Her Best Self (Regal House 2024) by Mindy Friddle is a fascinating look inside a dysfunctional family in a well-crafted, evocative story with a psychological thriller quality to it. Throughout the novel, pervasive cunningness by several characters heightens tensions and casts a riveting net sure to pull readers deeper into the tale. A darkly comedic […]
“When Cicadas Cry” by Caroline Cleveland
December 30, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Written by an attorney, When Cicadas Cry (Union Square & Co. 2024) is an interesting legal thriller with enough lawyering to satisfy fans of the genre plus plenty of mystery to engage “whodunit” fans. Author Caroline Cleveland closely tracks the legal thriller formula in the early pages, but then she dashes headfirst into a suspenseful cold-case […]
“House of Glass” by Sarah Pekkanen
December 16, 2024 by Leave a Comment
House of Glass (St. Martin’s Press 2024) by Sarah Pekkanen is a wonderfully crafted, well-paced mystery with a good bit of psychological thriller blended in. It is a character driven “who done it?” but not in a police procedural way as no law enforcement detectives are center stage in solving the death of a young […]
“Lake County” by Lori Roy
October 21, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Lake County by Edgar Award–winning author Lori Roy (Thomas & Mercer 2024) is a treasure of a historical mystery/thriller suspense novel. The story is well imagined, and charming, even with its violence. Exuberantly paced, it is a complicated work with a dash of noir and a righteous dose of historical Tampa, Florida. Many smaller stories […]
“The Book of Sorrows” by Kenneth Robbins
October 8, 2024 by Leave a Comment
The Book of Sorrows (Southern Arizona Press 2023), by professor, author, and playwright Kenneth Robbins, is a brave and sometimes acerbic retelling of portions of the Old Testament in verse form. Brave, because it must have been a difficult undertaking to recast Old Testament stories as poems with modern sensibilities. Brave also because some readers […]
“Say Hello to My Little Friend” by Jennine Capo Crucet
October 2, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Readers might never want to visit attractions featuring trained, captive orca whales after reading Say Hello to My Little Friend (Simon & Schuster 2024) by Jennine Capo Crucet, and this intense, haunting novel establishes why that would be a good thing. Which is to say, though the book focuses also on Cuban youths Ismael Reyes, […]