Book Talk

Bone chilling suspense!

A long hot summer day, a chair in the shade and…suspense! Fortunately LOTS of great new thrillers have arrived. And a chill is very welcome…

Retired NYPD homicide detective David Gurney was a man who liked puzzles. The murder of a bride on her wedding day in a nearby village presents Gurney with a puzzle he can’t ignore. Shut Your Eyes Tight is the second book featuring David Gurney by John Verdon. If you haven’t read his first, Think of a Number, pick it up immediately.

Paul Harper is the pseudonym of a NYT bestselling author. He has written Pacific Heights, the first in a series featuring Marten Kane, a former intelligence officer. Ryan Kroll is a man who can find information, using any means necessary. He moves into quiet Pacific Heights and begins affairs with two married women. The therapist for both women realizes that he has broken into her records and is using that personal information to manipulate the women to the point of insanity. Kane must stop him before he commits an untraceable murder.

On a fall evening in Nebraska a teen party ends in an explosive light show. Some of the teens are electrocuted. The survivors are systematically eliminated. On the east coast there is a deadly outbreak, pathogen unknown, in an elementary school. In Hotwire by Alex Kava, the two incidents collide, exposing dangerous secrets.

Abandoned by his family at the age of four, and raised by the foster care system, Mike Wingate has finally arrived at a good place in his life, until he gets the message, “You’re next.” The police seem more interested in his past than in protecting Mike and his family now. In desperation he turns to Shep, an old dangerous friend from the foster care system, in You’re Next, by Gregg Hurwitz.

In Brad Thor’s newest, a mission to prevent a series of terrorist attacks fails, and former Navy Seal, Scot Harvath, now a covert counterterrorism operative, must infiltrate the network. Documentary movie producer, Larry Salomon, while working on a secret project, discovers links between one of the wealthiest, most connected men in America, and the anti-America network. This discovery puts his life in danger. Unable to trust anyone, Harvath is forced to go Full Black to prevent America’s plunge into chaos.

Did Klara Boganova receive the fatal bullet meant for her husband, a prominent Slovakian businessman? He and his son have disappeared without a trace. In Requiem for a Gypsy by Michael Genelin, Commander Jana Matinova must delve into the darkest days of Slovak history to link Boganova with a man run down in Paris and a Turk with an ice pick in his eye.

Winner of Sweden’s Best First Crime Novel, Sun Storm, by Asa Larsson, begins when a mutilated body is found in a church in northern Sweden. Attorney Rebeka Martinsson heads home to Kiruna to help her friend Sanna who is suspected of her brother’s murder. To help her, Rebecka must confront a sordid conspiracy and a relentless killer. There are many wonderful Scandinavian crime writers now being published in the United States, pick up the bibliography available at the library.

Virginia Cooper
Adult Services Librarian