thriller

‘A Stranger in Town’ is the newest Rockton novel by Kelley Armstrong in a thrilling series

/ Pamela Kramer

If you haven’t started the “Rockton” series by Kelley Armstrong, you are missing out on a wonderful detective series with a setting that is unique and that makes each mystery in the series much more than a typical whodunit. “A Stranger in Town” is the sixth book in the series, and Casey and Eric, the detective and the sheriff in this Northern Canadian, off-the-grid town of Rocton, made up of people hiding from something in their past, come across a woman who has been attacked and is in desperate need of medical care. Continue reading →

‘Twenty’ by James Grippando is a thrilling story of fanaticism, marriage, and mystery

/ Pamela Kramer

twenty

In “Twenty,” the newest Jack Swyteck mystery by James Grippando, there are important questions that arise at the very start of this gripping mystery/thriller. Who was the shooter who killed students at the tony private school in Miami? Whoever it was was covered from head to toe: goggles, face mask, tactical vest, even booties covering the shoes. But when one of the students, Xavier Khoury, confesses to the shooting after the gun used was discovered to belong to his father, the community closes ranks against him and his family. Continue reading →

‘The Girls I’ve Been’ by Tess Sharpe is a surprisingly touching YA story of friendship, love, a bank robbery and much more

/ Pamela Kramer
The Girls I’ve Been

In “The Girls I’ve Been,” Tess Sharpe’s brilliant writing draws us into the lives of the three teens at the center of this young adult thriller. We meet them just as they are on the cusp of being held hostage at their local bank in rural California, and from the first chapter (the chapters are labeled with the time, and the amount of time that has elapsed since they were taken captive), we are mesmerized by Nora and her extraordinary narration of the events that are happening both in the present and also as she intersperses the present narration with snippets of her past that serve to explain who Nora is now.

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‘The Historians’ by Cecilia Ekbäck: A history of racial prejudice in a WWII thriller

/ Pamela Kramer

“The Historians” by Cecilia Ekbäck presents readers with a historical thriller that also encompasses the history of racial prejudice and eugenics that permeated Scandinavia even before Hitler’s rise to power. The story begins in April, 1943, when Laura Dahlgren receives a phone call that her best friend from college has disappeared. Before the actual beginning of the story, Ekbäck provides short passages about events from January, February, and March of that year. Two of those are about mysterious events that seem unrelated to the main story, but give a hint of what is to come.

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‘Piece of My Heart’ is Mary Higgins Clark’s last book

/ Pamela Kramer

“Piece of My Heart” starts with a bang. A missing child, a postponed wedding, and a convicted murderer accusing her father of falsifying a confession — all these throw Laurie Moran, whose investigative television show “Under Suspicion” delves into unsolved crimes, into a frenzy of work and fear.

In this last book by Mary Higgins Clark, who passed away ten months before its publication, cowriter Alafair Burke offers a lovely tribute to the prolific and venerable author. It’s just one tribute of many, for Higgins Clark is known not just for her superb mysteries and her wonderful ability to create memorable characters; she is also remembered and loved for her kindness and her determination to give each book her very best efforts, and to engage with her readers even past the point when she needed to do so for publicity’s sake. Continue reading →

‘The Truth Hurts’ by Rebecca Reid is a psychological thriller with a Hitchcock-ian ending

/ Pamela Kramer

“The Truth Hurts” by Rebecca Reid is an apt title. In this novel, we learn the truth in clever dribs and drabs through the third person narration from the point of view of Poppy, the nanny who gets fired for sticking up for herself. Her narration is in the present, and we also hear from Caroline, who was Poppy’s employer once upon a time. She shares what happened before.

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‘The First to Lie’ by Hank Phillippi Ryan

/ Pamela Kramer

the first to lieHank Phillippi Ryan is the master of mystery and deception. Her novels are filled with people who are not quite who they appear to be, and “The First to Lie,” as we are warned in the very title, is no different. The story is about a pharmaceutical company that will stoop as low as possible to push their drug that often helps women become pregnant. The problem? One of the side effects is sterility, meaning that women who were promised a baby ended up with a future that meant they would never be able to have a baby of their own.

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“Muzzled”: Another Rosenfelt/Carpenter ‘Killer’ novel

/ Pamela Kramer / Leave a comment

muzzled

“Muzzled” is the twenty-first entry in David Rosenfelt’s “Andy Carpenter Mystery” series, and it seems quite clear that Rosenfelt’s many fans hope it’s the first of at least twenty more. The protagonist in the series, Andy Carpenter, is one of the most charmingly devilish characters in the world of legal mystery novels. And he’s also one of the funniest. Andy might be viewed as the Don Rickles of defense attorneys; he’s a genius of insult humor. But unlike Rickles, Andy’s main target is himself. With his hilarious self-deprecating comments, he willingly exposes himself as a coward, a meanie, and a downright jerk. Yet he’s also a most lovable character. Even as he bravely places himself in dangerous, even life-threatening situations, he admits that he’s scared to death while, for example, shakily clutching a loaded pistol while dealing with a murderous villain, as he does in “Muzzled.” Continue reading →

“The Vacation” of Doom by T. M. Logan

/ Pamela Kramer

vacation

Almost all of us have taken long-planned vacations that turned out to be much less enjoyable than we had hoped. But this T.M. Logan novel,”The Vacation,” takes us on a trip so filled with gloom, anger, profound disappointment, paranoia, and near-madness that we might ourselves avoiding future vacations for fear that they might be anything at all like the one Logan describes so vividly in this excellent mystery novel.

There are twelve characters in the story, each of them bearing ugly scars, secrets, and deeply hidden problems primarily due to past misdeeds. Four of the characters are forty-year-old women who have been best friends since college but have rarely communicated for ten years. They love each other. But they have all hurt each other in the past, and those hurts and harms and horrors are slowly and painfully forced back into their memories and revealed to us as the story proceeds. Their husbands and children comprise the rest of the cast, and all of them are similarly troubled. So a lovely vacation at a mansion in a small French town becomes an ugly portrait of suspicion, fear, and, yes, loathing.

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‘The Blues Don’t Care’ but they sure make a good read

/ Pamela Kramer

blues

Paul D. Marks is a multiple award-winning author whose latest novel, “The Blues Don’t Care,” is a striking illustration of the talent that has brought him those awards. It’s the first entry in what promises to be an entertaining and thoughtful series of “Bobby Saxon Novels” — mysteries with not only the requisite twists, turns, surprises, and reveals, but also a penetrating look into our ubiquitous all-too-human flaws — greed, corruption, fear of the “other,” and, especially, racism.

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