The Barry Awards - 2009
The Draining Lake By Arnaldur Indridason -2009 Barry Award Winner
The Draining Lake
By Arnaldur Indridason
From The Jacket: An international sensation, published in over twenty five countries around the world, Arnaldur Indridason attained instant fame in the English-speaking mystery world after winning the Gold Dagger Award for Silence of the Grave. His other crime novels in the series, Jar City and Voices, have also been published to highest acclaim—U.S. readers who have already discovered this extraordinary writer are eagerly anticipating this latest Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson thriller. Following an earthquake, the water level of an Icelandic lake suddenly falls, revealing a skeleton that is weighed down by a heavy radio device bearing inscriptions in Russian. Inspectors Erlendur, Elinborg, and Sigurdur Oli’s investigation takes them back to the Cold War era, when bright, left-wing students in Iceland were sent to study in the “heavenly state” of Communist East Germany. But one of the students went missing, and her friends suspected that her “heavenly state” was all too real. Erlendur follows a long cold trail that leads back to Iceland, international espionage, and murder. Another astonishing thriller from one of crime fiction’s brightest stars, The Draining Lake is Arnaldur Indridason’s most gripping book yet.
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Trigger City By Sean Chercover 2009 Barry Award Shortlist
Trigger City
By Sean Chercover
From The Jacket: The facts:A lonely woman was murdered by her disturbed coworker.The police have investigated. The case is closed.But facts are not truth.A routine investigation of an open-and-shut case is just what PI Ray Dudgeon needs to recover from the physical and emotional consequences of confronting the Chicago Outfit-until "routine" spirals out of control. The victim was no quiet, unassuming, unlucky single woman; she lived a double life in the shadowy realm of covert intelligence . . . and she died for the truth. Suddenly, Ray’s ensnared in a conspiracy of darkness that weaves its way through the very fabric of the nation, and in grave danger of becoming collateral damage in America’s war on terror. And his greatest enemy may be himself.
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Envy the Night By Michael Koryta 2009 Barry Award Shortlist
Envy the Night
By Michael Koryta
From The Jacket:In this first stand-alone novel from the critically acclaimed Edgar® Award-finalist, Michael Koryta fulfills his early promise with a dark and mature novel of a young man trying to escape his past. It has been seven years since Frank Temple III joined the rest of the world in learning his father’s bloody secret: The U.S. marshal maintained a covert career as a contract killer, a double-life that ended in suicide to avoid prosecution and prison. The shocking revelation triggered years of anonymous drifting for Frank, time spent running from his legacy and struggling to believe that the father he’d loved so dearly was entirely in the wrong. After all, the victims hadn’t been innocents. And Devin Matteson, the man who’d lured his father into the killing game only to later give him up to the FBI, is probably the darkest of the lot. Those are troubling thoughts, and Frank tries to stay away from them. But when an old family friend calls to say that Matteson is returning to the isolated Wisconsin lake that was once sacred ground for their families, it’s a homecoming Frank knows he can’t allow. His arrival in town reveals a situation far from the expected, though. While Matteson is nowhere to be found, his old cabin is indeed occupied—by a strange, beautiful woman and a nervous man with a gun. When a pair of assassins from Miami arrive on their heels, Frank knows Matteson can’t be far behind. And while the wise move would be to call in the police and get out of town fast, that just doesn’t feel right. After all, contract killer or not, Frank’s father was at heart a teacher. And his son excelled at the lessons
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Red Knife By William Kruger
Red Knife
By William Kent Kruger
From The Jacket: The newest book in William Kent Krueger’s award-winning Corcoran O’Connor series finds the charismatic private investigator caught in the middle of a racial gang war that’s turning picturesque Tamarack County, Minnesota, into a bloody battlefield. When the daughter of a powerful businessman dies as a result of her meth addiction, her father, strong-willed and brutal Buck Reinhardt, vows revenge. His target is the Red Boyz, a gang of Ojibwe youths accused of supplying the girl’s fatal drug dose. When the head of the Red Boyz and his wife are murdered in a way that suggests execution, the Ojibwe gang mobilizes, and the citizens of Tamarack County brace themselves for war, white against red. Both sides look to Cork O’Connor, a man of mixed heritage, to uncover the truth behind the murders. A former sheriff, Cork has lived, fought, and nearly died to keep the small-town streets and his family safe from harm. He knows that violence is never a virtue, but he believes that it’s sometimes a necessary response to the evil that men do. Racing to find answers before the bloodshed spreads, Cork himself becomes involved in the darkest of deeds. As the unspeakable unfolds in the remote and beautiful place he calls home, Cork is forced to confront the horrific truth: Violence is a beast that cannot be contained. In Red Knife, Krueger gives his readers a vivid picture of racial conflict in small-town America, as well as a sensitive look at the secrets we keep from even those closest to us and the destructive nature of all that is left unsaid between fathers and sons, husbands and wives, friends and lovers.
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The Cruelest Month By Louise Penny
The Cruelest Month
By Louise Penny
From The Jacket: “Many mystery buffs have credited Louise Penny with the revival of the type of traditional murder mystery made famous by Agatha Christie. . . . The book’s title is a metaphor not only for the month of April but also for Gamache’s personal and professional challenges---making this the series standout so far.” --Sarah Weinman Welcome to Three Pines, where the cruelest month is about to deliver on its threat. It’s spring in the tiny, forgotten village; buds are on the trees and the first flowers are struggling through the newly thawed earth. But not everything is meant to return to life. . . When some villagers decide to celebrate Easter with a séance at the Old Hadley House, they are hoping to rid the town of its evil---until one of their party dies of fright. Was this a natural death, or was the victim somehow helped along? Brilliant, compassionate Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec is called to investigate, in a case that will force him to face his own ghosts as well as those of a seemingly idyllic town where relationships are far more dangerous than they seem.
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Dawn Patrol By Don Winslow
Dawn Patrol
By Don Winslow
From The Jacket: The author of The Winter of Frankie Machine (“another instant classic”—Lee Child) is back with a razor-sharp novel as cool and unbridled as its California surfer heroes, as heart-stopping as a wave none of them sees coming. Boone Daniels lives to surf. Every morning he’s out in the break off Pacific Beach with the other members of The Dawn Patrol: four men and one woman as single-minded about surfing as he is. Or nearly. They have “real j-o-b-s”; Boone works as a PI just enough to keep himself in fish tacos and wet suits—and in the water whenever the waves are “epic macking crunchy.” But Boone is also obsessed with the unsolved case of a young girl named Rain who was abducted back when he was on the San Diego police force. He blames himself—just as almost everyone in the department does—for not being able to save her. Now, when he can’t say no to a gorgeous, bossy lawyer who wants his help investigating an insurance scam, he’s unexpectedly staring at a chance to make some amends—and take some revenge—for Rain’s disappearance. It might mean missing the most colossal waves he’s liable to encounter (not to mention putting The Dawn Patrol in serious harm’s way as he tangles with the local thuggery), but this investigation is about to give him a wilder ride than any he’s ever imagined. Harrowing and funny, righteous and outrageous, The Dawn Patrol is epic macking crunchy from start to finish.
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Child 44 By Tom Rob Smith
Child 44
By Tom Rob Smith
From The Jacket:An amazingly assured and exciting debut, set in Soviet Russia in 1953, with a wonderfully realised sense of all pervading fear and the desperateness of a chilling race against time. How do you solve an impossible crime?
The Kind One By Tom Epperson
The Kind One
By Tom Epperson
From The Jacket: In the kill-or-be-killed criminal underworld of 1930s Los Angeles, "Two Gun Danny" Landon has a distinct disadvantage. According to the fellas, he used to pull all kinds of shoot-ups and shenanigans...but damned if he can’t remember a thing from before last year, when he got hit over the head with a lead pipe. Sadistic mobster Bud Seitz -- known to friends and enemies alike as "The Kind One" -- seems to have big plans for him, but truthfully, Danny can’t stomach the dirty work. His aim is off, the other wiseguys laugh at him, and he’d gladly trade in the drunken parties and the endless broads for a day at the movies with his colorful and mysterious neighbor Dulwich and eleven-year-old Sophie, whose deadbeat mother delivers an endless stream of emotional and physical abuse. But when Bud’s beautiful girlfriend Darla begs Danny to help her escape the Kind One’s dark, brutal world, Danny must confront a dangerous test of loyalty that could irrevocably change his future -- and his past -- forever.
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Stalking Susan By Julie Kramer
Stalking Susan
By Julie Kramer
From The Jacket:Inside the desperate world of TV news, a reporter discovers a serial killer is targeting women named Susan. Riley Spartz is recovering from a heartbreaking, headline-making catastrophe of her own when a Minneapolis police source drops two homicide files in her lap.Both cold cases involve women named Susan strangled on the same day, one year apart. Riley sees a pattern between those murders and others pulled from old death records. As the deadly anniversary approaches, she stages a bold on-air stunt to draw the killer out and uncover a motive that will leave readers breathless.
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City Of Sun By David Levien
City of Sun
By David Levien
From The Jacket: Riveting suspense in the tradition of Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly, City of the Sun introduces retired detective Frank Behr—an imposing, charismatic former cop who agrees to take the case of a boy who’s been missing for over a year. Jamie Gabriel gets on his bike before dawn to deliver newspapers in his suburban Indianapolis neighborhood. He is twelve years old. Somewhere en route, as the October sky lightens, he vanishes without a trace. Fourteen months later, Paul and Carol Gabriel are on the verge of abandoning all hope. Crushed by frustrating dead ends and exhausted by a police force that cannot (or will not) find their son, the Gabriels finally find a ray of hope: the name of an elusive private investigator who may represent their last chance. Frank Behr is an enigmatic mountain of a man, a former cop who wants to help—but knows better than to give the Gabriels any hope of a happy ending. He has worked this kind of case too often. But Paul’s plea stirs up old personal demons that Behr can no longer ignore. Going against everything he fears, Behr enters into an uneasy partnership with Paul on a quest for the truth that is, in turn, dangerous … and haunting. Richly textured and crackling with suspense on every page, City of the Sun weaves a moody narrative that hinges on the bond between a damaged detective and a lost father. From the antiseptic comforts of suburban Indianapolis to the city’s seamy underworld, David Levien introduces a private investigator as complex, idiosyncratic, and sympathetic as any in modern crime fiction. Levien is a gifted storyteller who will keep readers guessing right up until the final, explosive scene.
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A Carrion death By Michael Stanley
A Carrion Death
By Michael Stanley
From The Jacket:Poachers, witch doctors, diamond-smuggling and corruption: welcome to the world of Detective Kubu... They find the first body or what the hyena had left near a waterhole considered magical by the local bush people. A string of clues suggests that the victim was murdered and his identity hidden. For Assistant Superintendent David Kubu Bengu, its obvious from the start that sinister forces are at work. On the surface a convivial figure with a passion for his wife, his wine and his music, Kubu is a clever and resourceful lawman, well versed in Botswanas deadliest secrets. As Kubu follows a blood-soaked trail, marked by lies and superstition, he uncovers a chain of crimes linked to the most powerful figures in the country influential enemies who will stop at nothing to remove those who stand in their way...
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Sweeping Up Glass By Caroline Wall
Sweeping Up Glass
By Caroline Wall
From The Jacket: 1938: Olivia and the boy, Willam, run Harkeras Grocery and live in the cold-water kitchen behind the store. Money is scarce; business is bad. Out back, Pap is buried near the outhouse, and Oliviaas crazy mother Ida is living in a tarpaper shack. For 30 years, Olivia has loved Wing Harris, who plays a mean trumpet and owns the Kentuckian Hotel. For decades, theyave shared only howdies at Ruseas CafA(c). This may be the coldest winter on record in Kentucky, but that doesnat keep the elusive Hunt Club from tracking silver-faced wolves on Oliviaas strip of mountain. It falls to her and Willam to figure out why as the hunters turn their sights on them, too. Then, one frozen night, Willamas mother comes back for him. The some terrible secrets explode among the Rowe Street community. Now thereas blood on Oliviaas hands, and nothing is as she thought it was. Olivia is responsible for the very people who betrayed her. While she searches for answers that might save them all, then the day comes when Olivia must shatter the shackles that bind her and her community. Like nothing you have ever read, Sweeping Up Glass is Carolyn D. Walla s searing and surprising debut novel.
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The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo By Stieg Larsson
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
By Stieg Larsson
From The Jacket:An international publishing sensation, Stieg Larsson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel. Harriet Vanger, scion of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families, disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.
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A Simple Act of Violence By R J Ellroy
A Simple Act Of Violence
By R.J. Ellory
From The Jacket: Washington, embroiled in the mid-term elections, did not want to hear about serial killings. But when the newspapers reported a fourth murder, when they gave the killer a name and details of his horrendous crimes, there were few people that could ignore it. Detective Robert Miller is assigned to the case, and rapidly uncover a complication. The victims do not officially exist. Their personal details do not register on any known systems. And as Miller unearths ever more disturbing facts, he starts to face truths so far-removed from his own reality that he begins to fear for his life.Vast in scope, A SIMPLE ACT OF VIOLENCE is an intriguing and powerful novel of greed and the insidious nature of corruption. It is also a story of love and trust that somehow managed to survive the very worst that the world could throw at it.
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Ritual By Mo Hayder
Ritual
By Mo Hayder
From The Jacket:Mo Hayder’s previous novels "The Devil of Nanking" and "The Treatment" have ranked her among the most exciting and provocative thriller writers now working. In her latest, "Ritual," Hayder gives us a taut, chilling tale of clandestine occult practices, New Age medicine, and the drug underground, set in a hypermodern urban landscape challenged by colliding immigrant cultures. Just after lunch on a Tuesday in April, nine feet under water, police diver Flea Marley closes her gloved fingers around a human hand. The fact that there’s no body attached is disturbing enough. Even more disturbing is the discovery, a day later, of the matching hand. Both have been recently amputated, and the indications are that the victim was still alive when they were removed. DI Jack Caffery has been newly seconded to the Major Crime Investigation Unit in Bristol. He and Flea soon establish that the hand belong to a young man who has recently disappeared. Their search for him--and for his abductor--lead them into the darkest recesses of Bristol’s underworld, where drug addiction is rife, where street-kids sell themselves for a hit, and where one of Africa’s most disturbing rituals may be making an unexpected appearance.
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Shatter By Michael Robotham
Shatter
By Michael Robotham
From The Jacket:In Michael Robotham’s latest thriller, psychologist Joe O’Loughlin—the appealing hero of Suspect—tries to prevent a suicide and finds himself locked in a deadly duel with a very clever killer. Joe O’Loughlin is on familiar territory—standing on a bridge high above a flooded gorge, trying to stop a distraught woman from jumping. She is naked, wearing only high-heel shoes, sobbing into a cell phone. Suddenly, she turns to him and whispers, “You don’t understand,” and lets go. Joe is shattered by the suicide and haunted by his failure to save the woman, until her teenage daughter finds him and reveals that her mother would never have committed suicide—not like that. She was terrified of heights. Compelled to investigate, Joe is soon obsessed with discovering who was on the other end of the phone. What could have driven her to commit such a desperate act? Whose voice? What evil? Having devoted his career to repairing damaged minds, Joe must now confront an adversary who tears them apart: a man who searches for the cracks in a person’s psyche and claws his fingers inside, destroying what makes them whole. With pitch-perfect dialogue, believable characters, and intriguingly unpredictable plot twists, Shatter is guaranteed to keep even the most avid thriller readers riveted long into the night.
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Bleeding Heart By Andrew Taylor
Bleeding Heart Squareenvy
By Andrew Taylor
From The Jacket:1934, London. Into the decaying cul-de-sac of Bleeding Heart Square steps aristocratic Lydia Langstone fleeing an abusive marriage. However, unknown to Lydia, a dark mystery haunts Bleeding Heart Square. What happened to Miss Penhow, the middle-aged spinster who owns the house and who vanished four years earlier? Why is a seedy plain-clothes policeman obsessively watching the square? What is making struggling journalist Rory Wentwood so desperate to contact Miss Penhow?And why are parcels of rotting hearts being sent to Joseph Serridge, the last person to see Miss Penhow alive?
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Bruno, Chief of Police By Martin Walker
Bruno, Chief Of Police
By Martin Walker
From The Jacket:The first installment in a wonderful new series that follows the exploits of Benoît Courrèges, a policeman in a small French village where the rituals of the café still rule. Bruno—as he is affectionately nicknamed—may be the town’s only municipal policeman, but in the hearts and minds of its denizens, he is chief of police. Bruno is a former soldier who has embraced the pleasures and slow rhythms of country life—living in his restored shepherd’s cottage; patronizing the weekly market; sparring with, and basically ignoring, the European Union bureaucrats from Brussels. He has a gun but never wears it; he has the power to arrest but never uses it. But then the murder of an elderly North African who fought in the French army changes everything and galvanizes Bruno’s attention: the man was found with a swastika carved into his chest. Because of the case’s potential political ramifications, a young policewoman is sent from Paris to aid Bruno with his investigation. The two immediately suspect militants from the anti-immigrant National Front, but when a visiting scholar helps to untangle the dead man’s past, Bruno’s suspicions turn toward a more complex motive. His investigation draws him into one of the darkest chapters of French history—World War II, a time of terror and betrayal that set brother against brother. Bruno soon discovers that even his seemingly perfect corner of la belle France is not exempt from that period’s sinister legacy.
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The Deceived By Brett Battles
The Deceived
By Brett Battles
From The Jacket: Brett Battles won rave reviews for his debut novel, The Cleaner, which introduced hero Jonathan Quinn. A freelance operative and professional “cleaner,” Quinn knows better than to get emotionally involved in any of his jobs. But in this superb powerhouse of suspense, Quinn’s latest job is different. A friend and old colleague has been murdered. A woman has gone missing. And for Jonathan Quinn, this time it’s personal. Anonymity. Trust. Professionalism. In his world, Jonathan Quinn has a few rules. He’ll get rid of bodies that have to disappear; nothing ever gets traced back to him. But when Quinn is called to a busy Los Angeles port where a shipping container has just come in from the sea, it’s clear his rules have been violated. Inside the crate is a dead man—a man who once saved Quinn’s life. And while no one knows how CIA agent Steven Markoff died, Quinn has to do more than clean. He has to find Markoff’s girlfriend, Jenny. To tell her that Markoff is dead. To find out why—and why someone sent Markoff’s body to him. Until a week ago, Jenny Fuentes was an assistant to an ambitious congressman. Now Jenny is missing, too, and a lot of man power is making sure she isn’t found. But Quinn has his own man power. He has tools that can pry into secrets held anywhere in the world. He has the skill to trade blows with killers and spies. And he has covert weapons: his eager and smart apprentice, Nate, and brilliant Orlando, his closest friend, who’s saved his life more than once. Racing from the corridors of power in Washington to the bustling streets of Singapore, Quinn won’t stop until he uncovers the truth behind his friend’s violent death, the astounding reason Jenny has vanished—and what she knows about the most explosive deception of all.
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Collision By Jeff Abbott
Collision
By Jeff Abbott
From The Jacket:The international bestseller returns with his most ambitious, multidimensional, and tightly crafted thriller yet, a breakout achievement featuring his hallmark blend of ordinary people in extraordinary danger. Already an international sensation, with his books translated into fifteen languagesain the UK alone, "Panic" has more than 400,000 copies in printaJeff Abbott is a master of the action-packed thriller. Now, with "Collision," he delivers a meaty, twisty, white-knuckle ride designed to propel him onto the bestseller lists in his home country. "Collision" is the story of two men living very different livesaone, a successful corporate consultant who is mourning the murder of his new bride; the other, a former CIA agent known only as aPilgrim, a whose current assignment for a fringe espionage agency is so treacherous he doesnat trust even his own boss. When they are thrown together in a violent, unexpected event, the two men realize that theyave been framed in an elaborate setup. Unsure who to trust and who may just be trying to draw them into the open, the unlikely partners have no choice but to work together. But with everything at stake, Ben has no idea that Pilgrim is harboring some shocking secrets of his ownasecrets that will soon force Ben to confront just how blurred the line has become between best friends and bitter enemies.
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The Survivor By Tom Cain
The Survivor
By Tom Cain
From The Jacket:On 7 September 1997, General Alexander Lebed, former National Security Advisor to Russia’s President Yeltsin, appeared on prime-time American television. He revealed that his government no longer knew the whereabouts of one hundred of their own small-scale nuclear weapons, commonly described as ’suitcase nukes’. As Samuel Carver lies helpless in a Swiss sanatorium, the world is plunging into a new age of conflict, driven by religious fanaticism. In Texas, a dying billionaire, terrified by the prospect of his imminent demise, dreams of creating his own personal Armageddon . In Afghanistan and Kosovo, ruthless terrorists plot the downfall of their hated enemies . And in Russia, one drunken clerk knows where to find those missing bombs. When Carver awakes from his months of torment to find that the woman he loves has disappeared, he sets out to find her. But that personal quest plunges him into a deadly cauldron of conspiracy and betrayal in which the lives of millions are at stake. Once again, the worlds of fact and fiction collide to create a thriller that will grip you from the first page to the last.
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The FinderBy Colin Harrison
The Finder
By Colin Harrison
From The Jacket:There’s no doubt about it: Colin Harrison is a master storyteller. Critics and readers love his gripping, dark books. It’s hard not to get sucked into his world. Entertainment Weekly calls him the “class act of the urban thriller,” Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times lauds him as “a master of mood and atmosphere,” and Publishers Weekly crows that Harrison writes “like an angel.” Now the author of The Havana Room, Afterburn, and Manhattan Nocturne raises the stakes with an electrifying new thriller, The Finder. Harrison spins the story of a young, beautiful, secretive Chinese woman, Jin-Li, who gets involved in a brilliant scheme to steal valuable information from corporations in New York City. When the plan is discovered by powerful New Yorkers who stand to lose enormous sums of money, Jin-Li goes on the run. Meanwhile, her former lover, Ray Grant, a man who was out of the country for years but has recently returned, is caught up in the search for her. Ray has not been forthcoming to Jin-Li about why he left New York or what he was doing overseas, but his training and strengths will be put to the ultimate test against those who are unmerciful in their desire to regain a fortune lost. Ray is going to have to find Jin-Li, and he is going to have to find her fast.
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Night of Thunder By Stephen Hunter
Night of Thunder
By Stephen Hunter
From The Jacket:NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR STEPHEN HUNTER RETURNS WITH HIS MOST RIVETING BOB LEE SWAGGER VOLUME TO DATE. Talk about a ride! Woe unto he who crosses Bob Lee Swagger, especially when his daughter’s life is at stake. Forced off the road and into a crash that leaves her in a coma, clinging to life, reporter Nikki Swagger had begun to peel back the onion of a Southernfried conspiracy bubbling with all the angst, resentment, and dysfunction that Dixie gangsters can muster. An ancient, violent crime clan, a possibly corrupt law enforcement structure, gunmen of all stripes and shapes, and deranged evangelicals rear their ugly heads and will live to rue the day they targeted the wrong man’s daughter. It’s what you call your big-time bad career move. All of it is set against the backdrop of excitement and insanity that only a weeklong NASCAR event can bring to the backwoods of a town as seemingly sleepy as Bristol, Tennessee. A master at the top of his game, Hunter provides a host of thrilling new reasons to read as fast as we can. When Swagger picks up peeling where his daughter left off, and his swift sword of justice is let loose, we find a true American hero in his most stunning action to date. And -- in the form of Brother Richard, a self-decreed "Sinnerman" out of the old fire-and-brimstone tradition -- Hunter offers up his most diabolical, engaging villain yet. A triumph of story, character, and style, Night of Thunder is Stephen Hunter at his very best.
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Good people By Marcus Sakey
Good People
By Marcus Sakey
From The Jacket:The spectacular Dutton debut of a thriller writer whose ecstatically acclaimed work draws comparisons to luminaries such as Elmore Leonard, George Pelecanos, and Dennis Lehane A family, and the security to enjoy it: thats all Tom and Anna Reed ever wanted. But years of infertility treatments, including four failed attempts at in-vitro fertilization, have left them with neither. The emotional and financial costs are straining their marriage and endangering their dreams. So when their downstairs tenanta recluse whose promptly delivered cashiers checks were barely keeping them afloatdies in his sleep, the $400,000 they find stashed in his kitchen seems like fate. More than fate: a chance for everything theyve dreamed of for so long. A fairy-tale ending. But Tom and Anna soon realize that fairy tales never come cheap. Because their tenant wasnt a hermit who squirreled away his pennies. He was a criminal who double-crossed some of the most dangerous men in Chicago. Men who wont stop until they get revenge, no matter where they find it.
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State of the Onion By Julie Hyzy
State of the Onion
By Julie Hyzy
From The Jacket:Introducing White House Assistant Chef Olivia Paras, who is rising-and sleuthing-to the top. Includes recipes for a complete presidential menu!Never let them see you sweat-that’s White House Assistant Chef Olivia Paras’s motto, which is pretty hard to honor in the most important kitchen in the world. She’s hell-bent on earning her dream job, Executive Chef. There’s just one thing: her nemesis is vying for it, too. Well, that and the fact that an elusive assassin wants to see her fry.
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First Quarry By Max Allan Collins
The First Quarry
By Max Allan Collins
From The Jacket:In his first assignment, the ruthless hitman called Quarry goes undercover on a college campus to assassinate a professor who knows too much
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Money Shot By Christa Faust
Money Shot
By Christa Faust
From The Jacket:Angel Dare, a retired porn star and owner of an adult modeling agency, seeks revenge on the people who framed her for murder after locking her in the trunk of a car, battered, raped, and shot.
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The Black Path By Asa Larsson
The Black Path
By Asa Larsson
From The Jacket:A grisly torture-murder, a haunting northern Sweden backdrop, and a dark drama of twisted sexuality collide memorably in Åsa Larsson’s masterpiece of suspense—a tale of menace, hope, longing, and darkness beyond imagining. The dead woman was found on a frozen lake, her body riddled with evidence of torture. Instantly, Inspector Anna-Maria Mella knows she needs help. Because the dead woman—found in workout clothes with lacy underwear beneath them—was a key player in a mining company whose tentacles reach across the globe. Anna-Maria needs a lawyer to help explain some things—and she knows one of the best. Attorney Rebecka Martinsson is desperate to get back to work, to feel alive again after a case that almost destroyed her. Soon Rebecka is prying into the affairs of the dead woman’s boss, the founder of Kallis Mining, whose relationship with his star employee was both complex and ominous. But what Rebecka and Anna-Maria are about to uncover—a tangled drama of secrets, perversion, and criminality—will lay bare a tale as shocking as it is sad…about a man’s obsession, a woman’s lonely death, and a killer’s cold, cold heart.
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Severence Package By Duane Swierczynski
Severence Package
By Duane Swierczynski
From The Jacket:Jamie DeBroux’s boss has called a special meeting for all “key personnel” at 9:00 a.m. on a hot Saturday in August. When Jamie arrives, the conference room is stocked with cookies and champagne. His boss smiles and tells his employees, “We’re a cover for a branch of the intelligence community. And we’re being shut down.” Jamie’s boss then tells everyone to drink some champagne, and in a few seconds they’ll fall asleep---for good. If they refuse, they’ll be shot in the head. Escape is not an option. Jamie’s boss has shut down the elevators and rigged the fire towers with chemical bombs. Panic sets in, chaos erupts, and no one is sure whom to trust. Jamie quickly realizes that there’s only one way he’s ever going to see his family again: the hard way.
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Echoes From The Dead By Johan Theorin
Echoes From The Dead
By Johan Theorin
From The Jacket:Jamie DeBroux’s boss has called a special meeting for all “key personnel” at 9:00 a.m. on a hot Saturday in August. When Jamie arrives, the conference room is stocked with cookies and champagne. His boss smiles and tells his employees, “We’re a cover for a branch of the intelligence community. And we’re being shut down.” Jamie’s boss then tells everyone to drink some champagne, and in a few seconds they’ll fall asleep---for good. If they refuse, they’ll be shot in the head. Escape is not an option. Jamie’s boss has shut down the elevators and rigged the fire towers with chemical bombs. Panic sets in, chaos erupts, and no one is sure whom to trust. Jamie quickly realizes that there’s only one way he’s ever going to see his family again: the hard way.
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