It feels like summer has only just started, and yet, it’ll be over before we know it.
But not before a bunch of great thrillers line store shelves.
Whether you’re headed out to the beach and are in need of the perfect book to get lost in while soaking up the sun . . . or you’re staying inside to beat the heat, August brings plenty of action, suspense, and twisting conspiracies. So, whatever you’re looking for, we’ve got you covered. As always, we’ve chosen a few books that we think stand slightly above the rest, and this month’s Featured Selections are None of This is True by Lisa Jewell, Tides of Fire, the brand new Sigma Force novel from James Rollins, and Ricochet by Taylor Moore.
Additionally, this month is extra special for me because my second novel, Lethal Range, also comes out. Last year, I went from just covering thrillers to also writing them when Fields of Fire debuted in September. That book introduced readers to my hero, Matthew Redd, and now Redd is back and up against it like never before. I just want to say thank you to everyone who’s taken a chance on me as a writer and checked out Fields of Fire and/or pre-ordered Lethal Range. It means a lot to me, and as a massive fan of the genre myself, my goal was to write something that diehard thriller fans would love. I can’t wait to hear what everyone thinks once Book 2 comes out in August!
Find out more about Lethal Range, this month’s Featured Selections, and everything else set to be released this month, below.
Happy reading!
Tuesday, August 1st
To Catch a Storm by Mindy Mejia
In this brand new series from national bestseller Mindy Mejia, a physicist and a psychic reluctantly team up to solve two missing persons cases during an ice storm in Iowa.
When her husband’s car is found abandoned and on fire—in the middle of a rainstorm—Eve Roth becomes the police’s number one suspect. After all, her husband was suspended from the University of Iowa for inappropriate conduct with a student, and who else but an atmospheric physicist could incinerate a car in a downpour? But Eve has no idea why her husband disappeared. She’s desperate to find him, both for herself and her beloved, disabled father-in-law.
Jonah Kendrick appears on their doorstep with a theory. He’s seen Eve’s husband, bound and bleeding in a barn. Claiming to be a psychic detective who dreams of the lost, Jonah has helped find missing people his entire life. He dreamed about a young woman trapped in the same barn months ago, and she’s still missing.
As a firm believer in the laws of nature, Eve rejects anything to do with psychics, but their investigations soon collide. As the temperature drops and Iowa turns to ice, Eve and Jonah race across the state to discover what happened to the people they’ve lost. But the truth is more deadly either of them expected, and the physicist and the psychic must learn to believe in each other if they want to escape this storm alive.
The Bone Hacker by Kathy Reichs
#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with her twenty-second high-stakes thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan who, following a series of bizarre disappearances on the islands of Turks and Caicos, enters a sinister labyrinth in which a new technology may wreak worldwide havoc.
Called in to examine what is left of a person thought to have been struck by lightning, Tempe traces an unusual tattoo to its source and is soon embroiled in a much larger case. Young men—tourists—have been disappearing on the islands of Turks and Caicos. Seven years earlier, the first victim was found in a strange location with his left hand hacked off; subsequently, two other visitors vanished without a trace. But, recently, tantalizing leads have emerged and only Tempe can unravel them.
Maddeningly, the victims seem to have nothing in common—other than the odd places where their bodies turn up, and the fact that none seems likely to have been involved in criminal activity. Do these attacks have something to do with the islands’ seething culture of gang violence? Tempe isn’t so sure. Disturbingly, she discovers evidence that what’s at stake may actually have global significance.
It isn’t long before the sound of a ticking clock grows menacingly loud. Then Tempe herself becomes a target.
The Second Murder by Denise Mina
Philip Marlowe is on the hunt for a missing heiress—and up against a rival PI—in this smart and atmospheric authorized mystery from acclaimed crime writer and “one-of-a-kind storyteller” Denise Mina (James Patterson), the first woman to recreate Raymond Chandler’s infamous detective.
Has Philip Marlowe finally met his match?
It’s early fall when a heatwave descends on Los Angeles. Private Detective Philip Marlowe is called to the Montgomery estate, an almost mythic place sitting high on top of Beverly Hills. Wealthy socialite Chrissie Montgomery is missing. Young, naïve, and set to inherit an enormous fortune, she’s a walking target, ripe for someone to get their claws into. Her dying father and his sultry bottle-blonde girlfriend want her found before that happens. To make sure, they’ve got Anne Riordan—now head of her own all-female detective agency—on the case, too.
The search for Chrissie takes the two investigators from the Montgomery mansion to the roughest neighborhoods of LA, through dive bars and boarding houses and out to Skid Row. And that’s all before they find the body at The Brody Hotel. Who will get to Chrissie first? And what happens when a woman doesn’t want to be found?
In The Second Murderer, Denise Mina becomes the first woman to recreate Raymond Chandler’s infamous detective, delivering a clever and timely new take on Philip Marlowe, as well as a propulsive, dark, and witty mystery all its own.
What Never Happened by Rachel Howzell Hall
It’s murder in paradise as a woman uncovers a host of secrets off the rocky California coast in a gripping novel of suspense by New York Times bestselling author Rachel Howzell Hall.
Colette “Coco” Weber has relocated to her Catalina Island home, where, twenty years before, she was the sole survivor of a deadly home invasion. All Coco wants is to see her aunt Gwen, get as far away from her ex as possible, and get back to her craft―writing obituaries. Thankfully, her college best friend, Maddy, owns the local paper and has a job sure to keep Coco busy, considering the number of elderly folks who are dying on the island.
But as Coco learns more about these deaths, she quickly realizes that the circumstances surrounding them are remarkably similar…and not natural. Then Coco receives a sinister threat in the mail: her own obituary.
As Coco begins to draw connections between a serial killer’s crimes and her own family tragedy, she fears that the secrets on Catalina Island might be too deep to survive. Because whoever is watching her is hell-bent on finally putting her past to rest.
Gone Tonight by Sarah Pekkanen
New from the #1 bestselling co-author of The Golden Couple and The Wife Between Us!
“I’m a huge fan of Sarah Pekkanen’s books, and GONE TONIGHT is her best yet.” ―Colleen Hoover
Catherine Sterling thinks she knows her mother. Ruth Sterling is quiet, hardworking, and lives for her daughter. All her life, it’s been just the two of them against the world. But now, Catherine is ready to spread her wings, move from home, and begin a new career. And Ruth Sterling will do anything to prevent that from happening.
Ruth Sterling thinks she knows her daughter. Catherine would never rebel, would never question anything about her mother’s past or background. But when Ruth’s desperate quest to keep her daughter by her side begins to reveal cracks in Ruth’s carefully-constructed world, both mother and daughter begin a dance of deception.
Those We Thought We Knew by David Joy
From award-winning writer David Joy comes a searing new novel about the cracks that form in a small North Carolina community and the evils that unfurl from its center.
Toya Gardner, a young Black artist from Atlanta, has returned to her ancestral home in the North Carolina mountains to trace her family history and complete her graduate thesis. But when she encounters a still-standing Confederate monument in the heart of town, she sets her sights on something bigger.
Meanwhile, local deputies find a man sleeping in the back of a station wagon and believe him to be nothing more than some slack-jawed drifter. Yet a search of the man’s vehicle reveals that he is a high-ranking member of the Klan, and the uncovering of a notebook filled with local names threatens to turn the mountain on end.
After two horrific crimes split the county apart, every soul must wrestle with deep and unspoken secrets that stretch back for generations. Those We Thought We Knew is an urgent unraveling of the dark underbelly of a community. Richly drawn and bracingly honest, it asks what happens when the people you’ve always known turn out to be monsters, what do you do when everything you ever believed crumbles away?
Tuesday, August 8th
Lethal Range by Ryan Steck (From The Real Book Spy)
“Intense, riveting, and ultimately wild escapist fun, LETHAL RANGE is a powerful modern Western… It’s Sons of Anarchy crashing into Yellowstone. Steck is a talented cinematic writer and has created a character in Matthew Redd that is both larger than life and remarkably relatable. Buy this book!” — Don Winslow, #1 bestselling author of The Force and The Border
“A white-knuckle ride from start to finish, LETHAL RANGE takes off with one of the most intense scenes I’ve ever read, then builds to a thunderous crescendo. It’s one of this summer’s hottest thrillers. Like the best kind of rollercoaster, the tension rises to an incredible climax.” — T.J. Newman, two-time New York Times bestselling author of Falling and Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421
“Ryan Steck’s latest LETHAL RANGE is a high-stakes thriller that starts at a run and races faster with every flip of the page . . . All beautifully and brutally told! I can’t wait to see what trouble Redd must tackle next!” — James Rollins, #1 New York Times bestseller of Kingdom of Bones
From the Real Book Spy, Ryan Steck, comes another riveting Matthew Redd thriller.
On an island off the coast of Spain, Matthew Redd and his FBI fly team surveil a luxury villa in hopes of catching a high-value fugitive. But when Redd leads an unauthorized raid on the villa, he discovers they’ve been set up, and he is sent home to face the consequences of defying orders.
Meanwhile, Redd’s wife, Emily, is on a remote stretch of Montana road driving their sick baby to the doctor when she finds her SUV surrounded by a biker gang intent on harassing her. As the bikers pound her fenders and her infant son screams, Emily fights to keep the SUV on the road . . . and then suddenly the bikers back off, leaving her safe but shaken.
Redd returns home, suspended from his team and certain that he is to blame for Emily’s harassment after his run-in with the local biker gang the year before. Fearing that there is more to come, he prepares to defend his family. But Redd soon learns the gang is stronger in numbers than he could’ve imagined, and there is more behind their vendetta than he could’ve guessed. As his son’s condition worsens and his beloved ranch faces financial ruin, he finds himself fighting a war on multiple fronts―one he can’t win on his own.
From TRBS: After a decade of covering thrillers, last year, I made the jump and published my first novel, Fields of Fire, which introduces Matthew Redd, a former Marine Raider who returned to his hometown in Montan for the first time in eight years to investigate the death of his adoptive father, only to inadvertently uncover a global conspiracy that only he could stop. Now, Redd is back, and this time, his enemies have brought a war straight to his front door. My goal when launching this series was to bill it as “Vince Flynn meets C.J. Box,” and I think you’ll certainly see that in this book. It’s a story I’ve always wanted to tell, and I cannot wait to finally hear what you all think of it!
Bridge by Lauren Beukes
A grieving daughter’s search for her mother becomes a journey across alternate realities in this “ass-kicking, mind-bending” new thriller from the author of the The Shining Girls (Kirkus Reviews).
There are infinite realities. She’s looking for one . . .
Twenty-four-year-old Bridge is paralyzed by choices: all the other lives she could have lived, the decisions she could have made. And now, who she should be in the wake of her mother’s unexpected death.
Jo was a maverick neuroscientist fixated on an artifact she called the “dreamworm” that she believed could open the doors to other worlds. It was part of Jo’s grand delusion, her sickness, and it cost her everything, including her relationship with her daughter.
But in packing up Jo’s house, Bridge discovers Jo’s obsession hidden amongst her things. And the dreamworm works, exactly the way it’s supposed to, the way Bridge remembers from when she was a little girl. Suddenly Bridge can step into other realities, otherselves. In one of them, could she find out what really happened to her mother? What Bridge doesn’t know is that there are others hunting for the dreamworm—who will kill to get their hands on it.
Bridge is a highly original, reality-bending thrill-ride that could only have come from the brilliant mind of award-winning novelist, Lauren Beukes, about mothers and daughters, hunters and seekers, and who we each choose to be.
Out of Nowhere by Sandra Brown
#1 New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown returns with a fast-paced, emotional thriller where the lives of a young mother and a high-rolling consultant collide under devastating circumstances—culminating in a desperate manhunt that will change their futures forever.
At a Texas county fair, amidst carousels and a bustling midway, children’s book author Elle Portman is enjoying a rare night out with her favorite cowboy: her two-year-old son, Charlie. But just as they’re about to head home, the unthinkable happens: a shooter opens fire into the crowd, causing widespread panic to erupt all around them.
Also caught in the melee was corporate consultant Calder Hudson. Arrogant, self-centered, and high off his latest career win, he’s frustrated and confused when he wakes up in the hospital after undergoing emergency surgery on his arm. The doctor tells him that he was lucky—that as far as gunshot wounds go, he pulled through remarkably well. Others weren’t so lucky, which instills in Calder a furious determination to get justice . . . a goal shared by Elle.
Their chance encounter at the police station leads to a surprising and inexplicable gravitation to one another, but even as the attraction grows, Elle and Calder can’t help but wonder if the unimaginable tragedy that brought them together is too painful and too complicated to sustain—especially while the shooter remains at large.
None of This is True by Lisa Jewell (Featured Selection)
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author known for her “superb pacing, twisted characters, and captivating prose” (BuzzFeed), Lisa Jewell returns with a scintillating new psychological thriller about a woman who finds herself the subject of her own popular true crime podcast.
Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summer crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.
A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.
Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realize that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.
But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.
Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?
From TRBS: Lisa Jewel is such a fantastic talent. This book, just trust me, is impossible to put down.
North of Nowhere by Allison Brennan
New York Times bestseller Allison Brennan’s latest standalone is an unputdownable race to the dramatic finish.
After five years in hiding from their murderous father, the day Kristen and Ryan McIntyre have been dreading has arrived: Boyd McIntyre, head of a Los Angeles crime family, has at last tracked his kids to a small Montana town and is minutes away from kidnapping them. They barely escape in a small plane, but gunfire hits the fuel line. The pilot, a man who has been raising them as his own, manages to crash land in the middle of the Montana wilderness. The siblings hike deep into the woods, searching desperately for safety―unaware of the severity of the approaching storm.
Boyd’s sister Ruby left Los Angeles for the Army years ago, cutting off contact in order to help keep her niece and nephew safe and free from the horrors of the McIntyre clan. So when she gets an emergency call that the plane has gone down with the kids inside, she drops everything to try save them.
As the storm builds, Ruby isn’t the only person looking for them. Boyd has hired an expert tracker to find and bring them home. And rancher Nick Lorenzo, who knows these mountains better than anyone and doesn’t understand why the kids are running, is on their trail too.
But there is a greater threat to Kristen and Ryan out there. More volatile than the incoming blizzard, more dangerous than the family they ran from or the natural predators they could encounter. Who finds them first could determine if they live or die . . .
The Detective Up Late by Adrian McKinty
“Adrian McKinty is a gifted storyteller I love to read, and Sean Duffy is a character you will never forget.” – Don Winslow, #1 internationally bestselling author
From New York Times bestselling author Adrian McKinty comes the next thrilling mystery in the Edgar Award-winning Sean Duffy detective series.
Slamming the door on the hellscape of 1980s Belfast, Detective Inspector Sean Duffy hopes that the 1990s are going to be better for him and the people of Northern Ireland. As a Catholic cop in the mainly Protestant RUC he still has a target on his back, and with a steady girlfriend and a child the stakes couldn’t be higher.
After handling a mercurial triple agent and surviving the riots and bombings and assassination attempts, all Duffy wants to do now is live. But in his final days in charge of Carrickfergus CID, a missing persons report captures his attention. A fifteen-year-old traveler girl has disappeared and no one seems to give a damn about it. Duffy begins to dig and uncovers a disturbing underground of men who seem to know her very well. The deeper he digs the more sinister it all gets. Is finding out the truth worth it if DI Duffy is going to get himself and his colleagues killed? Can he survive one last case before getting himself and his family out over the water?
Deadlock by James Byrne
In this sequel to the highly praised The Gatekeeper, Dez Limerick, one of the best new thriller heroes returns.
Desmond Aloysius Limerick (“Dez” to his friends and close personal enemies) is a man with a shadowy past, certain useful hard-won skills, and, if one digs deep enough, a reputation as a good man to have at your back. Now retired from his previous life, Dez is just a bloke with a winning smile, a bass guitar, and bullet wounds that paint a road map of past lives.
Jaleh Swann, a business journalist hot on the trail of an auditor who was mugged and killed, lands in the hospital just one day after her Portland apartment is ransacked. When Jaleh’s sister, Raziah, reaches out to an old friend for help, Dez has no choice but to answer. The Swann sisters have been pulled into a dizzying web of cover-ups and danger. At the center lies an insidious Oregon-based tech corporation, Clockjack, which has enough money and hired guns to silence just about anyone―including this rag-tag trio. Luckily, Dez’s speciality is not just to open doors, but keep them open―and protect those working to expose Clockjack’s secrets.
More stands in the way of the truth than just one corporation. When hired thugs come to the finish the job and attack the Swann sisters at the hospital, Dez does what he does best. Now, the two captured men (and the corpse Dez left behind) attract the attention of not just Clockjack, but of the Portland police, the D.E.A, and the U.S. Marshalls. Dez and the Swann sisters are on the run from powers beyond their control and means. Outnumbered, under resourced and outgunned, Dez must use all his skills to keep his friends safe and stand up to corporate conniving. After all, the one thing Clockjack didn’t count on? A good man with a simple job to do.
Tuesday, August 15th
Tides of Fire by James Rollins (Featured Selection)
In the latest riveting thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling author, an international research station in the Coral Sea comes under siege during a geological disaster that triggers massive quakes, deadly tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. To stop the world from burning, it’s up to Sigma Force to uncover a secret buried at the heart of our planet.
The Titan Project—an international research station off the coast of Australia—discovers a thriving zone of life in an otherwise dead sea. The area teems with a strange bioluminescent coral that defies science, yet holds great promise for the future. But the loss of a military submarine in the area triggers a brutal attack and sets in motion a geological disaster that destabilizes an entire region.
Massive quakes, volcanic eruptions, and deadly tsunamis herald a greater cataclysm to come—for something is stirring miles under the ocean, a threat hidden for millennia.
As seas turn toxic and coastlines burn, can Sigma Force stop what has been let loose—especially as an old adversary returns, hunting them and thwarting their every move? For any hope of success, Commander Gray Pierce must search for a key buried in the past, hidden deep in Aboriginal mythology. But what Sigma could uncover is even more frightening—something that will shake the very foundations of humanity.
From TRBS: James Rollins is one of the most recognizable authors working today and puts his full range of talent on display here. The gang from Sigma Force is back, and this time, they may have bitten off more than they can chew. As one natural disaster after another hammers down around them, it’s once again up to Commander Gray Pierce and his “scientists with guns” to race and put the clues together before it’s too late. Riveting, thought-provoking, and impossible to put down, Rollins writes with urgency and authority yet again. Tides of Fire is not to be missed.
Beneath Dark Waters by Karen Rose
Deadly secrets lie beneath the murky waters of the Louisiana bayou in this pulse-pounding new romantic suspense novel from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Karen Rose.
There’s no safe place for a child to hide when danger comes from every direction.
Public prosecutor J.P. “Kaj” Cardozo has only lived in New Orleans for six months, and he’s already working on a high-profile celebrity sexual assault case that’s made headlines all over the country. But when his son becomes the target of a kidnapping attempt as a threat to Kaj, he is desperate to keep him safe and turns to a private investigative firm famous for their protection services.
A veteran Marine, Val Sorensen is glad to have found a new career with Broussard Investigations. Her latest assignment as the bodyguard to ten-year-old Elijah Cardozo reminds her why—Val is a kick ass guardian with a tender heart. Through her duties, Val grows fond of the boy—and his handsome father.
But when the high-stakes investigation reveals an explosive network of crime through a revived drug gang, lingering deep-seated corruption in the NOPD, and a group of murderers-for-hire targeting Kaj, Elijah, and his star client, they’re all left scrambling for safety . . .
The Trade Off by Sandie Jones
Frm the New York Times bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club Pick The Other Woman comes The Trade Off, an electrifying new novel of suspense that begs the question: Would you tell a story, if you knew it was a lie? Or tell the truth and sleep at night?
For Stella, deputy editor of The Globe, the choice has always been clear. It doesn’t matter how low she has to stoop―getting the best story is what she’s built her reputation on.
For Jess, The Globe’s rookie reporter, the story stops when the truth does. But she knows that the dirty tricks of the tabloids will be hard to overturn.
And when a celebrity is hounded by The Globe and pays the ultimate price, Jess wonders just how much Stella and the paper are responsible.
Determined to show the world what the tabloid is capable of, Jess will do whatever it takes to uncover the truth, but she needs to watch her back, because someone else is prepared to kill to bury it.
Lion & Lamb by James Patterson and Duane Swierczynski
Veena Lion and Cooper Lamb are rival PIs in this “fun ride…the romance between Cooper and Veena is artfully handled, and Patterson and Swierczynski keep the core mystery breezing along, populating it with endearing characters including Cooper’s two preternaturally clever kids and his Rhodesian ridgeback puppy.” –Publishers Weekly
Philadelphia is in a state of shock over the fate of two hometown heroes: Eagles starting quarterback Archie Hughes, and his even more famous wife, Grammy-winning singer Francine Hughes.
One spouse is murdered. The other is suspect #1.
Even before the case hits the courtroom, it’s the hottest ticket in town.
For the defense: Cooper Lamb, private investigator to the stars.
For the prosecution: Veena Lion, a sleuth so bright she’s got to wear shades.
Between them, they know every secret in Philadelphia. Together, they prove how two wrongs can make a right. They are Lion & Lamb.
Wide Awake by Steven Konkoly
A conspiracy to incite an American civil war. The desperate chase to stop it is on in a propulsive thriller by Steven Konkoly, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Deep Sleep.
After taking out a sleeper network, Devin Gray and Marnie Young are picking up the pieces of their disrupted lives. But the gravity of the conspiracy they helped to cripple is sucking them right back into the black hole of violence and subterfuge that nearly consumed them. Another sleeper network is awake.
A progressive congresswoman dies in a car explosion, vaporized by an American kamikaze drone―the beginning of the mayhem to come. What Devin dismantled is being rebuilt. The plan: ignite a civil war in the United States and burn America to the ground.
Seeds of unrest are planted. Threats are escalating. The clock is ticking as Devin, Marnie, and an unconventional team of allies play a cat-and-mouse game across the country to stop a domestic nightmare from coming true.
Tuesday, August 22nd
Dead Mountain by Preston & Child
#1 New York Times bestselling authors Preston & Child return in the latest installment of the bestselling series featuring renowned archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI Agent Corrie Swanson, who investigates a mystery so enigmatic it may have no solution.
In 2008, nine mountaineers failed to return from a winter backpacking trip in the New Mexico mountains. At their final campsite, searchers found a bizarre scene: something had appeared at the door of their tent so terrifying that it impelled them to slash their way out and flee barefoot to certain death in a blizzard. Despite a diligent search, only six bodies were found, two violently crushed and inexplicably missing their eyes. The case, given the code name “Dead Mountain” by the FBI, was never solved.
Now, two more bodies from the lost expedition are unexpectedly discovered in a cave, one a grisly suicide. Young FBI Agent Corrie Swanson teams up with archaeologist Nora Kelly to investigate what really happened on that fateful trip fifteen years ago—and to find the ninth victim. But their search awakens a long-slumbering evil, which pursues Corrie and Nora with a vengeance, determined to prevent the final missing corpse from ever coming to light.
After That Night by Karin Slaughter
WATCH WILL TRENT ON ABC!
“Enter the world of Karin Slaughter. Just be forewarned, there’s no going back.” —Lisa Gardner
Will Trent and Sara Linton are back in an electrifying thriller featuring GBI investigator Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton from New York Times bestselling author Karin Slaughter
After that night, everything changed . . .
Fifteen years ago, Sara Linton’s life changed forever when a celebratory night out ended in a violent attack that tore her world apart. Since then, Sara has remade her life. A successful doctor, engaged to a man she loves, she has finally managed to leave the past behind her.
Until one evening, on call in the ER, everything changes. Sara battles to save a broken young woman who’s been brutally attacked. But as the investigation progresses, led by GBI Special Agent Will Trent, it becomes clear that Dani Cooper’s assault is uncannily linked to Sara’s.
And the past isn’t going to stay buried forever . . .
Five Years After by William R. Forstchen
From William R. Forstchen, the New York Times bestselling author of the One Second After series, comes Five Years After, a near-future thriller where John Matherson must contend with new threats to the fragile civilization that he helped rebuild.
Five years after The Final Day, the Republic of New America has all but collapsed into regional powers and the world at large is struggling to remain stable as regional conflicts ravage the post EMP landscape. After several years attempting to lead a quiet life, John Matherson receives the news that the President is dying from a possible assassination attempt, and is asked to step in to negotiate with what appears to be a new military power hidden in the wreckage of the world.
Pulled back into the fray, John struggles to hold the tottering Republic together. Facing threats on multiple fronts, he races against time to stop another EMP attack on the former United States and China, putting years of progress at risk. With so much of his work under threat, John must find the strength within to start over, so that he can save the country and the people that he holds dear from even greater calamity.
Cursed At Dawn by Heather Graham
Dracula lives—and he’s hunting for his bride.
Vampires may not walk among us, but FBI agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter know real monsters exist. They’ve witnessed firsthand the worst humankind has to offer. They’re still catching their breaths after the apprehension of two such monstrous killers when they’re met with horrific news: Stephan Dante, the self-proclaimed king of the vampires, has escaped from prison, followed only by a trail of blood.
All too familiar with Dante’s cruelty, Della and Mason know the clock is ticking. But as Dante claims more victims, a chilling message arrives. The vampire killer seeks his eternal bride—Della herself. Playing into Dante’s desires might be the only way to stop the carnage once and for all, assuming they can outwit him. Della is confident the agents have the upper hand, but Mason knows every gamble runs the risk of not paying off, and this time, the consequences could be deadly.
Easy Go by Michael Crichton (re-issued)
From the creator of Jurassic Park and ER
Egyptologist Harold Barnaby has just made the discovery of the century. While retranslating some old hieroglyphs, he has found clues to the location of a pharaoh’s lost tomb. But this discovery leads him to make the ultimate choice: rather than share his find with the rest of the world, Professor Barnaby is determined to locate the tomb and keep whatever treasure he finds inside for himself.
But to pull off the greatest heist in the archaeological history, Barnaby will need help. Enter Robert Pierce, a transient freelance writer looking for excitement. They put together a five-man team, including a smuggler, an international thief, and the fifth Earl of Wheatston to bankroll the project, and set out to plunder the pharaoh’s lost tomb. But can this ragtag team survive the perils of the Egyptian desert and uncover what the centuries have kept hidden? And even if they find the treasure, can they escape with it alive?
With a new introduction by Sherri Crichton.
The Killing Room by Robert Swartwood
From USA Today bestselling author Robert Swartwood comes another bone-chilling thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
While on vacation in Las Vegas, a businessman wakes up in a strange hotel room to find a dead woman in the bathtub.
Panicked, he runs. But before he can get far, a pair of detectives stop him.
Desperate, he tells them that he’s innocent. That there’s no way he killed the woman. That he’ll do anything not to go to prison.
That’s when they offer him a way out.
But there is no way out — as the detectives will soon learn.
Perfect for fans of Lee Child, Michael Sloan, and Robert Crais, The Killing Room races readers from one revelation to the next at breathtaking speed.
Lunatic Carnival by D.W. Buffa
“D.W. Buffa has taken the legal thriller one step further – endowing it with an eerie and stylish noir sensibility…masterfully crafted and people with characters you won’t forget.” —Jonathan Kellerman
DW. Buffa’s first novel, The Defense, left the New York Times “wanting to go back to the beginning and read it again.” Lunatic Carnival, Buffa’s latest riveting and thought-provoking thriller, does that and more. In Lunatic Carnival, Buffa paints an unforgettable and timely portrait of an age in which nothing is thought more important than fame and money, a world in which immorality has become the trademark of success, and murder just another business decision.
A professional athlete, T.J. Allen, is charged with the murder of Matthew Stanton, the owner of the team. Antonelli agrees to take the case only after the trial court judge tells him that Allen is innocent and that “All of America contributed to the making of Matthew Stanton.” The evidence is firmly stacked against Allen: he was found standing over Stanton’s dead body, the murder weapon still in hand. The only way to prove Allen is innocent it is to find the real killer and their motive. Who had a reason to kill Matthew Stanton? What had he done, or what was he planning to do, that made the real killer think he had no choice? As Joseph Antonelli prepares for the most difficult case of his career, he will learn that the answer to that question will change not only the outcome of this trial, but could change the world as we know it.
D.W. Buffa’s novels have been “filled with remarkable prose and jaw-dropping suspense.” In Lunatic Carnival, a trial for murder becomes an indictment of a world gone mad in a compelling novel that will keep you in suspense until the very last page, and then, like only D.W. Buffa can do, it will make you want to go back to the beginning and read it all over again.
Tuesday, August 29th
The Blue Hour Sanction by Landon Beach
“With its gripping premise and non-stop action, The Blue Hour Sanction delivers a thrilling narrative that will captivate fans of both The Hunger Games and James Bond. Prepare for a wild ride through a world of deadly secrets and high-stakes missions—you’ll be hooked from the first page.”
—Andrew Watts, USA Today bestselling author of the Firewall Spies series
HOW DID A YOUNG WOMAN FROM A SMALL TOWN IN MICHIGAN BECOME THE MOST LETHAL ASSASSIN THAT THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN? YOU ARE ABOUT TO FIND OUT.
College heptathlete Margaret Crandall is invited to compete for a spot with a secret company to become an elite assassin. While still in the training pipeline, her mentor is murdered attempting to kill the billionaire shipping tycoon, Victor Lars Junius, who is a member of a global criminal empire and attempting to transform himself into the legendary actor Richard Burton.
As a result, Margaret is promoted and given a new name: Adrienne Astra.
Her first mission?
Sanction Junius.
However, a mole at the off-the-books company is already plotting Adrienne’s demise.
GET READY FOR AN ORIGIN STORY UNLIKE ANYTHING YOU HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED BEFORE.
If you like high-stakes espionage, action, and endings you won’t see coming, then you’ll love Landon Beach’s tense spy thriller.
Ricochet by Taylor Moore (Featured Selection)
DEA Special Agent Garrett Kohl and his CIA team embark on an off-the-books investigation and partner up with a ragtag crew of outcasts and outlaws to stop extortionists and dismantle their operation before complete devastation rains down in their Texas High Plains community in this pulse-pounding thriller for fans of C. J. Box.
After hunting down a rogue spy as part of an elite CIA counterespionage unit, Garrett Kohl returns home to Texas in hopes of settling down and carving out a normal life. While learning the ropes of fatherhood, falling deeper in love with his high school crush, and rebuilding his wildfire ravaged cattle ranch, he is approached in secret by an engineer working at a nearby nuclear weapons plant, who is in desperate need of his help. Utilizing a unique skill set—abilities Garrett has honed as a deep cover narcotics agent and former Green Beret—he embarks on an off-the-books investigation and learns that Iranian operatives are blackmailing weapons facility employees and potentially planning a devastating act of sabotage and destruction.
Already engaged in an intense shadow war with Tehran and their Quds Force spies, Garrett’s CIA team rallies to take down the extortionists and dismantle their operation. But before they can get their mission under way, enemy commandos hijack a train carrying nuclear weapons, and activate a lone wolf assassin to murder the visiting U.S. Secretary of Defense. Caught flatfooted by the sudden attack, Garrett musters the only help he can find—a ragtag crew of outcasts and outlaws, some of whom he’d once put behind bars. Although they’re from different walks of life, and opposite sides of the law, they hold in common the deep desire to protect their homes, their families, and their way of life on the remote, wild, and alluring Texas High Plains.
From TRBS: One of my favorite new authors, Taylor Moore burst onto the thriller scene back in 2021 with his commanding debut, Down Range, and hasn’t slowed since. Set in the Lone Star state, Garrett Kohl is a fantastic addition to the diverse stable of heroes operating in the genre today, and Moore uses him perfectly in Ricochet—a slam-bang, can’t-miss reading adventure that reminds everyone that everything really is bigger in Texas. Moore’s gonna be a star . . . if you aren’t already reading him, start.