Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors

by B.A. Paris

Genre: Thriller

Synopsis:  Everyone knows a couple like Jack and Grace.

He has looks and wealth; she has charm and elegance.  He's a dedicated attorney who has never lost a case; she's a flawless homemaker and a masterful gardener and cook, and she dotes on her disabled younger sister.  Though they're still newlyweds, they seem to have it all.  You might not want to like them, but you do.  You're hopelessly charmed by the ease and comfort of their home, by the graciousness of the dinner parties they throw.  You'd like to get to know Grace better.

But it's difficult, because you realize Jack and Grace are inseparable.

Some might call this true love.  Others might wonder why Grace never answers the phone. Or why she can never meet for coffee, even though she doesn't work.  How she can cook such elaborate meals but remain so slim.   Or why she never seems to take anything with her when she leaves the house, not even a pen.  Or why there are such high-security metal shutters on all the downstairs windows.

Some might wonder what's really going on once the dinner parties are over and the front door has closed.

from the book jacket

Review:  I'm going to be honest...I could not put this book down and read it all in one day!  At first I was a little put off by the first chapter because there was something off about Jack and Grace but we didn't know what and they seemed too perfect.  But that was all part of the ruse.  We quickly learn that all is not what it seems and Grace is being held prisoner by Jack.  It takes a while to figure out exactly what happens but we are kept in suspense to find out if/when/how Grace is going to free herself and her sister Millie, who has Down Syndrome, from Jack's clutches.  The book alternates between present and past so we can get a glimpse as to how Grace and Jack met and what happened in their relationship and marriage early on.  Towards the end I was a little thrown off by how the past and present seemed to catch up to one another and the present jumped ahead in time so that the past was just a few days prior.  That transition seemed to come out of nowhere.  I also thought that the ending wasn't dramatic enough.  I was waiting for this really suspenseful moment and it didn't come. a little anticlimactic.  Thrillers are generally not my genre but this one I liked because I could see inside the people to see what motivated them and this was more psychological rather than action.  Jack was unlikable but Grace was likable albeit a little weak.  Overall this was a good thriller, not action packed, but one that will keep you reading all day and night.

Rating: 4 stars (although I really wanted to give it 3.75 stars)

IQ

IQ

Joe Ide

Genre: Mystery

Summary (from Goodreads): A resident of one of LA's toughest neighborhoods uses his blistering intellect to solve the crimes the LAPD ignores.

East Long Beach. The LAPD is barely keeping up with the neighborhood's high crime rate. Murders go unsolved, lost children unrecovered. But someone from the neighborhood has taken it upon himself to help solve the cases the police can't or won't touch.

They call him IQ. He's a loner and a high school dropout, his unassuming nature disguising a relentless determination and a fierce intelligence. He charges his clients whatever they can afford, which might be a set of tires or a homemade casserole. To get by, he's forced to take on clients that can pay.

This time, it's a rap mogul whose life is in danger. As Isaiah investigates, he encounters a vengeful ex-wife, a crew of notorious cutthroats, a monstrous attack dog, and a hit man who even other hit men say is a lunatic. The deeper Isaiah digs, the more far reaching and dangerous the case becomes.

Review: An interesting take on a Sherlock Holmes type mystery, with young, black, inner-city hoodlum-turned-savior Isaiah as the brainiac hero.  Getting a glimpse into Isaiah's early life with his brother and friend Dodson gave some insights into his personality quirks in the present.  I found myself turned off by the amount of time and effort Isaiah put into committing crimes as a teenager, and would have liked to have seen some remorse on his part.  But I guess that's too idealistic for inner city LA.  In any case, Isaiah is a fascinating new hero with a new age vocabulary.  I'll definitely look for the next book if it becomes a series.

Rating: 4 stars

Pretty Girls

Pretty Girls

Karin Slaughter

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): #1 internationally bestselling author Karin Slaughter returns with a sophisticated and chilling psychological thriller of dangerous secrets, cold vengeance, and unexpected absolution, in which two estranged sisters must come together to find truth about two harrowing tragedies, twenty years apart, that devastate their lives.

Sisters. Strangers. Survivors.

More than twenty years ago, Claire and Lydia's teenaged sister Julia vanished without a trace. The two women have not spoken since, and now their lives could not be more different. Claire is the glamorous trophy wife of an Atlanta millionaire. Lydia, a single mother, dates an ex-con and struggles to make ends meet. But neither has recovered from the horror and heartbreak of their shared loss—a devastating wound that's cruelly ripped open when Claire's husband is killed.

The disappearance of a teenage girl and the murder of a middle-aged man, almost a quarter-century apart: what could connect them? Forming a wary truce, the surviving sisters look to the past to find the truth, unearthing the secrets that destroyed their family all those years ago . . . and uncovering the possibility of redemption, and revenge, where they least expect it.

Powerful, poignant, and utterly gripping, packed with indelible characters and unforgettable twists, Pretty Girls is a masterful thriller from one of the finest suspense writers working today.

Review: Wow, this was a seriously creepy and disturbing psychological thriller!  I picked it up solely because it was on the top 5 list of a Goodreads Listopia list that I've been voting on - What Women Born in the 1970s Have Read So Far This Year.  All I can say is that women born in the 1970s must have a lot higher tolerance for gruesome violence than I do.  I was immediately drawn into the story; the author has an easy to read style that quickly brings the characters to life.  But I found myself having to skip paragraphs because I couldn't handle the graphic descriptions of unimaginable torture and rape.  I read it all the way to the end because I HAD to find out what happened, but overall, it was just too much for me.

Rating: 3 stars

Tricky Twenty-Two

Tricky Twenty-Two

Janet Evanovich

Genre: Chick Lit

Summary (from Goodreads): Something big is brewing in Trenton, N.J., and it could blow at any minute.

Stephanie Plum might not be the world's greatest bounty hunter, but she knows when she's being played. Ken Globovic (aka Gobbles), hailed as the Supreme Exalted Zookeeper of the animal house known as Zeta fraternity, has been arrested for beating up the dean of students at Kiltman College. Gobbles has missed his court date and gone into hiding. People have seen him on campus, but no one will talk. Things just aren't adding up, and Stephanie can't shake the feeling that something funny is going on at the college - and it's not just Zeta fraternity pranks.

As much as people love Gobbles, they hate Doug Linken. When Linken is gunned down in his backyard it's good riddance, and the list of possible murder suspects is long. The only people who care about finding Linken's killer are Trenton cop Joe Morelli, who has been assigned the case, security expert Ranger, who was hired to protect Linken, and Stephanie, who has her eye on a cash prize and hopefully has some tricks up her sleeve.

Review: Stephanie Plum books are always amusing, and this one was no exception.  The antics of Stephanie, her fiesty grandmother, and her quirky friend Lula make me laugh out loud while reading, and I found the descriptions of her car disasters and funeral home visits as hilarious as always.   

Rating: 3.5 stars

Orphan X

Orphan X

Gregg Hurwitz

Genre: Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): The Nowhere Man is a legendary figure spoken about only in whispers. It's said that when he's reached by the truly desperate and deserving, the Nowhere Man can and will do anything to protect and save them.

But he's no legend.

Evan Smoak is a man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He's also a man with a dangerous past. Chosen as a child, he was raised and trained as part of the off-the-books black box Orphan program, designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence assets—i.e. assassins. He was Orphan X. Evan broke with the program, using everything he learned to disappear.

Now, however, someone is on his tail. Someone with similar skills and training. Someone who knows Orphan X. Someone who is getting closer and closer. And will exploit Evan's weakness—his work as The Nowhere Man—to find him and eliminate him. Grabbing the reader from the very first page, Orphan X is a masterful thriller, the first in Gregg Hurwitz's electrifying new series featuring Evan Smoak.

Review: Wow!  This was a fast pace thriller full of non-stop action, with a dangerously skilled, highly trained rogue secret operative hero who has turned his considerable powers towards helping those in desperate trouble.  Full of twists and turns, lies and conspiracies, this book will keep you guessing until the very end.  I enjoyed absolutely everything about this novel, and I will definitely be on the lookout for the next book in the Evan Smoak series!

Rating: 5 stars

Somebody I Used to Know

Somebody I Used to Know

David Bell

Genre: Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): When Nick Hansen sees the young woman at the grocery store, his heart stops. She is the spitting image of his college girlfriend, Marissa Minor, who died in a campus house fire twenty years earlier. But when Nick tries to speak to her, she acts skittish and rushes off.

The next morning the police arrive at Nick’s house and show him a photo of the woman from the store. She’s been found dead, murdered in a local motel, with Nick’s name and address on a piece of paper in her pocket.

Convinced there's a connection between the two women, Nick enlists the help of his college friend Laurel Davidson to investigate the events leading up to the night of Marissa’s death. But the young woman’s murder is only the beginning...and the truths Nick uncovers may make him wish he never doubted the lies.

Review: This book didn't hold my attention like I hoped it would.  While I was initially intrigued by the mystery surrounding the young woman, I found the main character a bit boring, and the plot twists too contrived to be realistic.  Perhaps the main character dwelt too much in the past, making it difficult to get a sense of him as a 40 year old man.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Silent Sentry

Silent Sentry

by Theresa Rizzo

Genre: Thriller, Romance

Synopsis: The Scarfilis and Donnatellis love deeply and protect fiercely. “Family takes care of family” is the code they live by.

So when a hacker threatens Gianna Donnatelli’s life, Dr. Joe Scarfili is determined to keep her safe, only he has no police or tech experience, and Gianna’s penchant for aiding Detroit’s underprivileged is the same kind of altruism that got his wife killed. Gianna protects Joe with the same unyielding resolve. 

Gianna pushes all his insecurity buttons. Joe tries her patience like no other. But together they’ll fight to save each other and their love… Or die trying.

from GoodReads

Review:  This book is not in the normal genres that I read but I enjoyed its fast paced nature and suspense.  Right off the bat we know that terrible things will happen in Gianna's life and that she is in danger.  However, we do not know who but someone is watching out for her and trying to protect her while someone else is trying to manipulate her.  There are a lot of unknowns in this book and at times I just wanted to know right then and there who was behind everything but that didn't happen until the end.  While Gianna is being threatened, her old family friend, Joe swoops in and tries to protect her.  Some steamy romance happens in the midst of the danger.  This book had the right amount of action, suspense, and romance.

I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you Ms. Rizzo for the book.

Rating: 4 stars

Hostage Taker

Hostage Taker

Stefanie Pintoff

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): From Edgar Award winner Stefanie Pintoff comes the start of an electrifying new thriller series featuring Eve Rossi, head of a secret division of the FBI - one made up of ex-convicts with extraordinary talents, oversized egos, and contempt for the rules. Perfect for readers of Iris Johansen and Catherine Coulter.

TERROR STRIKES AN ICONIC CHURCH - AND BRINGS A CITY TO ITS KNEES.

In the hushed quiet of early morning Manhattan, in front of the towering brass doors of Saint Patrick's Cathedral, a young woman holds a sign that reads: HELP ME. For one FBI agent, a madman's terrified hostages, and an entire city, a long and harrowing day is about to unfold.

The hostage taker's identity is unknown. But he knows who FBI agent Eve Rossi is - and everything about her past. Along with her presence, he demands five witnesses: ordinary people with some hidden connection. Defying her superiors, Eve begins a deadly dance with an adversary whose intentions are surely sinister, whose endgame is anything but certain, and whose cunning keeps him one step ahead at every turn.

As Eve manages a taut hostage situation, she relies on the combined skills of her team - a secret unit inspired by France's most notorious criminal and made up of ex-convicts with extraordinary talents, oversized egos, and contempt for the rules.

Eve is up against a rapidly ticking clock. But the dangerous man calling the shots has a timetable of his own - and a searing question for his targets: What are you guilty of? As shocking revelations surface, so does another crisis nobody could anticipate - one not even Eve and her team may be able to stop.

Review:  I enjoyed this suspenseful and dramatic thriller; having a female hostage negotiator was a nice twist on the typically male thriller heroes.  The story was interesting, the descriptions of the cathedral were detailed and set the scene nicely, the ending had an interesting twist, and the minor characters were quirky and likable.  My only problem was that the book was a little long for the story; the author spent a while building the stories of the minor characters (I'm assuming in the hopes of continuing this novel into a series) but it detracted from the pace of the story and made the book drag on too long.  And while I enjoyed the criminals working with the FBI (a la the TV show White Collar), I wasn't convinced that these criminals provided a specific expertise that FBI members couldn't also provide.

Rating: 4 stars

The Bones of You

The Bones of You

Debbie Howells

Genre: Mystery Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): A stunning, wonderfully assured psychological thriller that evokes Gillian Flynn and Alice Sebold, The Bones of You revolves around a young girl’s murder and one woman’s obsession with uncovering the secrets in an idyllic English village.

I have a gardener’s inherent belief in the natural order of things. Soft‑petalled flowers that go to seed. The resolute passage of the seasons. Swallows that fly thousands of miles to follow the eternal summer.

Children who don’t die before their parents.

When Kate receives a phone call with news that Rosie Anderson is missing, she’s stunned and disturbed. Rosie is eighteen, the same age as Kate’s daughter, and a beautiful, quiet, and kind young woman. Though the locals are optimistic—girls like Rosie don’t get into real trouble—Kate’s sense of foreboding is confirmed when Rosie is found fatally beaten and stabbed.

Who would kill the perfect daughter, from the perfect family? Yet the more Kate entwines herself with the Andersons—graceful mother Jo, renowned journalist father Neal, watchful younger sister Delphine—the more she is convinced that not everything is as it seems. Anonymous notes arrive, urging Kate to unravel the tangled threads of Rosie’s life and death, though she has no idea where they will lead.

Weaving flashbacks from Rosie’s perspective into a tautly plotted narrative, The Bones of You is a gripping, haunting novel of sacrifices and lies, desperation and love.

Review:  This was a dark and creepy psychological thriller, full of lots of nasty characters that I couldn't stand.  What made this book different is that the narrator was an eminently likable, lovely, kind woman who befriended the mother of the missing girl.  Somehow having a decent woman at the heart of the story made the nastiness easier to read, while also providing an interesting contrast between good and evil.  Interestingly, it was also narrated by the dead girl; at times this was a bit confusing, but it lent an interesting perspective and provided some of the back story, since the novel opened with the girl already missing.

Rating: 4 stars

Don't Ever Get Old

Don't Ever Get Old

Daniel Friedman

Genre: Mystery Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): DON'T EVER GET OLD was one of mystery-publishing's biggest critical successes last year, earning starred reviews from every major trade publication, garnering nominations for the Edgar, Thriller, and Anthony awards, and winning the Macavity Award for Best First Novel. The producer of four Harry Potter films and the Sherlock Holmes sequel, Lionel Wigram, is writing the script for the movie and producing the film version.

When Buck Schatz, senior citizen and retired Memphis cop, learns that an old adversary may have escaped Germany with a fortune in stolen gold, Buck decides to hunt down the fugitive and claim the loot. But a lot of people want a piece of the stolen treasure, and Buck's investigation quickly attracts unfriendly attention from a very motley (and murderous) crew.

Review:  I really liked the crotchety elderly man at the center of this book, a long retired police officer and Jewish veteran of a Nazi prison camp.  His attitudes about growing old and his "things to remember" were humorous and insightful.  I also enjoyed his frat boy grandson Tequila, especially watching the interactions between the two men from completely different generations.  The action scenes, chase scenes, and murder scenes were descriptive and compelling.  However, I thought this novel was lacking in plot continuity; I never fully understood why all the victims were so violently murdered, and the resolution seemed a little hasty.

Rating: 4 stars

The Spy Who Came for Christmas

The Spy Who Came for Christmas

David Morrell

Genre: Christmas Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): It’s Christmas Eve in Santa Fe, but among the revelers on Canyon Road, a decidedly unholy scene is taking place. A desperate man, dressed all in black, feverishly seeks refuge for himself and the squirming bundle he holds tightly against his breast. Agent Paul Kagan’s bundle is a baby who has the power to change the course of global events. His pursuers are his former colleagues—members of the Russian mafia who will stop at nothing to accomplish their mission. Now Kagan is a spy on the run—he must ensure this baby’s survival, even if it will cost him his own life.Just a short distance away, Kagan will find an unexpected pair of allies—a mother and her young son, who huddle together after a horrible episode of domestic violence leaves them home alone, with no means of transportation.

And so, with the exquisitely honed skills of his profession and the help and good faith of a weary woman and a disillusioned boy, Kagan must take on forces that will stop at nothing. In the course of a wild and violent night, the unlikely trio learn lessons of generosity, courage, and selflessness, discovering within themselves the luminous strength of the true Christmas spirit.

Review:  It was interesting to read a thriller book set at Christmas time; I've never read a book by this author before, and I think I'll look up one of his regular books to see whether I like it.  As a relatively short holiday book, the story felt a little rushed, and I would definitely have preferred more of a backstory and more detail about the characters.  The mother and son especially could have used more fleshing out.  But it was the end of the book that caused me to knock my rating down a star; it had a creative ending that I quite liked, but the book was over to quickly and too incompletely for me to truly enjoy it.

Rating: 3 stars

Make Me

Make Me

Lee Child

Genre: Fiction, Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): “Why is this town called Mother’s Rest?” That’s all Reacher wants to know. But no one will tell him. It’s a tiny place hidden in a thousand square miles of wheat fields, with a railroad stop, and sullen and watchful people, and a worried woman named Michelle Chang, who mistakes him for someone else: her missing partner in a private investigation she thinks must have started small and then turned lethal.


Reacher has no particular place to go, and all the time in the world to get there, and there’s something about Chang . . . so he teams up with her and starts to ask around. He thinks: How bad can this thing be? But before long he’s plunged into a desperate race through LA, Chicago, Phoenix, and San Francisco, and through the hidden parts of the internet, up against thugs and assassins every step of the way—right back to where he started, in Mother’s Rest, where he must confront the worst nightmare he could imagine.

Walking away would have been easier. But as always, Reacher’s rule is: If you want me to stop, you’re going to have to make me.
 
Review:  Not as good as the earliest Reacher books, but much better than the last few.  I prefer thriller books where the hero discovers a problem and spends the book trying to solve it; this was not that type of book.  Instead, Reacher stumbled across some suspicious behavior in a shady little town and has to try to figure out what is wrong about the town.  He makes some phenomenally good guesses given the lack of information he has.  There also seemed to be some technical inaccuracies concerning the geography of the US that were needed as plot devices, for example, having to drive two hours out of the town before getting cell service, and having to drive another two hours before reaching a highway, in what appeared to be Oklahoma or Kansas.  Minor things, but annoying.  I still love Reacher as a character, but I am losing interest in the newer books of the series.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Independence Day

Independence Day

Ben Coes

Genre: Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): Dewey Andreas, former Delta and newly recruited intelligence agent, is sidelined after screwing up his last two operations. Still drowning in grief after the tragic murder of his fiancé, Dewey has seemingly lost his focus, his edge, and the confidence of his superiors. 


A high level Russian hacker, known only as Cloud, is believed to be routing large amounts of money to various Al Qaeda terror cells, and the mission is to capture and render harmless Cloud. At the same time, a back-up team is sent after the only known associate of Cloud, a ballerina believed to be his girlfriend. Unwilling to sit out the mission as ordered, Dewey defies his superiors, and goes rogue, surreptitiously following and tracking the two teams. What should be a pair of simple snatch and grab operations, goes horribly wrong—both teams are ambushed and wiped out. Only through the unexpected intervention of Dewey does the ballerina survive.

On the run, with no back-up, Cloud’s girlfriend reveals a shocking secret—a plot so audacious and deadly that their masterminds behind it would risk anything and kill anybody to prevent its exposure. It’s a plot that, in less than three days, will completely remake the world’s political landscape and put at risk every single person in the Western world. With only three days left, Dewey Andreas must unravel and stop this plot or see everything destroyed. A plot that goes live on July 4th—Independence Day.


Review: This is a solid non-stop action thriller featuring the psychologically broken Dewey Andreas who, with a team of other crack CIA agents, manages to save the United States from a nuclear terrorist attack.  The villain is terribly evil, the hero is smart, tough and lucky, and the plot is fast-paced and entertaining.  There was too much spy talk and violence for me, though.

Rating: 4 stars

White Plague

White Plague

James Abel

Genre: Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): In the frozen waters of the Arctic, Marine bioterror expert Joe Rush races to save a submarine crew from a lethal threat...

“The pleas for help stopped coming just after five in the morning, Washington time. The Pentagon staffers cleared for handling sensitive messages sat in horror for a moment and then tried other ways to reach the victims. Nothing worked so they called the Director, who phoned me.”

In the remote, frozen waters of the Arctic Ocean, the high-powered and technically advanced submarine U.S.S. Montana is in peril. Adrift and in flames, the boat—and the entire crew—could be lost. The only team close enough to get to them in time is led by Marine doctor and bio-terror expert Joe Rush.

With only thirty-six hours before the surviving crew perish, Joe and his team must race to rescue the Montana and ensure that the boat doesn’t fall into enemy hands. Because a fast-approaching foreign submarine is already en route, and tensions may explode.

But that’s the least of their troubles. For the surviving sailors are not alone on the sub. Something is trapped with them. Something deadly lethal. Something that plagued mankind long ago, when it devastated the entire world. And the crew of the Montana has unknowingly set it free. Now, Joe and his team must not only find a way to save the Montana and her crew, but stop a lethal horror of apocalyptic consequence from being unleashed on all humanity.
 
Review:  I enjoyed this fast paced, gripping thriller set on a ship in the middle of the Arctic ocean, although I was seriously creeped out by the thought of a disease spreading as quickly and as easily as it did in this book.  Joe Rush was an interesting hero, one who was clearly smart, capable and brave, but made tough choices that looked like bad decisions along the way.  I would have preferred a little more character development, especially centered around Joe, but I liked the book enough to read a sequel by the same author.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Signal

Signal

Patrick Lee

Genre: Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): With RUNNER, "Patrick Lee entered the ranks of the best action-thriller writers" (Kirkus Reviews)—now with SIGNAL, Patrick Lee and Sam Dryden are back and at the very top of their game.

From the bestselling author of RUNNER comes the next thriller featuring Sam Dryden, in the series that has captured the imagination of readers worldwide.

In the middle of the night, ex-Special Forces operative Sam Dryden gets a urgent call from an old colleague, desperate for his help in a last-minute secret mission. Without a moment's hesitation, Dryden agrees. The two race to a remote shack in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, where they break in, rescue four girls before the kidnapper can harm them, then flee into the hills just seconds ahead of the arriving police and FBI team.

It's then that Sam Dryden learns the real secret behind this mission. His former teammate has been working security of a very special, very secret government project. A project that led to the development of a device which revealed what would have happened to the kidnapped girls if they hadn't intervened as they did. But as Newton's laws predict, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. There are some very bad people determined to get their hands on this device, and every time Sam uses it, now matter how well intentioned, there are hidden and unintended consequences. Consequences that threaten to rip apart his very world and everything that he holds dear.
 
Review:  The science fiction aspect of this book was a tad more confusing than that of his previous books, but I still enjoyed this fast paced action story.  What I typically like about Lee's books is that he integrates the science fiction so seemlessly that the story seems like it could really happen, and this one didn't feel quite as real.  Regardless, Dryden is a great hero who is fun to read about,
the story was interesting, and I read this very quickly.

Rating: 4 stars

Personal

Personal

Lee Child

Genre: Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): Jack Reacher walks alone. Once a go-to hard man in the US military police, now he's a drifter of no fixed abode. But the army tracks him down. Because someone has taken a long-range shot at the French president.. Only one man could have done it. And Reacher is the one man who can find him. This new heartstopping, nailbiting book in Lee Child's number-one bestselling series takes Reacher across the Atlantic to Paris - and then to London. The stakes have never been higher - because this time, it's personal.
 
Review: The 19th book in Lee Child's Jack Reacher series, Personal returns to a familiar theme: a sniper that Reacher arrested during his Army MP days has tried to assassinate someone -- this was also the theme in Child's book One Shot.  The last few Reacher books have felt slow and dry to me, but this one was reminiscent of his earlier books.  Thankfully.  There were still too many slow descriptions of traveling; the characters spent an awful lot of time flying, driving, riding the tube and taking taxis, none of which were particularly interesting to me.  Also there seemed to be some history between Reacher and the shadowy Army general who was in charge of this operation, and it made me wonder if Child is setting him up for another prequel.  I was just about ready to give up on the series, but this novel convinced me that I should keep reading.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Cell

Cell

Robin Cook

Genre: Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): The New York Times bestselling author and master of the medical thriller returns with a top-notch fusion of groundbreaking medical science and edge-of-your-seat suspense. George Wilson, M.D., a radiology resident in Los Angeles, is about to enter a profession on the brink of an enormous paradigm shift, foreshadowing a vastly different role for doctors everywhere. The smartphone is poised to take on a new role in medicine, no longer as a mere medical app but rather as a fully customizable personal physician capable of diagnosing and treating even better than the real thing. It is called iDoc. George’s initial collision with this incredible innovation is devastating. He awakens one morning to find his fiancée dead in bed alongside him, not long after she participated in an iDoc beta test. Then several of his patients die after undergoing imaging procedures. All of them had been part of the same beta test. Is it possible that iDoc is being subverted by hackers—and that the U.S. government is involved in a cover-up? Despite threats to both his career and his freedom, George relentlessly seeks the truth, knowing that if he’s right, the consequences could be lethal.
 
Review:  I found the premise of this book fascinating, given that the idea of iDoc seems plausible in the near future, but unfortunately the writing didn't deliver.  The main character, radiology resident George, seemed to be a very smart person, but was unbelievably naive and lacking in common sense.  Even worse, the conversations were so stilted and awkward that they took away from the story.  And the book needed a better editor - I noticed a few very obviously wrong word choices.  I was also disappointed at the cop-out ending.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Spiral

Spiral

Paul McEuen

Genre: Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): In this riveting debut thriller— the winner of Best First Novel at the 2012 Thriller Awards and a nominee for a Nero Award—the race is on to stop the devastating proliferation of the ultimate bioweapon. Spiral is perfect for fans of Michael Crichton, Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, and Richard Preston.

When Nobel laureate Liam Connor is found dead at the bottom of one of Ithaca, New York’s famous gorges, his research collaborator, Cornell professor of nanoscience Jake Sterling, refuses to believe it was suicide. Why would one of the world’s most eminent biologists, a eighty-six-year old man in good health who survived some of the darkest days of the Second World War, have chosen to throw himself off a bridge? And who was the mysterious woman caught on camera at the scene? Soon it becomes clear that a cache of supersophisticated nanorobots—each the size of a spider—has disappeared from the dead man’s laboratory.

Stunned by grief, Jake, Liam’s granddaughter, Maggie, and Maggie’s nine-year-old son, Dylan, try to put the pieces together. They uncover ingeniously coded messages Liam left behind pointing toward a devastating secret he gleaned off the shores of war-ravaged Japan and carried for more than sixty years.

What begins as a quest for answers soon leads to a horrifying series of revelations at the crossroads of biological warfare and nanoscience. At this dangerous intersection, a skilled and sadistic assassin, an infamous Japanese war criminal, and a ruthless U.S. government official are all players in a harrowing game of power, treachery, and intrigue—a game whose winner will hold the world’s fate literally in the palm of his hand.
 
Review: This was a seriously creepy thriller if you are paranoid about biological warfare and terrible diseases like I am.  Other than the disturbing torture scenes, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and couldn't put it down.  The characters had a depth that can be unusual in a thriller, and the science at least seemed like it could be believable.  Some things were a little predictable, but overall it was an exciting read.

Rating: 4 stars

The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train

Paula Hawkins

Genre: Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads): A debut psychological thriller that will forever change the way you look at other people's lives.

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

A compulsively readable, emotionally immersive, Hitchcockian thriller that draws comparisons to Gone Girl, The Silent Wife, or Before I Go to Sleep, this is an electrifying debut embraced by readers across markets and categories.
 
Review:  The summary of this novel leaves out something major - Rachel is a raging alcoholic and a completely unreliable narrator.  If I had had a hint about that, or known that so much of the story deals with her struggle to give up alcohol and then her inevitably quick relapse as she faces challenges, I may have liked it better.  The premise of the story is interesting, it's a well-written and gripping mystery, and the lesson about judging people based only on quick glimpses of their lives is thought-provoking.  However, all the characters were horrible people and the fact that the multiple point-of-view narrations take place at different periods of time left me feeling confused about the timeline.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Without Warning

Without Warning

David Rosenfelt

Genre: Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads):  Years ago, Katie Sanford’s husband was convicted of the murder of Jenny Robbins, then died himself in prison. It’s a small town and memories are long, and Katie and Jenny’s husband, Chief of Police Jake Robbins, have had to work at putting the tragedy behind them. But it's all brought up again in the wake of a hurricane which has just wreaked havoc on their quiet Maine town. Since its founding, Wilton has had a quaint tradition of creating a time capsule every fifty years, and the storm unearthed the most recent capsule. As the editor of the local paper, Katie joins Chief Robbins to supervise its opening. Neither of them is prepared for the macabre set of predictions, dating back to months before Jenny’s murder, that they find inside. Someone predicted her death, as well as eleven other tragedies, which are still occurring even long after the death of Katie’s husband.

At last, after all these years, Katie has reason to hope that her husband might not have been guilty of Jenny’s murder after all. But as she and Jake race to stop the next predictions from coming true, they find themselves caught in a terrifying mind game with no rules…and life or death consequences.

In Without Warning, David Rosenfelt has written another tightly plotted thriller that will hold readers in its grip from the opening page all the way through to the stunning conclusion.

Review:  This was the first book by David Rosenfelt that I have read, and I enjoyed the clever plot - a time capsule is opened that contains predictions for murders, and police chief Jake Robbins has to figure out why the murders all seem to be connected to him.  But I thought the character development was lacking; newspaper editor Katie Sanford started out as a strong, interesting character, but then her voice disappeared a short while into the novel, and the relationship that develops between her and Jake seemed to happen way to quickly.  The dialogue was somewhat stilted, especially in the scenes between Jake and Katie; I felt that Rosenfelt's writing was stronger when dealing with the police investigation than when dealing with relationships.  I had a few other small complaints, like why Jake scheduled the finale on such a tight timeline, but those were minor.  I may try out another Rosenfelt book, but I don't think I've found a new favorite author.

Rating: 3 stars