Newest Thrillers Reviews

Review of The Cursed Girls by Caro Ramsay Thrillers Megan Melvick's earliest memory is of her fourth birthday: she followed her grandfather down to the pond, only to find that he'd hanged himself. Twenty years later she's back home again and this time the occasion is no less sad. She's there to say her final farewells to her sister, Melissa, who is dying of anorexia. As she dies, Melissa whispers 'sorry' to Megan but what did she mean? There were lots of things, minor and major cruelties, for which Melissa might have been sorry - or was it even a question? Was she asking if Megan was sorry for sleeping with Melissa's husband, Jago, on their wedding day? The Melvicks might seem to have everything - Ivan Melvick was Lord Lieutenant of the County and money was never in short supply - but there did seem to be a curse. In addition to Melissa's health problems, Megan was deaf and their mother, Beth, had left suddenly three years before. Would she come back for her elder daughter's funeral? Full Review

Review of The Maidens by Alex Michaelides Crime Mariana was convinced that Professor Edward Fosca had committed two murders and looked likely to get away with them both. She needed to think carefully about what she knew and decide how she should proceed. Everything - or so she thought - had begun with the death of Tara Hampton on the Paradise nature reserve in Cambridge. She'd been brutally stabbed and Mariana's niece, Zoe, had telephoned her in distress. Tara had been her best friend and she was struggling to cope. Mariana wasn't entirely happy about having to go to Cambridge, but she caught the first fast train from King's Cross. Mariana and Zoe were close and had been made all the more so by the death of Mariana's husband, Sebastian, in a swimming accident on Naxos some fourteen months earlier. Zoe had been their surrogate daughter after the death of Zoe's mother and Mariana's sister, Eliza. Full Review

Review of Good Neighbours by Sarah Langan Thrillers If you're of a certain vintage, it's hard to read the words Good Neighbours without adding a sing-song that's when Good Neighbours…become…good friends. Maple Street is no Ramsay Street, though, Arlo and Gertie live a world apart from the Melbourne suburbs. They're one of 18 households on the crescent, quite new arrivals having moved in a year earlier. They're not quite like all the other families (he's an ex rocker, she's a former beauty queen) but they've made some friends and their kids have settled in, and it's all going ok. Until it isn't. One hot, clammy, sticky, sweaty summer, a sinkhole opens up in the park across the way. It's a revolting mess of dirt and chaos, but for the residents of Maple Street, the worst is yet to come. Full Review

Review of Both of You by Adele Parks Thrillers You could be forgiven for thinking that Leigh Fletcher has it all: great husband and two gorgeous stepsons whom she adores. Then, one Monday, she went to work and never came home. Mark, Oli and Seb are shattered. Well, Mark and Seb are but Oli's sixteen and at the stage where he thinks boredom is his best look. He's been a bit off with Leigh for a while but she put it down to him growing up and starting to become independent. Seb's only twelve and Leigh's absence hits him hard. Then Daan Janssen, a wealthy Dutch businessman, reports his wife, Kai missing. She too has vanished without trace. Full Review

Review of Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica Thrillers Eleven years ago, a man regularly came home to his wife with lipstick marks on his collar and lame excuses as to why he was late - again. His wife was in the habit of going out for a run late at night. It was the only time she had for herself when she didn't have to look after her baby - but when she was out she would meet up with a man, grateful for the unquestioning affection he gave her. The locality was stunned when Shelby Tebow disappeared, seemingly without a trace, leaving her husband to look after her disabled baby. Ten days later, a local woman and her six-year-old daughter disappeared. Meredith Dickey was a birth doula and she'd seemed to be under some strain for the last couple of weeks or so. Her body was eventually found in a seedy motel - it appeared that she'd committed suicide. She left a note saying that her daughter, Delilah, was safe and there was no point in looking for her. Full Review

Review of Rabbits by Terry Miles Science Fiction Welcome to the world of The Game. Or should that be the game, for while it ought to be capitalised to high heaven, it never leaves lower case throughout this book. It's also called Rabbits, although only as a slangy term for it – as far as anyone knows, it has no official title, no official source, no hard and fast structure, and to the average person no obvious entry point. A bit like the game of life then. Yes, this is the game of life for a certain tribe of people – the fan of the conspiracy, the computer game, the hack from the darkest of webs. People like our hero, K, named like that in the least Kafkaesque manner possible. K and his bezzies are trying to be historians of the game, and have studied amongst many things the most unique of high score boards, for the lists of who has successfully won the game are in the most peculiar places, and are still very short. However this time it's different. This time the game seems the most dangerous, nay lethal, the most broken it's ever been – morally and otherwise. Unfortunately for K, in trying to sort out what the game is doing, if it's even being played, and how his loved ones might be kept safe, he is only to find out that the line between observing and learning about the game, and playing it, is a very thin one indeed... Full Review

Review of The Whispers by Heidi Perks Thrillers We know straight away that there's going to be a body. It's on the beach under Crayne's Cliff near the town of Clearwater and it's new year's day. To understand what happened we're going to have to go back to the previous September. Grace Goodwin has a soft Australian accent - she's lived there since her teens and now, in her mid-thirties, she's returned to her home town to live. Her husband, Graham, works in Singapore and she and her eight-year-old daughter, Matilda, might as well be in the lovely apartment she's found. Grace's best friend, Anna Robinson, is still in Clearwater and she has an eight-year-old child too. Ethan's in the class Matilda will be joining. It's perfect! Full Review

Review of Girls Who Lie by Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir and Victoria Cribb (translator) Thrillers You might be forgiven for thinking that all the dark corners of Iceland have featured in their noirish thrillers and crime books before now. You think, seeing on the map that we're set in Akranes, and finding it's only twenty kilometres from the capital city, that this author is clutching at the few final straws left. However just because the book aims for the usual small-town feel, it's not just in Akranes that our interests lie. Six months ago a woman failed to turn up for her date evening, and was never seen again. This left a teenaged girl not at all disappointed that she could now live permanently with the couple who had given her foster care before her mother had asked for the girl back, and a couple of delighted adopters. But it left our three detectives at a quandary – mobile phone use was at a high level until it stopped all of a sudden, in one place, the woman's car was found miles away in a second place, and now, after six months, the body has been discovered, in a third, even more remote place. Meanwhile, this narrative is interrupted by a confessional monologue from a mother who found herself with heavy post-natal depression, and very little maternal feeling in her body. Is the assumption that is so easy for the reader to make the right one? Full Review

Review of The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex Thrillers A fisherman told him once about the sea having two faces. You have to take them both, he said, the good and the bad, and never turn your back on either one of them. In 1972, fifteen miles off the coast of Cornwall, three men disappeared without trace from The Maiden Rock Lighthouse in the frigid pause between Christmas and New Year. Jory Martin had taken out a relief keeper, the weather such that the boat [was] rocking and bobbing like a bath toy over the wavelets but they were unable to get any response from the Maiden Rock. It was broken into the next day, but there was no sign of the men. The table was set for a meal for two - and the clocks were stopped at 8.45. Contact with the light had not been possible as the radio was broken. No explanation was ever found for what happened to the men. Full Review

Review of Crooked: Honest Criminality by Bronwen John Thrillers The con had seemed like a good one: tricking people into buying artwork supposedly by the new Banksy - and they should have made a decent profit from it. The problem was they were too successful: one of the marks had bought a few and then discovered that they were valueless. Henry Martin Holmes had fallen for a simple con and his father, celebrity criminal Harry Holmes, was determined that he and his family could not lose face like that. The grifters were going to pay. Ashia 'Ash' Cox and Max 'Colorado' Ying needed to be got out of the country. In the course of bringing this about, Luke Gaines, Ash's foster father, lost his life. Full Review

Review of The Favour by Laura Vaughan Thrillers The rejection by Oxford came as a bit of a shock to Ada Howell: she was, after all, the daughter of the renowned author, Anthony Howell, who'd been to this college. Well, she wasn't actually Howell's daughter: he'd married her mother after her birth and had then adopted her, so she was 'chosen' rather than just 'made', which was better really. And whilst we're being honest, we might as well admit that 'renowned author' might be stretching the truth a little: his books degenerated into self-published poetry which Ada couldn't understand. Still, Ada had felt entitled and this was why her godmother's offer had come at such a brilliant time. Full Review

Review of Legacy: A Political Thriller by C A Sacha Thrillers Corporate boss Gene Finnegan has a plan to increase his already startling wealth and ensure his legacy: to bring the world's first emission-free car to market and dominate production. The secret development project to enable this, Bucephalus, is already underway and Finnegan bankrolls US president Joseph Montgomery into a second term to help him carry it out. Montgomery is also looking for a legacy and one that does not involve his controlling mother and her foundation, so grabs onto Finnegan's Feed Africa programme with both hands... Full Review

Review of Two Wrongs by Mel McGrath Thrillers Sondra was on her way home after work when she saw a young woman looking as though she was going to jump from the Clifton suspension bridge. She talks to her, and Sondra finally persuades Satnam to call her best friend and flatmate, Nevis Smith. Nevis is unworldly and rather reserved - and she can't understand why Satnam hasn't shared her problems with her. She thought they shared everything. Satnam is taken to hospital and Nevis calls her mother, Honor. They've not been on good terms since a discovery Nevis made the previous summer but right now, Nevis needs her mother. Full Review

Review of The Disappearing Act by Catherine Steadman Thrillers British actress Mia Eliot is on the cusp of success. Great success. If the rumours are true, award season is going to treat her well, acknowledging her for her latest, critically acclaimed production. She's going places but so, unfortunately, is her partner. And the places he's going take him towards lies, deceit and a pretty young thing in the form of his new co-star. It's a good time for Mia to escape, and pilot season in LA provides just the excuse. Full Review

Review of The Art of Death by David Fennell Crime It was an art installation of the type which does appear in Trafalgar Square: a depiction of three homeless men in glass cabinets surrounded by liquid. Only this time it's not a depiction: these are the bodies of Billy Perrin, Stan Buxton and 34-year-old Noel Tipping. The installation is the work of @nonymous, underground artist and extreme version of Banksy. He's made a macabre promise: more will follow. In fact, we've already met the artist although not by name: he's been in the Lumberyard Cafe with his Moleskine notebook, Maki-e fountain pen, MacBook Air and iPhone. Elaine Kelly is there with her son, Jordan, and she's explaining to her best friend, Jackie Morris about the state of her marriage. Actually, it doesn't take a lot of explaining: Frank's attentions are obvious on her face despite the foundation she's applied. Chau Ho is behind the counter. There's someone online, CassandraH, that the artist has his eye on, too. Full Review

Review of The Source by Sarah Sultoon Thrillers 1996. Essex. Thirteen-year-old schoolgirl Carly lives in a disenfranchised town dominated by a military base, struggling to care for her baby sister while her mum sleeps off another binge. When her squaddie brother brings food and treats, and offers an exclusive invitation to army parties, things start to look a little less bleak... Full Review

Review of Slough House (Jackson Lamb 7) by Mick Herron Thrillers Someone is killing secret service agents, past and present, from the Slough House team. Jackson Lamb can't understand it. Well, what he actually can't understand is why, having seen them, anyone would bother. But the deaths are mounting up and something needs to be done. After all when things went awry on Spook Street, they generally went the full Chris Grayling. Over at Regent's Park, Diana Taverner is quietly jubilant about an operation which saw the perpetrator of a Novichok poisoning in the UK (three people seriously injured and one dead) dispatched. It isn't just the message that was sent: she's also delighted that she managed to fund the operation off the books. Some private money was brought in. She won't always be so jubilant about this. Full Review

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