Quick Book Reviews Blog

  Short Summary Andrew Mayne has given quite enough time to Theo Cray and Jessica Blackwood in their own separate series, finally uniting them together in the first novel marking their new adventures together, titled Mastermind . In this story, they team up together to take on a sinister criminal known as the Warlock, seemingly capable of erasing entire cities from the face of the Earth.

  Catriona Ward injected some much needed fresh blood into the horror genre with her recent publication of The Last House on Needless Street . It tells the strange and somewhat surreal story of a man living with his daughter and cat in a run-down house... a man whose new neighbour suspects him of being a serial killer, responsible for the disappearance of a young girl despite supposedly having an alibi.

James Patterson and Andrew Gross have proven the value of their partnership with their highly successful Women's Murder Club Series, and the third book, titled 3rd Degree , serves up an unexpected twist on a silver platter.  As the members of the afore-mentioned club investigate a terrorist group with an unknown agenda following a recent attack, one of the women sees death lurking at her threshold.

S. A. Cosby might have single-handedly brought back the getaway heist thriller genre, at least for a bit, with his recent summer bestseller, Blacktop Wasteland . Following the story of Beauregard, a mechanic with a troubled past trying to keep afloat a failing family business, we see him fall back into his old ways when the perfect opportunity presents itself to solve all of his family's problems. As he should have known though, nothing is perfect in the world of jewel heists.

James Patterson might conceivably be one of, if not the most prolific author of thriller literature in the modern era. The Women's Murder Club is one of the many series he has running, and the title which kicked it off, 1st to Die , takes us to a San Francisco shocked and reeling from the recent crimes of a serial killer. In the midst of widespread fear and panic, four crime-solving friends bond together to find the culprit, each one holding part of the key to the solution.

Janelle Brown has shown herself time and time again quite capable of weaving original and entertaining stories, and Pretty Things is the latest showcase of her talents. The plot follows two drastically different women, Nina and Vanessa. The former realizes she must engineer a scam for the ages to pay for her mother's medical bills, while the latter once shunned Nina and is living the luxurious life of an Instagram model. As the two see their paths colliding, complications of all shapes and sizes begin making their way to the surface.

Lawrence Wright generally enjoys reflecting reality in his writings, or outright denouncing it as he did with Scientology . In his latest novel, titled The End of October , Lawrence takes us on a global adventure alongside Henry Parsons, an epidemiologist tasked with trying to stop the spread of a deadly disease threatening the entire world, while trying to survive with his family against ever-decreasing odds.

Tracy Buchanan is one of many authors trying to push the thriller genre forward, willing to try out new concepts and premises resonating more with the modern world. In her latest psychological thriller, Wall of Silence , she tells the story of a mother of three children, living in a small tight-knit community. One day, she comes home to find her husband stabbed on the floor, and soon realizes one of her three children did it. As she tries to hide what she knows from the outside world, she must also steel herself and dig out the real truth beneath the countless lies.

Angie Kim has announced in style her debut as an author by publishing an instant national bestseller with her first ever novel, Miracle Creek . In it, we follow from multiple perspectives an investigation into the explosion of a hyperbaric chamber which seemed like it was caused on purpose. From the owners themselves to a disgruntled protester, many people had the opportunity and motive to commit the crime in search of their own better future, but in the end the truth is singular... or is it?

Locking her sights on the historical fiction genre, Lyndsay Faye has already birthed a few bestsellers, with The Paragon Hotel now joining their ranks as well. Taking place in 1921, it introduces us to Alice James, a fresh arrival in Oregon with a bullet wound and five thousand dollars in cash. Soon she finds her way to the titular hotel, but at the same time tensions start rising in the city with a flood Ku Klux Klan members making a home for themselves.

Christian White has turned many heads with his debut novel which instantly became an international bestseller, and he returns to the fore with his second novel, The Wife and the Widow . Taking place on a small island town in the dead winter, the story follows two women on a collision course of discovery, both trying to unravel the secret lives of their husbands and the darkness they concealed.

Donato Carrisi has been a fantastic representative for Italian literature in the Western world, and his 2013 novel The Lost Girls of Rome is a fantastic example as to why. Taking place in, you guessed it, Rome, it follows a young widow, Sandra Vega, seeking answers after her husband, a journalist, supposedly plunged to his death at a construction site. Unsatisfied with the official version of events, Sandra sets on the trail of a secret society with a much darker and richer history than anyone could have imagined.

Robert Pobi has taken his first dive into the police procedural genre by opening the Lucas Page series with City of Windows . It tells the story of Lucas, a retired and handicapped FBI agent who gets brought back into the fold for his unbelievable ability to analyze crime scenes. More precisely, he is asked to put his talents to use to solve the murder of his former partner, shot by a sniper while on the move in an SUV. Before long, he finds himself fully back in the fold, on the hunt for a killer nobody knows anything about.

Kate Atkinson has earned her reputation over the years as one of the most respected British writers when it comes to thrillers and mysteries, further cementing her position with Big Sky , the fifth Jackson Brodie book. In it, we follow the private investigator as he takes on a case to capture evidence of a cheating husband, only to unearth a sinister network of cruel men who lure young girls from abroad with false promises.

The search for identity as a teenager is never easy for normal people, and S. S. Bazinet goes the extra mile to make it a million times more difficult for the sixteen-year-old Theodore in her novel My Brother's Keeper . Having been abducted and raised by a sinister organization known as the WKA, Theodore is quite surprised when his real family locates him, revealing he is in fact a werewolf... one who might be able to turn the tide in the war between his kind and the evil organization hell-bent on destroying them.

Greg Iles has never had any problems depicting both the best and the worst of what the South has to offer, and in Cemetery Road he returns there once again to dive into a filthy pool of treachery and deceit. It tells the story of Marshall McEwan, a journalist who returns to his Mississippi hometown of Bienville and ends up investigating two murders which turned the community inside out. As he is about to discover, the journey awaiting him has only begun to bare its dark and ugly teeth.

James Lee Burke has sent detective Dave Robicheaux on many sordid adventures throughout his excursions in the realm of literature, and it seems he isn't done with the man yet as he gets wrapped up with a decadent case in The New Iberia Blues . The story begins to unfold as the death of a young woman shocks the country, eventually sending our beloved detective on a morally-bankrupt journey through the cesspools of Hollywood, the underworld of the mafia and the perilous backwoods of Louisiana.

Elmore Leonard has time and time again surpassed himself and entertained the masses in his long and storied career, and his novel Pronto , like many others, illustrated his many qualities to near-perfection. The story follows U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens as he races against the Miami mob and a Sicilian hitman to find a runaway bookie hiding away somewhere in Italy... a bookie who already escaped him once before.