Thrillers and Suspense
November 2023

Events
Book Ends - "Mad Honey"
Thursday, November 16, 6:30 pm
Conference Room
Join us for a discussion of Mad Honey (2022-Fiction) by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan (464 pp. - 4.14/5 of 255,579 ratings on Goodreads). The shocking murder of a teenager thrusts a small town into the headlines and destabilizes the lives of everyone who knew her. Olivia McAfee, a professional beekeeper and single mother, fled Boston and an abusive husband to try to give her son, Asher, a better life in small-town New Hampshire.Copies book will be distributed at the October meeting and, afterward, are available by visiting the front desk at either Centerville or Woodbourne Library. The title is available in Regular Print, Large Print, and CD-Book, eBook and eAudio. No registration is necessary, but participants are encouraged to read the book prior to attending the discussion. 
Recent Releases
Perfectly Nice Neighbors
by Kia Abdullah

Salma Khatun and her family needed a change, and relocating to London’s safe, quiet suburbs seems like a good plan. The subdivision is full of cookie-cutter homes, but the neighbors seem friendly—until next-door neighbor Tom Hutton knocks a Black Lives Matter banner out of the Khatun's garden. Salma sees it happen, but she hangs the banner in their window. The next morning, the window is covered in paint, obscuring the banner, and she’s sure that Tom is the culprit. Tom insists that he’s enforcing the subdivision’s rules against signage, but Salma notices that Tom isn’t concerned with their white neighbors who have small banners or signs outside their homes. This confrontation kicks off a series of increasingly disturbing events, and as Tom’s behavior becomes more threatening, the Khatuns fear for their safety—and their lives. Abdullah (Next of Kin, 2021) ratchets up the suspense throughout. Each new act of violence or harassment is more twisted than the last, culminating in a final-act twist that will leave readers gasping. Fans of domestic-suspense novels by Alyssa Cole and Louise Candlish will be enthralled.
Dark Ride
by Louis Berney

Twenty-three-year-old Hardy Reed is a likable slacker who holds a get-by job and is happy letting the universe determine what’s next. But when he sees odd markings on the skin of two school-age children and discovers the marks aren’t tattoos but cigarette burns, he can't help but investigate. His curiosity and concern for the children’s well-being pulls him into something sinister, in this original take on the familiar story of the innocent bystander who becomes embroiled in criminal activity and must go on the offensive to get out alive. Hardy uses the amateur sleuth’s familiar tools—interviews, library research, surveillance, hacker chums—but makes them delightfully fresh. As the story darkens, bad people turn violent and Hardy's friends tell him to save himself and get out. He wonders how he lost his willingness to be fate's football. At first, he attributes the change to a feeling of protective responsibility to children. Later, he realizes his involvement makes him, for the first time in his life, feel as though he matters. Then there’s another revelation, but that's the author's surprise.
Deadlock
by James Byrne

In this sequel to the first Dez Limerick book, The Gatekeeper (2022), retired mercenary Dez returns for another rock-’em-sock-’em adventure. This time, he’s helping a pair of sisters—one of whom is a crusading business journalist—take down Clockwork Solutions, a shadowy tech company based in Oregon, while evading pursuers and foiling a few would-be killers. It’s not a story that readers will take completely seriously, and it’s not intended to be. Dez is a cheerfully larger-than-life character, the action verges on cartoonish, and the writing is enthusiastically over the top. The villainy, too, is delightful. Clockwork Solutions is a big company with plenty of secrets, and the story’s primary baddie is a seriously nasty piece of work that readers will love to hate. As good as The Gatekeeper was, this one’s even better. Byrne is a writer who knows exactly what he’s doing on every page and with each thrill. His apparent mission is to make sure we have as much fun as possible reading this book about a lone man taking on an evil corporation.
The Hike
by Lucy Clarke

Four British women aspire to climb a mountain in Norway, coming face to face with threats both natural and human. The novel opens with a body; a woman has fallen from a great height. It’s unclear who she is or what happened, but this single vignette instills a sense of inevitable danger in the story from Page 1. Zoom out to meet the four protagonists, all women in their 30s who have been friends since childhood; every year they take turns choosing a travel destination, and this year, Liz has chosen a four-day hiking adventure in Norway to climb Blafjell. Helena and Maggie are less enthusiastic about the hiking, but loyalty demands that they go, packing up new gear and boots and embracing the adventure, no matter their private misgivings. The fourth friend, Joni, an international rock star whose colorful life keeps her less in touch with the group, impulsively cancels her next shows and flies out to meet them. At the lodge the night before they head out on the trail, they meet a few potentially suspicious characters and also learn about Karin, a woman who went missing almost a year ago and is presumed dead, maybe even murdered by a local man. While the stress of the hike brings some of the women’s insecurities and conflicts to the surface, they also remember why they have always shown up for each other. Despite Liz’s having been warned about a potential storm, she keeps them moving. Then, on the second night, catastrophe strikes. The strengths of the novel lie in the knife-sharp tension of the first half as well as the beautifully nuanced friendship of the four main characters. While there is danger and tragedy aplenty, hope and loyalty also abound.
Saving Emma
by Allen Eskens

Boady Sanden is a familiar character in Eskens' novels, including The Life We Bury (2014) and The Heavens May Fall (2016). He’s a lawyer, professor, and volunteer for the Innocence Project, which seeks to prevent and vacate wrongful convictions. He is also relentless in his pursuit of the truth. In this fine novel, Boady agrees to represent Elijah, a man who says he has spent four years locked away in an asylum for a crime he didn’t commit (the murder of a megachurch pastor). He also says he is a prophet of God. Boady expects the case to be difficult, but he doesn’t anticipate that it will force him to take a closer look at a four-year-old case that hits uncomfortably close to home—the murder of Boady’s colleague, Ben, inside Boady’s own house. When Emma, Ben’s daughter and Boady’s goddaughter, becomes distant, Boady knows he must free Elijah and confront the past to save Emma. Eskens practiced criminal law for 25 years, and it shows: his novels have a realism and accuracy derived from experience. A first-rate legal thriller.
Shadowheart
by Meg Gardiner

In the fourth UNSUB novel (after UNSUB, 2017; Into the Black Nowhere, 2018; and The Dark Corners of the Night, 2020), FBI Special Agent Caitlin Hendrix is confronted with an investigator's nightmare: not one, but two serial killers. One of them, Efrem Judah Goode, is currently behind bars, and after years of incarceration, he’s suddenly speaking out about the murders he’s committed. The other is still out there, murdering people in apparent homage to Goode’s crimes. To find one killer, Caitlin must enter the mind of the other. What makes the UNSUB novels work so well is the way Gardiner, who recently cowrote the terrific Heat 2 (2022) with filmmaker Michael Mann, has designed her protagonist. Caitlin, a police detective at the beginning of UNSUB, is now a relatively green FBI investigator whose tragic past has left her hesitant and vulnerable, but also determined to confront the darkest parts of herself as well as the people she’s tasked with apprehending. As always, the writing is exquisite and the story is perfectly crafted.
A Haunting on the Hill
by Elizabeth Hand

In this unsettling tribute to Shirley Jackson, Hill House is hungry again. Playwright Holly Sherwin snags a coveted grant to stage her most ambitious play and identifies Hill House as the perfect place for the performance. Majestic and foreboding, the site evokes the essence of Holly’s portrayal of renowned seventeenth-century witch Elizabeth Sawyer, who was said to have summoned the devil in dog form. Holly’s up-and-coming singer-songwriter girlfriend, Nisa, has reworked dark folk ballads to guide the story, and acclaimed (but fading) actress Amanda Greer has signed on as Elizabeth. Holly’s best friend, Stevie, rounds out the cast as Elizabeth’s evil compatriot. Despite strange encounters with the house’s prickly self-appointed guardian and vague warnings from its cook and caretaker, the first run-throughs of the play are magical. But it doesn’t take long for the house to ferret out the cast members’ vulnerabilities, and soon they're hiding their alternately alluring and torturous hauntings from each other as visceral distrust invades their retreat. Honoring Jackson’s story while owning this revival, Hand deploys masterful storytelling to merge the house’s familiar covetousness with witches' tales, feminist themes of repression and unfulfilled promise, and character evolution that subtly matches the house’s growing malevolence. Pitch perfect.
The Secret Hours
by Mick Herron

Hailed as a twenty-first-century Le Carré, Herron is a master at portraying the dark, disturbing world of espionage. His latest thriller begins with a violent confrontation at the home of retired spy Max, who’s determined to find out who’s after him and why. His quest leads him deep into the past but also reveals a bleak future for British intelligence, dubbed “the Park.” A panel is convened by the government to uncover suspected corruption in the Park; but the panel is a sham, and the government has already decided the Park’s future. Then former spy, Alison North, steps forward, promising to reveal secrets with frightening implications for British espionage. In the 1990s, North was a newbie agent sent to Berlin to check that expense claims were being appropriately filed, but her real mission was to discover what Miles, a British agent who operated in East Berlin prereunification, was up to. Decades later, Alison is still suffering the aftereffects of her experience but also still working for the intelligence services and determined to uncover the shocking truth she only partly discovered in Berlin. Gripping, cryptic, tragic, and suspenseful, this must-read will keep readers riveted from first page to last.
The Leftover Woman
by Jean Kwok

Kwok follows her Read with Jenna pick, Searching for Sylvie Lee (2019), with another layered novel about the Chinese experience abroad. It’s 2007, and Jasmine Yang has made it across the ocean to the Beautiful Country, but not without a price. She owes a fortune to the snakeheads, the Chinese mafia who helped her arrive illegally. She’s in New York City to find her daughter from an arranged marriage in China. Her abusive husband took their child and sent her off to be adopted; due to the Chinese one-child policy, they would have a second chance for a boy. Jasmine is determined to find her daughter, but Fiona already has a mother. Rebecca Whitney is a high-profile book editor balancing work and parenting, and it feels like her entire world is collapsing too. As both women struggle, albeit in completely different scenarios, readers can empathize with the people who shape Fiona’s life. Kwok brings her signature lyrical prose to the novel, while suspense simmers in the background. The dangerous club Jasmine works for and the presence of the snakeheads indicate the high stakes, yet there are also tender moments, showing the power of the love both women have for their daughter. Highly recommended.
Tell Me What I Am
by Una Mannion

Ruby was just four when she saw her mother, Deena, for the last time after she left the house where they were staying with Deena’s sister, Nessa. The mystery of what happened to Deena that day would take 14 years to solve while Ruby lived in isolation with her strict, manipulative father, Luke, in northern Vermont, far from her mother’s loving, boisterous family in Philadelphia. The latest tale of family suspense from Mannion, following A Crooked Tree (2021), is told from Ruby and Nessa’s points of view and is fraught with longing and questions. Luke has forbidden all mention of Ruby’s mother and family, banning access to the internet and newspapers and unofficially homeschooling Ruby until a complaint to child services forces him to send her to public schools. Luke’s scheming restrictions only serve to provoke Ruby’s curiosity about a past that stirs strong, if untethered, memories. For her part, Nessa wallows in self-recrimination for missing emotional and physical clues suggesting that Deena was in danger the longer she stayed with Luke. Through Ruby’s steady belief in her mother’s love and Nessa’s unwavering devotion to her sister’s honor, Mannion creates an emotionally charged yet gently paced thriller that evokes the doubt and anguish that arise after uncertain loss.
Contact your librarian for more great books!
Washington-Centerville Public Library Centerville Library
111 W. Spring Valley Rd
Centerville, OH 45458
(937) 433-8091
Woodbourne Library
6060 Far Hills Ave
Centerville, OH 45459
(937) 435-3700
Creativity Commons
895 Miamisburg Centerville Rd
Centerville, OH 45459
(937) 610-4425