Newest Thrillers Reviews
Hester and Harriet by Hilary Spiers
Hester and Harriet are two respectable widowed sisters in their sixties, living a life of pleasant routine in their cottage in a quiet village. Known to all their neighbours, they play bridge, do good turns, and in short are everything two ladies of their age and station should be. It's no surprise, then, that their first thought upon seeing a frightened young woman with a baby in a disused bus shelter on Christmas morning is to take her home and feed her. But not everyone in the world, or even in their village, has such good intentions. Life is about to get terribly complicated. Full review...
The Last Thing I Remember by Deborah Bee
Contemporary writers are mining a rich seam of psychological thrillers and, within this genre, I seem to be particularly attracted to stories featuring comatose protagonists. Comatose protagonists? Isn't that a contradiction in terms? True, you do normally expect a protagonist to, well, do something. And Deborah Mee's heroine Sarah does nothing at all, other than listen, and try and remember, from her unconscious state. In her narrative she offers us nothing more than fractured memories and snippets of conversations from around her bedside. Yet with these meagre tools she helps the reader build up a vivid picture of what is happening around her, of her own character, and of the events leading to her hospital admission. As a reader you gradually piece together what made Sarah what she is today. At first you see an apparently successful career woman in a loving marriage but, as layers are gradually removed, what lies beneath becomes apparent. Sarah's controlling husband has a sinister brother who comes to sit by her bedside, while her toxic mother wages an ongoing war of words with Sarah's spineless father... At times I wanted to weep for what happened to Sarah; at other times I wanted to scream at her for letting it happen. Full review...
You Sent Me A Letter by Lucy Dawson
It's scary enough turning 40 (I've heard) without being awoken on the eve of your birthday by a strange man who has broken into your bedroom with a rather bizarre message. Emerging from the shadows, he hands Sophie an envelope with strict instructions to open it that evening as her party is in full swing. She has no idea what is inside, but it can't be good. Full review...
Where Love Begins by Judith Hermann
Stella lives an ordinary life in a small town in Germany. While her young daughter is at kindergarten, she works as a domiciliary nurse. After school and at the weekend she is for all intents and purposes a single mother, for her husband Jason works away a lot. We don't know if she is happy, per se, but she doesn't seem unhappy. Full review...
Fox by Anthony Gardner
Ok. When reviewing a thriller, you have a dilemma. Because the plot is the point, you see. You don't want to give too much away because it's not just the denouement that's a spoiler; it's the whole thing. But you do have to give potential readers a decent idea of what they'll be getting. So here is my stab at interesting you while still keeping you guessing about Fox. Full review...
Those Girls by Chevy Stevens
Those girls don't have it easy. Jess, Courtney and Dani are grafters. Teen girls with a mum who is gone and a father who is barely there, they have a lot to contend with. They're hard workers but life is not glam, out of the farm where things are dusty, dirty and, at times, dangerous. Full review...
In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
Nora Shaw hasn't seen her friend Clare since Nora left school ten years ago and didn't look back. Now working as a crime writer and living in London, she is naturally surprised when she receives an invitation to Clare's hen party – a weekend in a woodland cottage in the Northumberland country. Curious as to why Clare would invite her after all these years Nora reluctantly agrees to come, but as the weekend unfolds something goes very wrong and old secrets are slowly revealed. Full review...
Behind Closed Doors by B A Paris
On the face of it they look like the perfect couple. Jack is handsome and a dedicated lawyer. He's never lost a case in his work with battered women. He looks like a loving husband too. His wife, Grace, is elegant and a brilliant housewife. Her sister Millie has Down's Syndrome but Grace is her guardian and they're close. She and Jack go to see Millie at her school most weekends and she'll soon be coming to live with them when she's eighteen. You might wonder why Grace is very careful about what she says in front of Jack and why you can never get her on her own and you're probably a little bit curious as to why Grace is never available for social events during the day when she doesn't work, but there's a very simple answer. Grace is a prisoner. Full review...
Exposure by Helen Dunmore
London - 1960. With the Cold War at its height, spy fever fills the newspapers, the political establishment knowing how and where to bury its secrets. A sensitive file goes missing, and Simon Callington is accused of passing information to the Soviets, and is arrested. His wife Lily suspects that this imprisonment is part of a cover-up, and that those higher than Simon are fighting to prevent their own downfall. Knowing that both she and her children too are in danger, Lily must fight to save Simon and protect her family. Little does she know that Simon is hiding many things from her, including a crime that may carry with it an even greater penalty. Full review...
Midnight in Berlin by James MacManus
Berlin – 1938. In the British Embassy, military attaché Colonel Macrae prepares to defy his ambassador and government, and assassinate Hitler. Elsewhere, Sara Sternschein appears on stage in her role as the lead in the Gestapo's brothel – the Salon Kitty. She has no choice, her twin brother is being held in a concentration camp. In the Gestapo Headquarters, Obergruppenfuhrer Joaqim Bonner waits and watches – with his eyes on Sara Sternschein as his secret weapon. As Colonel Macrae gathers intelligence for his mission he finds himself drawn to Salon Kitty – but does Sara hold the key to thwarting Hitler, or is Macrae being manipulated? Full review...
Try Not To Breathe by Holly Seddon
In Try not to Breathe Holly Seddon offers an addition to the somewhat overflowing thriller shelves. Of course, the reason this particular segment is bursting at the seams is because thrillers, especially psychological ones, are just so compelling. And there have been some good - and hugely successful - books in this category out there of late (before-I-go-to-sleep-I'll-be-gone-with-a-girl-on-a-train). So how does Holly Seddon match up? Full review...
Travelers Rest by Keith Lee Morris
I was a little bit sceptical of Travelers Rest at first. A novel set in an old hotel, buried in snow, where strange things start happening? A young boy whose parents start acting strangely, perhaps foreshadowing tragedy? Now that sounds familiar. But I managed to push away those thoughts, and I’m glad I did. The story may be well-known, but the execution is all new. Full review...
If She Did It by Jessica Treadway
Hanna and Joe had two daughters. Iris, the elder, had done well at school and gone on to be a medical student, but Dawn had always struggled. Hanna worried that it was something to do with the birth when Dawn might have been starved of oxygen for a brief moment. She was never bright, bullied at school and suffered from amblyopia or lazy eye. Dawn called it 'lacy eye'. In her late teens she had a boyfriend - tall, good-looking Rud and was obviously besotted with him and brought him home for Thanksgiving, but the pair left the next morning under a cloud with Joe accusing Rud of having stolen from the house whilst everyone else was out. That night Hanna and Joe were attacked in their beds; Joe died from his injuries and Hanna was left severely scarred and with no memory of the events of that night. Full review...
The Spectre Trilogy by Ian Fleming
With the new Spectre film in the cinema, it's time to revisit the original stories… what exactly is SPECTRE, who is Blofeld… and how exactly does 007 come into the picture? Full review...
The Grownup by Gillian Flynn
Our narrator, a self-confessed expert at giving, er, relief to men, is branching out. Well, carpal tunnel syndrome at such a young age isn't great. Instead of working at the back of a dodgy tarot shop, she's out front, pretending to see auras, and using her natural aptitude to read people (a skill mastered begging for years with her one-eyed mother), when a woman comes in with a serious demand. Piecing the mystery of what it might be together for us, our heroine ends up in a very malevolent building, housing what might be the step-son from hell… Full review...
She Who Was No More by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac
Everyone knows that unsettling sensation you get when you've done something bad: that clutching, unpleasant, constant feeling that every odd look or leading question thrown your way means the other person has figured out precisely what you've done. In this dark and mind-bending novella, Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac capture perfectly the unease and gradual desperation felt by Ferdinand Ravinel, a travelling salesman who enacts a plot to murder his wife Mireille with the aid of his lover, Lucienne. The tension rackets up with every paragraph, and had me scrambling to the final page. Full review...
Hidden by Emma Kavanagh
Hidden is written backwards. Chapters One and Two open with a shooting in a hospital and the rest of the book tracks back in time, following various characters as events lead to the day of the shooting. Every chapter is told from the point of view of a different character, including a first person account by the murderer (whose identity is concealed until the end). This structure would be rather confusing were it not for the fact that each chapter is very short, and conveniently starts with the date, time and character's name, making it all very easy to follow. Full review...
Savage Lane by Jason Starr
Savage Lane – a peaceful suburb of New York. When Karen Daily moves there following a marriage breakdown, she expects to find a quieter, calmer lifestyle, and soon becomes friends with her neighbours – Mark and Deb. Mark and Deb seem happy, but their marriage is failing fast, and Mark is slipping into fantasies of a new relationship with Karen. As Deb's suspicions grow, dangerous obsessions and deadly decisions will come to haunt the group – leaving Savage Lane irrevocably changed. Full review...
Shadows Of War (Traitors) by Michael Ridpath
A year after returning from Germany and an unsuccessful attempt on Hitler's life Conrad de Lancey finds himself in the British army preparing for war. His friendship with Theo remains strong despite Theo now wearing an Abwehr uniform. De Lancey still does work for British Intelligence therefor when they hear about another proposed Germany coup de Lancey seems the natural choice to investigate. It's not straightforward though. As the days darken, allegiances aren't always what they seem and betrayal can cut both ways. Full review...
The Undesired by Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)
If you're lucky enough to go to Iceland they will tell you, even in this day and age, that the place is heavily populated with trolls. Yrsa Sigurdardottir may or may not agree with that, but she certainly peoples her world with ghosts. Here is Odinn, and to some extent his ghost – certainly there's the ghost of 'what if' around him, and the man he might have been if he hadn't abandoned the young mother of his child. Here is that very wife, who is now dead herself. Here is the spirit of failure as he takes over a job at work from someone else who had a fatal heart attack – that task, to investigate a children's care home in the 1970s to see if anything nefarious went on. And that place certainly should be haunted – already a dead child has been disposed of, and more is to come… Full review...
Celeste Three is Missing by Chris Calder
Celeste 3 is the first successful commercial passenger carrying space/aircraft to go beyond the Earth's atmosphere for any length of time. This advance in travel didn't come easily as the two previous prototypes demonstrated and so there's much interest as the date of each of its flights approaches. Two people are paying closer attention than the rest of the world's population due to the presence of a certain passenger as much as the vehicle itself. One of the high rollers will be the ruthless Russian billionaire Karenkov. Gregory Topozian and Jack Smith have seen friends and colleagues die at his whim so they have a bone to pick and an ambitious way to do it… as long as nothing and no one gets in the way. Full review...
Vortex... the Endgame by Matt Carrell
In 2014 the financial markets were tumbling in Bangkok. The recession was deepening and unemployment figures were rising. The recession wasn't affecting all layers of society equally and in consequence the government was facing a financial and a social crisis. It would take little to spark street violence equal to that of 2010. But not everyone viewed the situation with dismay: this was exactly what Tanawat Chanpol had been hoping for. If all went according to plan - and it was planned - his employer, businessman Narong Sunarawani, would be brought to power by popular acclamation as the only man who could save the country. It would take months and a lot of hard work though. Full review...
Dark Corners by Ruth Rendell
Carl Martin was in the fortunate position of having just had his first novel published and inheriting his late father's house in Maida Vale. His father had accumulated a collection of homeopathic remedies which really should have been thrown out, but Carl had other things on his mind and never got round to it. There was his girlfriend Nicola, work to start on his second novel and he wanted to let the top floor of his house. Authors are not that well off, you see and he needed some ready money coming in. In addition to being a bit remiss about the contents of the medicine cabinet he should have been a bit more careful about who he took on as a tenant. Full review...
The Drowning Lesson by Jane Shemilt
Emma, a doctor from London, is somewhat reluctantly moving her family to Botswana for a year. In the choice between taking a new-born baby and his two primary school aged sisters to rural Africa for a year, or letting your husband go out there alone for work, she's decided that there's strength in numbers. Emma and Adam have a somewhat complex relationship that is disturbingly familiar to me. People who say 'not everything in life is a competition' are generally the ones who are losing, and I didn't doubt her for one moment when she said that she liked him to succeed….just as long as he wasn't succeeding more than her. Full review...
Blood Brothers... Thai Style by Matt Carrell
Chatri Aromanadee and Daeng Khasajamsarun are friends, but in a rather unequal way. Daeng very much has the upper hand despite the fact that Chatri is a policeman: Daeng is manipulative and it's difficult to be polite enough to say that he 'sails close to the wind'. The man is a criminal, but he turned a problem of his own (and of his own making) into a hold over Chatri, which still holds firm even when Chatri becomes the chief of police in Baan Chailai, with its lively bar scene, on the Gulf of Thailand. Their sons have a similar relationship: Daeng's son Tong is brutal in his relationships with women and Chatri's son Sunan has the misfortune to work in the hotel complex owned by Daeng. Full review...
Dreamland by Robert L Anderson
17 year old Dea has been to several schools in several towns, moving with her mother as if pursued. It's always the same. She'd make a friend and then the rumours would start about how she and her mum were crazy and the friend wouldn't talk to her. Dea isn't crazy. She becomes curiously ill from time to time but she has a cure: walking through people's dreams. There are rules that keep her safe when she's doing this but when Connor moves in to the neighbourhood the rules become far less important and that's when Dea's life becomes far more dangerous. Full review...
Churchill's Rogue: Volume 1 (Rogues Trilogy) by John Righten
Sean Ryan grew up in Ireland during the 20th century's first quarter and so understands death and loss. He learnt to defend what he felt right during his time as a bodyguard for Michael Collins. Therefore when Winston Churchill called upon his services in 1937 to bring a mother and child out of Germany, Ryan doesn't say no. However Ryan soon discovers this is no easy escort duty. The mother and child in question are for some reason being hunted by an elite German force led by Cerberus, a code name for a sadist incarnate. On the plus side, Ryan soon discovers he's not alone. There are more like him across Europe; those with pasts that forged them into violent defenders of the vulnerable in an increasingly dangerous world. These are the Rogues and, this time, Ryan needs their help. Full review...
Front Runner by Felix Francis
Jeff Hinkley is an undercover investigator for the British Horseracing Authority, so he was in a difficult position when he was approached by his friend Dave Swinton. Dave was champion jockey and he told Hinkley that he'd deliberately lost a race and there was no way that this could be kept as some confidential words between friends. The following day Hinkley returned to Swinton's house to discuss the matter further - and ended up trapped in the blisteringly-hot sauna. He was lucky to escape with his life. Swinton was not so lucky - his charred body was found in his burning car at a deserted beauty spot in Oxfordshire. Full review...
The Undesired by Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)
If you're lucky enough to go to Iceland they will tell you, even in this day and age, that the place is heavily populated with trolls. Yrsa Sigurdardottir may or may not agree with that, but she certainly peoples her world with ghosts. Here is Odinn, and to some extent his ghost – certainly there's the ghost of 'what if' around him, and the man he might have been if he hadn't abandoned the young mother of his child. Here is that very wife, who is now dead herself. Here is the spirit of failure as he takes over a job at work from someone else who had a fatal heart attack – that task, to investigate a children's care home in the 1970s to see if anything nefarious went on. And that place certainly should be haunted – already a dead child has been disposed of, and more is to come… Full review...
Hider/Seeker by Tom Claver
Harry Bridger is an ex-policeman who now makes his living helping people disappear. His clients aren't always whiter than white, but when a wealthy woman fleeing domestic violence asks him to help, his chivalrous instincts override the doubts that lurk in the back of his mind. A few things about Angela Linehan don't chime right but she's been vouched for by an old friend and Harry's basic decency won't allow him to leave a woman and her child in danger. And there's another advantage to helping Angela. It brings Harry back into the orbit of his ex-wife Bethany. And Harry would do almost anything to redeem himself in her eyes. Full review...
