Difference between revisions of "Newest Thrillers Reviews"
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| + | |author= Anthony Bidulka | ||
| + | |title= Set Free | ||
| + | |rating= 4 | ||
| + | |genre= Thrillers | ||
| + | |summary= Within minutes of arriving in the exotic, enigmatic, sweltering city of Marrakech, renowned author Jaspar Wills is kidnapped, blindfolded, bound and beaten. As Wills struggles to survive, he recounts his rise to fame, and the tragic events that led him to Morocco. With the kidnapper's demands left unmet, Wills faces death with fear, grief… and guilt. What happened in his past that led to this? Is someone he loves responsible, or is this payback for past sins? Living with a loss far greater than that of his own life, Jasper yearns to be set free. Six months later, struggling reporter Katie Edwards travels to Morocco to investigate the disappearance – and discovers a shocking truth. With stunning revelations galore, the truth will set you free. Can lies do the same? | ||
| + | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>099522921X</amazonuk> | ||
| + | }} | ||
{{newreview | {{newreview | ||
|author= Brenda Novak | |author= Brenda Novak | ||
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|summary= Selena Cole has an unusual job, working in the field of Kidnap and Ransom, but this time she's the one in trouble. While playing in the park with her children she vanishes, and returns 24 hours later with no recollection of where she's been. Oh and in the meantime, a man has been murdered. It's probably completely unconnected, but this is a reasonably small town and for the local police it's unusual to have two such infrequent events in quick succession. | |summary= Selena Cole has an unusual job, working in the field of Kidnap and Ransom, but this time she's the one in trouble. While playing in the park with her children she vanishes, and returns 24 hours later with no recollection of where she's been. Oh and in the meantime, a man has been murdered. It's probably completely unconnected, but this is a reasonably small town and for the local police it's unusual to have two such infrequent events in quick succession. | ||
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780894678</amazonuk> | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780894678</amazonuk> | ||
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Revision as of 13:23, 30 September 2016
Set Free by Anthony Bidulka
Within minutes of arriving in the exotic, enigmatic, sweltering city of Marrakech, renowned author Jaspar Wills is kidnapped, blindfolded, bound and beaten. As Wills struggles to survive, he recounts his rise to fame, and the tragic events that led him to Morocco. With the kidnapper's demands left unmet, Wills faces death with fear, grief… and guilt. What happened in his past that led to this? Is someone he loves responsible, or is this payback for past sins? Living with a loss far greater than that of his own life, Jasper yearns to be set free. Six months later, struggling reporter Katie Edwards travels to Morocco to investigate the disappearance – and discovers a shocking truth. With stunning revelations galore, the truth will set you free. Can lies do the same? Full review...
Her Darkest Nightmare by Brenda Novak
Her Darkest Nightmare has all the right ingredients for a crime thriller. Shrewd, intelligent, and hard-as-nails protagonist? Check. Fantastic setting? Check. A compelling mystery? Check! A thoroughly despicable villain? Check, and check again… and maybe check one more time… Full review...
The Widow by Fiona Barton
Newly widowed Jean Taylor is being interviewed by top investigative reporter Kate Waters. Jean sees that she's not like the other reporters, Kate's not battering down Jean's door, she's nice, patient, she feels like a friend. But Jean isn't completely fooled, Kate wants to know about her husband, about the terrible crime he was accused of, how Jean feels about him now and the most dangerous question of all… what Jean knows. Full review...
Never Alone by Elizabeth Haynes
Sarah lives alone in an isolated farmhouse on the North Yorkshire moors: she's widowed. Her daughter Kitty is away at university and her son Louis and she have lost contact: there's some animosity on Louis' side but Sarah can't quite understand what's behind it. She and Aiden reconnected on Facebook: he was a close friend of Jim, Sarah's late husband and Sarah when they were at university. He's coming back to the UK and impulsively Sarah tells him that he can live in the cottage on her land. She's always been drawn to him - they had a fling once before she married - and it's not long before they begin a sexually-charged relationship. But there's quite a bit about Aiden which Sarah can't understand: what exactly is it that Aiden does for a living? Can she trust him? Full review...
Triple Crown by Felix Francis
You couldn't say that Jeff Hinkley, a British Horseracing Authority investigator was having a midlife crisis, but now that he's not working as an undercover agent quite so much he's not getting the same satisfaction from the job. That was one of the reasons he was delighted to be seconded to the US Federal Anti-Corruption in Sports Agency where the Deputy Director is pretty sure that there's a mole in the organisation. Too many raids have been foiled by the target seeming to know what was going to happen and having the chance to clean up before the investigators arrived. There's not too much to keep Hinkley in the UK, apart from a sister with cancer who says that he should go. Full review...
All These Perfect Strangers by Aoife Clifford
How well do we know our neighbours? How well do we know our closest friends? How well do we know ourselves? A carefully constructed thriller, exploring what we human nature is capable of. Full review...
The Constant Soldier by William Ryan
Paul Brandt returns home to his village without the arm he left at the Russian Front in defence of Germany. The village looks pretty much the same as he left it, with the exception of the lack of young men and a new building. His home now boasts an SS rest hut, providing officers with entertainment and respite breaks from the fighting. As Paul passes the hut for the first time, he sees something… or rather someone… that will make him return to work for those he despises. The subject of his decision? A girl he once got into trouble with under different circumstances – before she wore the stripes of a concentration camp prisoner. Full review...
Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben
Joe was buried quickly. Only three days after his murder. For those of us who regularly watch the crime shows or even read the papers that might seem like indecent haste. His widow Maya isn't thinking like that, though. Through the service she's thinking about all sorts of other things. She's bringing her training to bear. Distraction. Get through this bit and then deal with what needs to be done. Full review...
The Gem Connection by Michael R Lane
In the beginning it was simple. C J Kavanaugh, formerly of the Drugs Enforcement Agency but now making a living as Private Investigator was employed to prove that a man was having an adulterous affair. Antonio Fahrletti had confounded half a dozen PIs who'd been unable to prove that he was being unfaithful to his wife, but CJ was determined to be the one who got the proof. Luck was on his side, but not, it would seem, on Fahrletti's. In the meantime Clinton Windell knew that luck was on his side: he'd brought home twenty million dollars of uncut gems. The board hadn't believed that he could do it and a large part of his pleasure was that he was proving them wrong. Full review...
Don't You Cry by Mary Kubica
Quinn is missing someone, and Alex has found someone. And both are a little confused (not to mention alarmed, cautious and a little uncertain). In Chicago, Quinn discovers her roommate, Esther, is missing. Vanished. Gone without a trace. It's extremely out of character for the girl Quinn knows, but as she starts to hunt down Esther's whereabouts, she has to question how much she ‘'does know the girl with whom she shares a home and a life. A little way away, Alex is working in a restaurant when a mysterious stranger comes in. He can't quite figure out why, but he's drawn to her. Who or what connects these two stories? Full review...
The Art Teacher by Paul Read
Patrick Owen managed seven years at Highfields Secondary School without punching a pupil in the face. A mediocre teacher, stuck in a struggling school ruled by violent pupils, Patrick goes home every night to an empty flat, and an existence filled with reminders of his life as a faded rock star. When one pupil over steps the mark, a brief mistake plunges Patrick into a world of danger, violence, and the glare of the media. Full review...
Arrowood by Laura McHugh
Arrowood lies amongst the ornate historical houses that line the Mississippi River in Southern Iowa - a house rich with money, history, and mystery. It has been nearly twenty years since Arden Arrowood's infant twin sisters vanished under her watch, never to be seen again. The disappearance of the twins broke Arden's family – her parents divorced and they moved from the house that has been in her family for generations. But the mystery was never solved and now Arden has inherited Arrowood, allowing her to finally return to her childhood home. Still clinging to the hope that her sisters might still be alive, Arden is anxious yet determined to finally uncover the truth about what happened that fateful summer day. Full review...
Why Did You Lie? by Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)
There's a bunch of rock stacks – four of them, even if their name implies only three – off the coast of Iceland. The largest is a tall and thin lump of rock, hazardous to anyone on it, and home to a crumbling and inoperable helipad and a small, squat lighthouse – not the lighthouse of your imagination, but a perky concrete cabin, not needing any more than the one room to house the gear and the lantern on top. Replacing some of that gear and surveying the site is a group of four people – specialist workers, and a photographer to capture it all. So why and how do we know their story ends in tragedy – two of them cast to the waters below, and a third seemingly stabbed before the prologue is over? And why is their narrative interspersed with that of a woman, struggling with work in the police and seemingly with a haunted garage, the scene of her husband's failed suicide, and also that of a family returning home from a house-swap trip to Florida to find something they really didn't want to have waiting? Full review...
The Creeper Man by Dawn Kurtagich
The Creeper Man won't get you if you just stay away from the woods
In 1980 three little girls summon a protector out of Python Wood. But with a grinning mouth and without eyes, The Creeper Man is not their protector.
In 2016 two sisters, Silla and Nori, runaway from London and their cruel father to La Baume, the country house in which their crazy Aunt Cath lives. Away from fear and hurt, the girls are finally happy and loved. They're finally safe… Until the trees start moving closer. Full review...
Dear Charlie by N D Gomes
I can't fathom a bigger emotional mess for someone to have left behind. I wonder if you know that this would happen. I wonder if you thought about anything at all before you walked into that assembly hall at 8:22 am on the last day of school. N.D Gomes has written an exceptional novel on a controversial and relevant subject today with gun laws in question across the world. Dear Charlie is set in England in 1996, the same year in which Scotland was devastated by the Dunblame school massacre, and analyses life after an 18-year-old Charlie, student at Pembrook Academy, shoots and kills 14 people before turning the gun on himself. The novel is narrated by Sam, Charlie's younger brother, who at 16 has to pick up the pieces after the shocking event. The novel depicts how Charlie's family come to terms with his loss, how they're treated by the community, as well as the constant pressure on their lives by the media. Forced to move to a new school, Sam tries to make a new start and leave the past behind, but Charlie is never far from his thoughts. Full review...
The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter
Special Agent Will Trent is back. Collected by his partner, Faith, to attend the scene of a rather brutal murder, Trent queries why the GBI has been called in to what would usually be a standard homicide investigation for Atlanta PD. Arriving at the scene, their boss, Deputy Director Amanda Wagner is somewhat characteristically pacing and barking orders; the victim is none other than ex-cop and all round bad egg, Dale Harding. There is a lot of blood, presumably due to the door-knob and spindle sticking out of Harding's neck. Full review...
The Lost Swimmer by Ann Turner
Your boss is out to sabotage your career, your husband's having an affair, someone's trying to frame you for fraud and your dog is out of control around the friendly neighbourhood Kangaroos. It would be a lot to handle for anyone, let alone university lecturer Rebecca who is somewhat less confident that her outward persona would suggest. But there's just that slight issue of how much of it is actually factual. The signs seem to suggest some or all of this to be true, but signs can be wrong, obscured with dirt or sometimes pointing the wrong way. Full review...
The End of the World Running Club by Adrian J Walker
When the end of the world as we know it comes, Edgar is totally unprepared. Still slightly drunk from drowning his sorrows, and in a panic, he throws random items, including his daughter, down into his cellar, and then he and his family eke out a nightmarish existence in the dark until their supplies run out. Fortunately they are lucky, and they are rescued from the cellar. As they emerge back into the world they see the ruin and disaster around them, caused by hundreds of large asteroids hitting the earth. Large areas of the country have been destroyed. Groups of people left alive scavenge houses and towns, turning feral, trying to find what's left to help them to survive. Edgar's family are rescued by a small remaining army unit, but he and his wife and children become separated, and so begins Edgar's desperate race to reach his loved ones, who are hundreds of miles away, before they leave on an evacuation ship for another country. Full review...
Silent Scream by Angela Marsons
In Silent Scream, D.I Kim Stone is called to investigate the body of a woman found dead in the bath of a house that has been set on fire. As Stone and her team start to investigate the suspicious circumstances, it becomes clear that this isn't going to be an isolated case and they are in a race against the clock to find out who could be next on the killer's hit list and why. Full review...
Bodies of Water by V H Leslie
Bodies of Water is a concise novella featuring a dual narrative from the perspectives of Kirsten, a modern day woman on the mend from a broken heart, and Evelyn, a nineteenth century 'guest' of a water treatment centre for ailing women. Kirsten moves into the old Wakewater House, attempting to heal herself with the proximity of the water. Centuries ago, Evelyn was forced by her father to visit that same house in order to restore her old vigour, but the water cannot drown out the ghost that haunts her. In fact, the water itself is a powerful and supernatural force. As the water encroaches upon both of their lives, Kirsten and Evelyn search to unveil the mysteries of the house as well as the drenched dark-haired figure who appears before them. Full review...
Watching Edie by Camilla Way
Edie and Heather are two old friends who haven't kept in touch as they left their teenage years behind, but a chance encounter brings Heather back just when Edie most needs a friend. It's so welcome, this return, that she's happy to accept the coincidence and not think too hard about the events that may have brought the two girls back together. From long lost friend to established confidant, Heather seamlessly reintegrates herself into Edie's life, but are things as rosy as they seem, or does one of the girls have a big secret they're trying to forget? Full review...
I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
The unnamed Girlfriend is driving with her boyfriend Jake to his parent's farmhouse out in the country. True to the title, she's thinking about ending their relationship. But something seems a little off. When she meets his parents, the Girlfriend begins to think there's something not quite right about them. On their way back they stop outside an abandoned school, and that's when things get really frightening... Full review...
Distress Signals by Catherine Ryan Howard
Cruise ship The Celebrate is a place for leisure, relaxation and, it seems, disappearance. To Adam's knowledge two women have disappeared from the ship mid-ocean, a fact that interests him as one of them is his partner Sarah. The search for her began with a note and seems to have ended on board but he won't let it go. If Sarah is out there, Adam will find her even though he may not like what he discovers along the way about the woman he loves and thought he knew. Full review...
Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz
Bond is back, this time authored by international best-selling author Anthony Horowitz. It all begins with a seemingly simple mission (at least for Bond). After a few days training, James heads to Germany to race in the European championship at Nürburgring where he plans to stop the Russians using dirty tricks to secure victory. However, we're not surprised that Bond soon uncovers a much bigger and more serious plot: a scheme by Korean Sin Jai-Seong (otherwise known as Jason Sin) and SMERSH (a top-secret department of the Russian government) to undermine the American space programme whilst simultaneously murdering millions of New Yorkers and toppling the Empire State Building. As the clock ticks down, only Bond and CIA field-agent, Jeopardy Lane, can stop it. But are they already too late? Full review...
The Fifth Gospel by Ian Caldwell
Conspiracy thrillers are many and varied. They often promise a lot but leave you feeling frustrated and disappointed. The Fifth Gospel is the rare exception. In a genre filled with mediocrity it soars above the competition. The care and quality that Ian Caldwell brings to his writing is exceptional and his storytelling is gifted. Set in the heart of the Vatican, he weaves a tale around the discovery of a missing gospel. The religious and political intrigues, handled with great subtlety, are twisted into a complex narrative full of intimate details. Full review...
Different Class by Joanne Harris
St Oswald's Grammar School For Boys is in crisis. A murdered schoolboy, a procession of new Head Masters, a(nother) new Head Master, a Crisis Intervention Team and a potential merger with St Oswald's all female counterpart, Mulberry House. Roy Straitley is not altogether dismayed at the prospect of delaying his retirement; St Oswald's has been his life, man and boy and a crisis is a crisis after all is said and done, isn't it? It's probably his duty to stay and right the ship. So when the latest of the new Head Masters and his duo of crisis managers walk into the staff room, Straitley can't quite believe his old eyes. The new Head is an ex-pupil of St Oswald's; a boy who, in his time at the esteemed old School caused such an uproarious scandal that one of the Masters ended up in prison! Full review...
The Hanging Club by Tony Parsons
When the three yobbos who kick to death a young husband and father are given a perfunctory sentence, DC Wolfe finds it hard to hold his true feelings in check. Confounded by the injustice of the British Courts and legal system, DC Wolfe spends a good while soul searching and wondering why he invests so much of his life in fighting crime, finding murderers and bringing them to justice when the integrity of the criminal justice system is so sorely lacking. Luckily for DC Wolfe he has his bright and funny daughter Scout to keep him from looking too hard into the darkness that DC Wolfe knows lives inside every dutiful cop; until the videos start being posted on the internet. Full review...
Orphan X (Evan Smoak) by Gregg Hurwitz
1-855-2-Nowhere is the number you can call when you're in danger. The only payment needed for a very violent but terminal solution is that you pass the number on to someone else in trouble. Evan Smoak, the man attached to the phone number, has been trained. A strategic thinker and total expert in the fields of espionage and killing, he was kidnapped as a pre-teen to take part in a covert programme. That was long ago though and now life is different. Normally everything runs like clockwork but one day that clock stops and a countdown of a different sort begins. Evan is Orphan X and Orphan X is himself in trouble. Full review...
Fault/lines (Hadron Damnation Book 0) by Mark Lingane
What starts off as a day that should be remembered for a medical appointment soon becomes anything but for DCI Tracey Hanson. When planes start falling from the sky she and DI Reggie Chambers are thrown together in the thick of it. In the midst of the carnage, a teenager is orphaned. Definitely a tragic event but is there more to it than that? Full review...
The Missing Hours by Emma Kavanagh
Selena Cole has an unusual job, working in the field of Kidnap and Ransom, but this time she's the one in trouble. While playing in the park with her children she vanishes, and returns 24 hours later with no recollection of where she's been. Oh and in the meantime, a man has been murdered. It's probably completely unconnected, but this is a reasonably small town and for the local police it's unusual to have two such infrequent events in quick succession. Full review...
