The Bottom Line: An ingeniously crafted political thriller that is every bit as terrifying as its daunting premise. Fans of Terry Hayes’ I am Pilgrim should move THE RED MUTATION to the top of their reading queue.  THE RED MUTATION begins as a man in black returns to his home village in Northeastern China. He wishes to “honor” the place of his birth with a new biological warfare experiment called Thanatos, which he injects into the local herb doctor. The next morning, the village is sealed by China’s secret police. Two weeks later, Thanatos has all but wiped out the village’s modest popu ..read more

The Bottom Line: One of the year’s most original crime novels, Gary A James’ frightening exploration of fraud in the trucking industry is guaranteed to keep you up at night.  As The Good Driver opens, trucker Max Doren makes a decision he’ll soon regret: hauling a 53-foot van in frigid temperatures from his home base in Buffalo to West Virginia. When the fan in his truck breaks, he decides to stop for help in Pennsylvania. Unable to get hold of his dispatcher, Rick, he ends up paying the mechanic out of his own pocket.  Max’s terrible week soon gets far wors ..read more

The Bottom Line: An uproarious spy spoof that may be Orkin’s most cinematic mission yet.  Since the debut of the wildly funny You Only Live Once, the first book in Haris Orkin’s James Bond satire series, Orkin has been far more prolific than the material that originally inspired him. The latest installment in Orkin’s James Flynn Escapade series, The Spy Who Hated Me, is Orkin’s fifth since the last Bond franchise movie was released.  The new book once again finds the “double 0” operative residing at Pasadena’s City of Roses Psychiatric Institute, which he believe ..read more

The Bottom Line: A must-read thriller about medical ethics and innumerable pressures facing American physicians.  At Seattle’s fictional University Hospital, there’s an unwritten rule banning sick leave for residents. These highly trained, overextended physicians are expected to show up for work unless they are dead. Accordingly, when intern Dr. Jasmine Doherty doesn’t show up for work one morning, death is indeed the reason. When work spreads around the staff that Jasmine took her own life, fellow physician Noah Meier is rocked by the news.  Grief associated with Jasmine’s sui ..read more

The Bottom Line: A small town murder mystery that is anything but small. Right Across the Bay is a must-read whodunnit infused with romance, betrayal and an unforgettable finale.  Set in a seemingly tranquil lakeside community in southwestern Minnesota, Right Across the Bay opens as sheriffs recover the watery remains of fitness guru Britta Baxter. Three decades earlier, Britta and her cousin/BFF Maxine spent summers together at Lake Shetek. Both subsequently went to college, lived in New York and got married. But four years after Britta decid ..read more

The Bottom Line: A riveting historical thriller set at the intersection between white and tribal culture in Arizona. Fans of Dark Winds will love The Relentless Sun.  Set in the 1970s, Relentless Sun begins as archeologist and investigator Harry Thursday embarks on a government mission to Flagstaff, Arizona. Working for the Bureau of Audits and Reclamation (BAR),  a clandestine Pentagon department tasked with finding lost and stolen World War II war booty, Harry returns to Flagstaff for the first time in 20 years. But what begins as an investigation into a mysterious collection of r ..read more

The Bottom Line: Rising Phoenix is an addictive, action-packed spy thriller set in the fascinating geopolitical battleground that is Venezuela. Mark Greaney fans may find a new favorite in Evan Graver.  Rising Phoenix opens in Caracas, Venezuela, as government official Migel Tapia – also known as Cobalt Panther – arrives home to his eerily quiet McMansion. A nightmare awaits him in the master bedroom, where his wife and CIA handler have been bound and gagged by ruthless operatives from the Venezuelan government’s intelligence agency, SEBIN. After witnessing ..read more

The Bottom Line: An intoxicating, globetrotting historical thriller that is tailor-made for fans of Douglas Preston and Dan Brown.  Inspired by the 2019 real-life fire that destroyed significant portions of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral, Rage of the Jinn imagines what excavators involved in the church’s restoration might have found after the blaze. Namely, a mysterious sarcophagus that had gone undetected for centuries. Researchers quickly determine that it was placed in the 14th century in a location that is close to the choir, suggesting that it must have been someone ..read more

The Bottom Line: Baby Girl Jones is a meticulously-crafted crime thriller that will wow readers with several jaw-dropping reveals. In Cortney Donelson’s The Billionaire’s List, twenty-nine-year-old recluse Greta Goldman’s life was thrust onto a new trajectory after the murder of her billionaire uncle. Baby Girl Jones begins Greta’s story 17 years earlier, as she struggles with bed-wetting, narcissism and how to handle the smugness of knowing she’s more cognitively brilliant than those around her. Donelson tells the story along multiple timelin ..read more

The Bottom Line: A powerful, richly drawn historical thriller that is as terrifying as it is absorbing. Highly recommended.  Aspiring doctor Abigail Platford has nearly given up on her dream to follow in her father’s footsteps to help New York City’s poor. After her father’s death and her mother’s remarriage, she fends off an attempted rape by her alcoholic stepfather – a situation that finds her agreeing to marry a man she can’t imagine a future with in order to escape. The Beauty Doctor opens five months before the planned wedding date, as Abigail prepares to attend an engagement party ..read more