Historical Thriller. During the World War II siege of Leningrad, Lev Beniov is jailed for looting a German soldier's body. The timid teenager shares a cell with 20-year-old Kolya, a handsome, charismatic Cossack deserter; both are due to be executed for their infractions. To save their lives, they accept a colonel's offer--find a dozen eggs for his daughter's wedding cake, and they will be spared. But there are no eggs to be found in the starving city. And when they go behind enemy lines, they take on an even more dangerous task that will keep you anxiously turning the pages.

Psychological Suspense. Worried about their 16-year-old son, Adam, who has become withdrawn after a friend's suicide, Tia and Mike Baye install a keystroke monitor on his computer--and are alarmed at what they learn. Elsewhere in the neighborhood a young girl's life is ruined, a woman hides a terrible secret, and the dead boy's mother comes to suspect that Adam may know more about her son's suicide than he has let on. In addition, two local women have been kidnapped and murdered--and Adam goes AWOL. In this spine-tingling thriller, suburbia is not all it's cracked up to be.

Psychological Suspense. When Nina Landry's 15-year-old daughter Charlie doesn't return from a sleepover and her subsequent paper route, the police don't take her disappearance too seriously (she is a headstrong teenager, after all). Over the next 24 hours, Nina desperately canvasses the neighborhood (located on a bleak island off the English coast) and starts looking into Charlie's personal life...eventually uncovering not only Charlie's abandoned bike but some terrible secrets as well. If you're a parent, no doubt this story will have you on the edge of your seat (how well do you know your teenage daughter?), but readers without children will still find their pulses pounding.

Historical Thriller. In one of the most talked-about debut novels of the year (Ridley Scott has already bought the film rights), Stalin's Russia is haunted by a serial killer who targets children--dozens of them--and who is partially based on real-life serial killer Andrei Chikatilo. But the true evil in the story is the regime that believes that "there is no crime" in a Soviet republic and refuses to admit the danger. What is State Security officer Leo Demidov to do, especially when he also has to deal with his wife, who has been accused of espionage? Though Child 44 has been compared to Martin Cruz Smith's Gorky Park, this nerve-wracking tale is "completely original and absolutely satisfying" (Publishers Weekly).

Police Thriller. Dating is hard enough, but when an online dating service appears to be the only link between the murders of two young women, it's enough to make you swear off looking for love forever. The people running the website aren't being particularly forthcoming, and bodies are starting to pile up, so to catch the killer, NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher goes undercover as "date bait." But she's being toyed with the same way her cop father was before he died, most likely at the hands of the serial killer he was tracking. Fans of Alafair Burke's father, author James Lee Burke, will note that Ellie visits New Iberia, Louisiana, the setting of the popular series starring Dave Robicheaux.

Techno-Thriller. There's a sadistic hacker loose in Silicon Valley--but the twist is that once he accesses an individual's computer, he uses what he learns to lure them to their deaths. Not only that, but he's adapted an online game in order to select his real-life victims. In an unusual move, the police decide to use an imprisoned computer geek to track him down, and once the jailed hacker recognizes the killer's online name, the two go head to head. Lest you think that following a techno-trail is boring, there are plenty of "throat-clutchers, diabolical double-crosses, [and] action scenes that suddenly turn inside out" (Kirkus Reviews) to keep you up at night--and likely off the computer.

Thriller. Recently hired to investigate online gambling in Great Britain, one-armed ex-jockey-turned-sleuth Sid Halley believes that what he's turned up might be connected to the murder of a jockey. The jockey, who was shot three times in the chest, was killed after winning the Triumph Hurdle on Cheltenham Gold Cup day--and curiously enough, the winning horse and a racegoer also died that day. Meanwhile, Halley is also looking into a lord's unusual losing streak--and something he's doing is putting both his girlfriend and himself in danger. Dodging threats and putting things right are, however, among his specialties. Racing fans won't want to miss Under Orders.

Crime Thriller. Edward de Jersey is a very, very rich man whose prize possession is a horse, the star of his successful racing stable. He's on top of the world, but things go south very quickly when a dot-com investment goes bad, destroying his entire fortune. That's when he decides to return to his former ways (the son of a bookie, Edward acquired the "de" the same way he financed his lifestyle--by simply taking it). Granted, those jewel-heisting days were decades ago... But no matter that his associates are older too, or that he's set his sights on nothing less than the Crown Jewels; charismatic Edward is confident he can repeat his successes. You'll have to read Royal Heist to see if he's right.

Psychological Thriller. FBI agent Smokey Barrett's return to work after the brutal murders of her husband and daughter and her own narrow escape from death is understandably slow, but it's hastened by a serial killer targeting prostitutes through their websites. After mauling and killing the women, he sends videotapes of his activities to Smokey and her team, complete with taunts that reveal an intimate knowledge of their own lives. Shadow Man, the 1st in a series featuring Smokey Barrett, features graphic violence, but the characters are well developed, and the plot complex--no standard-issue serial killer thriller here.

Suspense Fiction. Having won a seat on a private company's 2009 launch into space, Kip Dawson, a middle-aged pharmaceutical salesman with a mostly unhappy family life, finds himself in a terrible situation when a micrometeorite damages the spaceship and kills the pilot. With only a few days' supply of oxygen, Kip types up his thoughts and emotions on the ship's computer, unaware that his writings are being published on the Internet and read by a horrified public. Back on Earth, hopes of a rescue are alternately helped and hindered by various political maneuverings, making for an absorbing read.