Category Archives: Thriller
LOVE THY NEIGHBOR
by: Mark Gilleo
Publisher: The Story Plant
Published: March 27, 2012
Format: Paperback (438 pages)
ISBN: 9781611880342
Origin: Publisher through NetGalley (egalley)
***Though the publisher provides the free ebook, I offer the opinion.***
My Look:
In LOVE THY NEIGHBOR, those who help you can be the most deadly.
Clark Hayden is moving back home to help his forgetful mother, after her husband’s death. However, Clark’s dad has been gone for sometime, but Maria Hayden’s mental state has become increasingly worrisome.
Clarke was a late in life child, descending from parents who had been told they could not have a child, and they believed that to be true, until his mother’s pregnancy with him.
Nothing unusual really happens until Maria Hayden gets late night visitors. Although, Clark was home when the knocks exploded on her front door, he was in the basement and didn’t hear a thing. Middle Eastern men spoke words she didn’t understand, but she did not open the door.
Immediately, she telephones the CIA and reports these men, whom to her, seem to be terrorists.
The FBI investigates, somewhat, and determines this caller isn’t well. They weren’t wrong. Maria is not well, and she takes many medications. Even Clark doubts her suspicions.
Eventually, Clark’s neighbors call asking if he could keep an eye out on their house and water their plants. A sick relative passed in a foreign country, and they left immediately. Ariana and Nazim have helped his mother often enough, especially with him being away from home. He does as asked. A telephone call, at this residence, grabs his attention.
However, he gets himself in over his head, once he uses a voice recorder and this is captured on hidden cameras being monitored by the family who owns the home.
My Take:
Mark Gilleo provides a political suspense tale, in a suburbia setting (pre and post 9/11), where some people are not who and what they seem to be.
Although many people know something about their neighbors, in LOVE THY NEIGHBOR, Mark Gilleo shows nobody knows everything. The many point-of-view characters flesh out the means, the motives, and the opportunities of this plotting foursome. Terrorism. Kill as many as possible and die while doing it.
However, this former sleeper cell with one phone call becomes an active cell, and they don’t even trust each other.
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NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN
by: M. William Phelps
Publisher: Kensington
Published: February 28, 2012
Format: Hardcover (320 pages)
ISBN: 9780758273383
Origin: Publisher
***Though the publisher provides the free book, I offer the opinion.***
My Look:
In NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN, the author gives the true accounts of July 18, 2003 in a suburb of Houston.
M. William Phelps starts his story just before four young adults or teens bodies are found, but it doesn’t take him long to arrive at the horrific scene. All police know, at the time, is that these kids were found dead, and the scene was a bloody rampage, execution style kills.
However, the lead detective notices that all shots were hits, without strays or misses. Almost too perfect.
The other variables seeming easy to add was that this scene has possible drug connections. In addition, the scene screamed at investigators that the shooter was a known and trusted entity to the victims, easily determined without force entry and some victim’s backs facing their shooter. They had trust in the wrong person.
However, the hardest detail to understand is why one victim, Rachel Koloroutis, suffered the most. And she did suffer.
Rachel Koloroutis was brutally beaten and shot in her female reproductive organ, among many other places. Meanwhile the other occupants of the home are dead, but they sustained much less in the way of physical injury. Tiffany Rowell had been shot numerous times, and her boyfriend, Marcus Ray Preccella suffered some blunt force head injuries with execution style bullets. Marcus’ cousin, Adelbert Nicholas Sanchez, suffered execution style and other shootings.
What the police did not have and the crime scene refused to tell them was why or who.
Given that this crime happened during the day, it was just as frustrating to discover not a neighbor or friend heard anything. With the enormous amount of spent shells in and around the scene, it is hard to believe that no one heard a sound.
My Take:
M. William Phelps’ meticulous documentation helps him walk his readers through the scene, the investigation, and the trial. Even if given who, the readers will need to know why, and the answer to that is something you will never guess.
In NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN, you will find exactly what the police find as they find it, and you’ll know every step of the investigation, as if you were there while it happens. This true crime thriller will keep you glued to your seat and turning pages. You will almost feel the interrogator’s frustration, and you’ll feel the coolness of the suspect, as if you were sitting in the room.
Sadly, NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN is not fiction; the murders in this book are all too true.
Though it reads like any novel, M. William Phelps keeps your mind focused on these young victims and their families throughout so that we can never forget their names or their lost lives. Here are more true crime thrillers by M. William Phelps: DEATH TRAP (March 2010), LOVE HER TO DEATH (March 2011), and others.
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THE PERFECT DEATH
by: James Andrus
Publisher: Pinnacle (Kensington)
Published: February 7, 2012
Format: Paperback (384 pages)
ISBN: 9780786027699
Series: Detective John Stallings
Origin: Publisher
***Though the publisher provides the free book, I offer the opinion.***
My Look:
Buddy meets the women at work or while pretending to be at work, and he obsesses over their last breath.
Jacksonville Detective John Stallings has been on this side the report, and into each case, he brings the father of a missing teen, Jeanie, with his badge. Though his badge helps him to identify the family dynamic that plays out before him, the father of a missing person helps him to identify with the family and their pain.
The Leah Tishler case hit too close to home for the detective, and he’s glad his partner, Patty Levine is with him.
Meanwhile, another set of Jacksonville detectives are trying to figure out whom killed Kathy Mizell, with a belt and left it around her neck. Was this just an incompetent murderer who not only left the murder weapon but also dumped Kathy’s body at a construction site, but not in a Dumpster only near the Dumpster? It was easy to figure the guy was too short to stick her inside, but was he too stupid to see the stacked cinderblocks that would have helped him get her inside?
Through a source, detective Tony Mazzetti has a list of five names to check into, but this was nothing short of chasing down every lead, not expecting anything to come from it. But without much in the way of leads, these were as good as any. Nevertheless, at the construction site, Mazzetti runs into five men who really don’t like him.
Buddy, on the other hand, is ready for another kill; this one is his angel. Well, at least until she starts coming on to him and brings out weed. Does he really want to preserve this for all eternity? Just as he ponders this, someone else approaches.
But when this visitor pulls a gun, Buddy’s got bigger problems.
His father was at the kitchen, just the day before Detective John Stallings arrived. Moreover, he got chatty with one of the women, telling her stories of his family life, his Navy career, but he kept calling the woman, Jeanie. Finally, his father turns up, but he speaks of visiting with Jeanie who has changed her name to Kelly.
In the meantime, Detective Mazzetti is interrogating a man with unexplained ladies wear. Dresses. He’s hoping that just maybe he’s got the one, but the detective’s hope fades when another body is discovered, putting him back to no suspects.
My Take:
James Andrus makes his career in law enforcement and shows the real side of his chosen profession. His characters could be in any police department on any day.
In THE PERFECT DEATH, you will find fleshed out police officers that solve these crimes the real way, through hard work and good leads. His good guys are not always good and are as humanly flawed as the criminals, just in different ways, and in some cases, the criminals may be the good guys.
James Andrus doesn’t just give you the action and adventure of a thriller; he gives us investigation and techniques along with a thrilling read with engaging characters that anyone can relate to.
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KILL SWITCH Giveaway + KILL SWITCH GAME link + KILL SWITCH link to apps + book review = A GREAT READ!
by: Neal Baer and Jonathan Greene Publisher: Kensington Published: December 31, 2011 Format: Hardcover (288 pages) ISBN: 9780758266866 Origin: Publisher
***Though the publisher provides the free book, I offer the opinion.***
Click here to go to the KILL SWITCH GAME!
My Look:
Doctor Claire Waters is part of a fellowship doing forensic psychiatry work on Rikers Island’s sickest inmates, but she’s already been told that she might not stay with the program. Moreover, they would be right to get rid of her.
She’d messed up with a client, letting her personal failure follow her inside the treatment room.
On that day, with the approaching storm, all Claire could see was herself watching her friend get abducted, and although everyone had told Claire she wasn’t at fault, Claire knew she was to blame. While with a patient, she hit a wall during treatment one day because Dr. Claire Water’s has her own issues needing treatment, but that remedy she never sought.
Much later, Todd Quimby, her assigned patient and a former resident of the penal colony, telephones Claire. He’s in need of emergency care, but after meeting with him at the hospital, Claire decides she can catch a killer and prove her “out-of-the-box” capabilities to the fellowship.
But in just minutes, Claire comes undone.
Todd Quimby attacks Claire, and her boyfriend contacts the head of the fellowship program. The fellowship head then contacts the police.
Meanwhile, at the police station, Claire meets Detective Nick Lawler, and within minutes, he’s dismissing her as a shrink and as a victim. Nick is back on the job, after being exiled in Central Booking, and the last thing he needs is a shrink.
After his wife’s death, everyone believed he killed her; he didn’t.
However, he feels as guilty as if he did, but his nightmare of that blinding flash of light is still as fresh as the day it happened. But that’s not this detective’s only problem; he is hiding a secret that will end his career, for good.
Upon reading two crime reports, one he had investigated—before his departure from the detectives—and one he is just now investigating, Nick is certain the man who assaulted the shrink is the man he’s hunting.
However, his public dressing down of Dr. Waters cost him strange looks at his new-old job, but it could cost him even more.
It could cost another life.
Catching Claire Waters before her cab takes off, the detective gets Todd Quimby ‘s information, but when his partner and Lawlor arrive at the address, the perp’s mother is stalls them. Now, her son goes on the run, out the window and into the subway.
The chase ends with one officer down and their man getting away, but soon, another woman will die.
Click the cover above to download the app for Android and iTunes from Kensington Books.
My Take:
I give my highest recommendation to KILL SWITCH by Neal Baer and Jonathan Greene!
As the former executive producer and co-executive producer of LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIM’S UNIT, these authors already know exactly how to ramp up the suspense, while twisting the plot and bringing the reader down many false trails. However, with KILL SWITCH, they honed their skills even higher.
KILL SWITCH will have you keep reading late into the night. However, how it all ends will shock you.
Just as these authors’ names are synonymous with great television, I know you will watch Neal Baer and Jonathan Greene have a long and renowned novel-writing career.
NOW, HERE’S THE GIVEAWAY NEWS!
For readers of this blog, throughout the United States and Canada, you can enter a random drawing for a free physical book of KILL SWITCH just by leaving a comment!
The comment form will require an email address. However, your email address will not be published.
I will announce the winner on a future blog post.
So, you stay tuned and check back often! I just may have more giveaways coming to you in the future.
HELPLESS
by: Daniel Palmer
Publisher: Kensington
Published: January 31, 2012
Format: Hardcover (416 pages)
ISBN: 9780758246653
Origin: Publisher
***Though the publisher provides the free book, I offer the opinion.***
My Look:
Sexting, child porn, and murder intrudes into Tom Hawkins life, and that’s not all.
A former Navy SEAL, Tom Hawkins is high school coach whose ex-wife is murdered, and the police have him pegged as prime suspect. Before her death, Tom had a blustery relationship with Kelly, and Kelly is the main reason his relationship with his daughter, Jill, is a distant one.
But when the FBI comes calling, Tom’s career, his daughter, and his life are all hitting the losing it fast category, and he’s helpless to stop it. Soon, a story paints him in the lover role with a teenage student, and everyone believes it. In addition, once the FBI finds child porn on his computer, they put him as their kingpin in a child porn investigation.
Could this all be the work of a local cop who isn’t his best fan? Is everything somehow tied to his ex-wife’s murder? Tom does not know what side anyone is playing on, but he does know that somebody’s framing him. But who. And why?
He cannot trust local law enforcement, but he needs help. FBI help.
FBI Agent Rainy’s budding attraction to Tom isn’t the only reason she believes him, but she crossed a line with their kiss.
Involvement with a target is a career killer in her FBI, but she was sure that one day, he’d no longer be their target. In fact, she was sure that he should not have ever been.
She has one problem. Rainy has no proof to clear him.
My Take:
HELPLESS is a timely tale of today’s cyberspace, where pictures and stories can go viral and where online meets infinity.
Daniel Palmer traps you in his credible character’s lives and into their stories. Bringing you into a complicated plot, he leaves the reader guessing at not only the whom but at the how as things keep happening to Tom Hawkins, and you’ll be hoping he can get out of this mess.
You’ll want to read Daniel Palmer’s DELIRIOUS (Kensington February 2011) until his next book releases!
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BEFORE SHE DIES Review and Author Video
by: Mary Burton
Publisher: Zebra (Kensington)
Published: January 31, 2012
Format: Paperback (416 pages)
ISBN: 9781420110217
Origin: Publisher
***Though the publisher provides the free book, I offer the opinion.***
My Look:
Defense attorney Charlotte (Grace) Wellington is not who everyone thinks she is, but her secrets are safe until the past comes bounding up to her present day door.
Eighteen years ago, when she was a teen, Grace’s mother died, and her sister was murdered by a ritualistic nightmare. Grace fled leaving her mother’s infant and her baby sister, Sooner, to be adopted.
Now, Charlotte has managed to turn her life into a picture of what it never was.
She is a highbrow attorney who travels in all the right circles with all the right connections. Nevertheless, when her stepdad shows up at her expensive office, all bets are off on keeping her life the pristine image it has become. Emotions overwhelm her as memories flood from all directions, and the news he brings leaves her hollow.
The problem was Charlotte has always had a hole inside anyway, but she thought she did the right think by her baby sister, Sooner. She pacified herself believing Sooner had a real family and was growing up far away from the carnival. But that didn’t happen.
Her stepfather raised Sooner, and now’s she’s been arrested. He’s threatening to expose Charlotte’s past, but Charlotte’s problems are only just beginning.
Meanwhile, Detective Daniel Rokov discovers the ice goddess isn’t the queen of cold; in fact, she’s hot, sexy, and sultry. Moreover, their no strings attached, clandestine relationship suited him fine, for a while, but now he wants more. Though they are burning up the sheets, she has her heart locked in an ice chest, and she will not change the no attachment part of their relationship. Daniel Rokov wants to know her secrets, and he wants to understand why she lives without emotional entanglements.
Fresh from a hotel tryst, he’s arriving on scene.
A young girl has been murdered. Not news, really. Everyday something like this happens, and maybe some think he’s cold at heart due to indifference. He isn’t. Emotions will hinder his job.
However, even a seasoned detective isn’t ready for this crime scene.
The young woman had been killed elsewhere, but her body had been brought to an abandoned building and staged in the most ritualistic way. The salt outline only confirms what he already knows to be true. Investigating this death leads him straight to the carnies in town, as death and this group seem to come as a package deal.
However, he’s not at all expecting what he unearths.
My Take:
BEFORE SHE DIES by Mary Burton is a read I recommend!
Mary Barton lets us meet her killer on the first page, and you’ll learn this will be his first kill of many more to come. In this read, you are in for a suspense filled ride through a romantic suspense tale where secrets are deadly but distrust can save a life.
Her main characters are flawed but redeemable, and you’ll be rooting for them to live long enough to come together.
While this is a stand-alone title, you will want to read Mary Burton’s other suspenseful reads such as MERCILESS (Zebra January 2011), SENSELESS (Zebra December 2010), and DYING SCREAM (Zebra December 2009).
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THE PROFESSOR
by: Cathy Perkins
Publisher: Carina Press
Published: January 23, 2012
Format: ebook
Origin: Publisher through netGalley – eGalley
***Though the publisher provides the free ebook, I offer the opinion.***
My Look:
A serial killer claims his third victim, and SLED Agent “Mick” O’Shaughnessy is trying to piece together clues to stop the murders. This sick predator stalks his prey, college-aged women from well-to-do families, and Mick, his team, and the local police department must uncover his pattern before he strikes again.
A possible assault at a local college pulls him off the investigation; Mick hates the kind of political pandering that expropriated the police force, but he must deal with it. Although the assault was not that at all, Mick meets graduate student, Meg Connelly.
Like a schoolboy with a crush, he makes up a reason to see her.
Meg Connelly wasn’t ready for the lovesick feelings she’d get for the agent, but romance isn’t on her agenda. Been there. Done that. Moreover, she had the pain to prove it. Meg needs to keep her focus, move forward, and gain a career that will actually allow her creature comforts, like a cell phone. However, she really wasn’t prepared for his kiss, and she’s going to avoid agent Mick O’Shaughnessy like a bad cold.
Meanwhile, the professor watches his victims, and he’s been watching Meg. He notices the way she dresses and the confidence she exudes, but a woman like her needs to regain a subservient posture. Just like his other victims. He has also been watching the news reports of his deeds, and he laughs. The police are too stupid to put it together, but soon his hide and seek with the police becomes personal. That SLED agent is cocky and arrogant. Look at that superior body language; he would like to teach him just how superior he isn’t. Soon the professor dashes off an email to the agent, and his email won’t be traceable.
My Take:
I recommend THE PROFESSOR by Cathy Perkins!
From that first paragraph to the last page the suspense endures, the mystery grows deeper, and the police procedures stay a mainstay in this story line. The author shows how the police investigation progresses, as if she’s done one herself. In Mick, she paints a lovable guy whose job is intense, but he’s looking for more than just his career and his empty condo from life. Her other police officers are just as true to life, each with their own story.
Cathy Perkins is a debut author who will keep you in a perpetual state of suspense while you are awaiting her next book.
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DEAD BY NIGHTFALL
by: Beverly Barton Publisher: Zebra (Kensington) Published: November 29, 2011 Format: Paperback (416 pages) ISBN: 9781420110364 Series: Dead by Trilogy Origin: Publisher
***Though the publisher provides the free book, I offer the opinion.***
My Look:
If you’re a fan of the late Beverly Barton, you might think the plot line in DEAD BY NIGHTFALL may seem familiar, but it is not. The author wraps up her Dead By trilogy by laying many lives on the line, again.
This is not just reminiscent of the past for Investigator Griffin Powell; it’s a nightmare times two.
Griffin Powell’s distant past has become his present and threatens his future, when his wife goes missing. Soon his telephone rings just to taunt him, the same way it did many years ago.
However, many things are different but not all of them are good. Grif’s former FBI Agent wife, Nicole is pregnant, and he’ll give his life to this deranged psycho to save her. Nevertheless, first he must play the game to find a way to rescue the woman he loves, even if it means others may die.
In a way, Malcolm York picks up right where Pudge leaves off, but he takes an even more perverse thrill in both the game and the hunt.
Will Grif and his associates at Powell Private Security and Investment Agency find Nic in time? On the other hand, will Malcolm win?
My Take:
The late Beverly Barton’s edge-of-your-seat, thrilling suspense continues with DEAD BY NIGHTFALL. This book will provide terror and romance to give readers sleepless nights.
DEAD BY NIGHTFALL is a standalone title, and if you haven’t read the other books in the Dead by series, you’ll just enter the game at a different point. However, you will experience the shocking jolt of thrills for the first time.
You’ll want to read the other titles in the series DEAD BY MIDNIGHT (Kensington 2010) and DEAD BY MORNING (Zebra 2011).
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SILENT KILLS
by C. E. Lawrence
Publisher: Pinnacle (Kensington Publishing Corp.)
Published: December 6, 2011
Format: Paperback (320 pages)
ISBN: 9780786025626
Series: NYPD Criminal Profiler Lee Campbell
Origin: Publisher Advance Reader Copy
***Though the publisher provides the free book, I offer the opinion***
My Look:
A dark thriller with its setting in New York City during the first anniversary of an incredible tragedy that is 9/11 begins when a man merges fantasy with reality among the walking wounded surviving inside the metropolis. He thrives in Steampunk Clubs, dressed in Victorian Goth with the telltale goggles, but his indulgence becomes fait accompli and the end of days for young girls. Moreover, this killer is out for blood. Literally. By draining almost every drop of the vital fluid, his drug seduced prey meets death, and his appetite for the living turns to bloodlust with an ever-expanding need for more and an endless supply of victims.
NYPD has Criminal Profiler Lee Campbell on staff to help find a killer, but Lee’s haunted past—a preoccupation with his sister’s death and a depression that had nearly disabled him—pulls him in many directions. In addition, he’s still a target of terrorizing phone calls from a man who knows intimate details of his sister’s last day on earth bringing to life the nightmares of Lee’s dreams and the worry of his days.
While almost feeling a kinship to the killer, Lee’s able to understand the needs that drive him and can use that knowledge to track him. However, police investigation details leaking to the press can give a killer the advantage.
My Take:
C. E. Lawrence has an incredible gift for setting and description. While revisiting the pain and horror of our nation’s attack, she will take you farther into the dark side of human nature still alive, well, and thriving during this period. Her three-dimensional characters leave you turning pages long after you should have gone to bed and just maybe you’ll sleep with the lights on.
Though this book is a stand-alone title, you will want to know these people and their characters better by catching up on SILENT SCREAMS (December 2009) and SILENT VICTIM (December 2010).
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SHOCK WARNING
by Michael Walsh
Publisher: Pinnacle (Kensington)
Published: September 27, 2011
ISBN: 9780786024124
Series: Devlin Series
Origin: Publisher
***Though the publisher provides the free book, I offer the opinion.***
My Look:
SHOCK WARNING is the third book in Michael Walsh’s Devlin political thriller series. In it, a covert NSA operative, coded “Devlin”, with a cunning no-nonsense personality trots the globe working for the United States to unravel terror plots and their creators.
When a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary coalesces near a highway in the United States, the story is just unfolding. From a bomb threat on American soil to a computer virus designed to harm Iran’s nukes, this plot takes many unexpected twists even to the use of space junk on the surface of the moon.
Soon, the reader learns that everything one sees isn’t necessarily exactly as it seems, and why these visions and other strange happenings occur is not what anyone believes.
From the homeland to Iran and from politics to religion, this plot only gets more complicated when the reasoning for each characters involvement is as individual as a fingerprint. Yet, these conspirators are in it together, each with their own version of the outcome, and some Americans are a part of the greater whole.
Weapons, political aspirations, and allegiances are bait for barter, payola, and coercion in this thrilling read.
My Take:
Michael Walsh blends fiction with a helping of current events and adds in some flavorings of political leanings to bring the reader inside a daring adventure.
If you’re a fan of the fast-pace and complexities of espying, intrigue, and international alliances, this author will leave you wanting book number four. SHOCK WARNING is a stand-alone title, but you will want to catch up with the other books and endangerment in HOSTILE INTENT (Pinnacle September 2009) and EARLY WARNING (Pinnacle September 2010).
