with shocking, violent results.

Read it for:  tense, compelling mind-games and recriminations narrated by each character in alternating point of view chapters.

For fans of: The Lying Club by Annie Ward.

 
Magpie
by Elizabeth Day

What it is: a thoughtful combination of domestic and psychological suspense that delves into issues of infertility, jealousy, mental illness, and the nature of the truth.

Who it stars: young London couple Marisa and Jake, who are looking forward to having a baby; Jake's cold and imperious mother Annabelle; Kate, a lodger the couple take in whose connection with Jake makes Marisa increasingly uneasy.

About the author: Magpie is the 6th novel by English journalist Elizabeth Day, who also hosts the award-winning podcast How to Fail.
More Than You'll Ever Know
by Katie Gutierrez

1985: Lore Rivera's double life comes crashing down around her after the husbands she has on either side of the Texas-Mexico border find out about each other and one man murders the other.

The present: True crime writer Cassie Brown grows obsessed with the case and desperate for an interview, she shows up unannounced at Lore's front door. Lore reluctantly agrees to be interviewed, but the story she tells will end up changing Cassie's personal and profession lives in ways she never could have anticipated.  


Reviewers say: This debut novel by Katie Gutierrez is "a
compelling, character-driven crime story that holds the reader’s interest to its very end" (Booklist).
Breathless
by Amy McCulloch

The premise: Outdoorsy journalist Cecily Wong has landed a career-making chance to interview famous climber Charles McVeigh, but only if she's willing to meet him on the Himalayan peak he's currently ascending.  

The problem: The climb is notoriously dangerous for even the most experienced mountaineers, and along the way more than one of Cecily's traveling companions dies under circumstances that look like something much more suspicious than accidents or altitude sickness.

For fans of: adventure thrillers where Mother Nature and our fellow humans compete to see who is the bigger threat.
The Wild One
by Colleen McKeegan

What it is: an engaging coming-of-age thriller about what happens when past and present are put on an unstoppable, calamitous collision course.

Starring: Manhattan grad student Amanda, whose seemingly perfect life with her boyfriend is propped up on a rickety foundation of troubling relationship dynamics, unaddressed trauma, and the events of a dark summer night in her childhood that she's managed to keep hidden until now.

Reviewers say: The Wild One "has hints of Tana French and Tara Isabella Burton" and "touches on tough topics without becoming voyeuristic" (Kirkus Reviews). 
Geiger
by Gustaf Skördeman

What it's about: Stockholm police detective Sara Nowak gets drawn into the investigation of her childhood next door neighbor Agneta Broman, who inexplicably shot her retired TV presenter husband.

For fans of: police procedurals, gritty Scandinavian crime novels, and thrillers with connections to the Cold War.

You might also like: Treachery Times Two by Robert McCaw; The Corpse Flower by Anne Mette Hancock.
Cold Fear
by Brandon Webb

What it is: an action-packed techno-thriller about a Navy SEAL on the run after being accused of war crimes whose efforts to clear his name are complicated his missing memories and the threat of another SEAL who is trying to hunt him down.

Series alert: Cold Fear is the sequel to Steel Fear, which first introduced readers to troubled
mononymous veteran Finn.  

Read it for: the richly detailed settings, intricate plotting, and well-developed characters.
The Lunar Housewife
by Caroline Woods

What it is: an atmospheric and stylistically complex historical thriller set during the Red Scare about CIA plans to use the work of American writers as anti-Soviet propaganda and one woman's attempt to hone her craft in spite of it. 

How it's written: as the story of journalist and budding novelist Louise -- who publishes under a male pseudonym while dealing with her unsupportive fellow writer boyfriend -- wrapped around the titular sci-fi novel-within-the-novel that Louise is writing. 

Reviewers say: The Lunar Housewife is a "tantalizing slice of literary history" that will "draw readers across all genres" (Booklist).
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