“The Good Samaritan” by John Marrs – Words of Despair

“The Good Samaritan” by John Marrs (Header image)

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Short Summary

John Marrs is a name most thriller fans are familiar with, having penned numerous bestsellers which still stand tall to this very day. In The Good Samaritan, one of his better-known works, he tells the story of Laura, a woman who abuses her position as a suicide hotline operator to push people over the edge. However, one man has seen beyond the veil, and is closing in on her sinister nature, unaware that she’ll do just about anything to stay in the shadows.

Read more …

“Rock of Ages” by Timothy Hallinan – Geriatric Boogaloo

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Short Summary

Timothy Hallinan has doubtlessly created one of the more unique investigators in Junior Bender, a man who generally serves the other side of the law. In Rock of Ages, Timothy Hallinan sends his protagonist on a weekend-long investigation for an old gangster, Irwin Dressler, who fears someone might be using the rock tour he put together as a front to steal his money.

Read more …

“The Housemaid’s Secret” by Freida McFadden – The Woman Behind Locked Doors

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Short Summary

Freida McFadden has made a lot of fans for herself when she published The Housemaid, and now she returns with a tour-de-force of a sequel, titled The Housemaid’s Secret. This time around, we follow Millie as she finds a job working for a wealthy man living in a stunning penthouse, with a permanently-locked door where his ill wife allegedly resides.

Read more …

“Verity” by Colleen Hoover – The Art of Manipulating the Truth

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Short Summary

Colleen Hoover has evidently more than enough talent to take forays outside her comfort zone in terms of genre, and her 2018 novel Verity stands as a testament to that. It tells us the story of Lowen Ashleigh, a struggling author who takes on a job to finish three books for another famous writer, now incapacitated following an accident. However, during the course of her work Lowen runs into an autobiography never meant to be read, opening a real Pandora’s Box of terrifying family secrets.

Read more …

“The Housemaid” by Freida McFadden – A Victim with Thorns

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Short Summary

Freida McFadden is a singular voice in the psychological thriller genre, able to concoct extravagant and offbeat scenarios almost faster than we can read them. In her latest offering, titled The Housemaid, she tells the story of Millie, a recently-paroled woman who takes on a live-in job out of pure necessity, in spite of the torment it might bring her. As the days go by her mistress seems to become increasingly unhinged, the strange occurrences multiply, and it seems to Millie as if she might have to bring her dark past back to life in order to survive the ordeal.

Read more …

“These Silent Woods” by Kimi Cunningham Grant – No One Runs Forever

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Short Summary

Kimi Cunningham Grant has found her entry into the club of noteworthy thriller writers when she published her first novel, and with These Silent Woods she further cements her foothold in the genre. It tells the story of a father living in the mountains with his daughter in near-complete isolation, until one day an unfortunate series of events leads the demons of his past right to their doorstep.

Read more …

“The 7 She Saw” by Elle Gray – A Sleeping Darkness

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Elle Gray has been dishing out novels at a record-setting pace since her entry onto the literary scene, and with the recent publication of The 7 She Saw, Gray began her second series, the Blake Wilder FBI Mystery Thriller books. The story introduces us to Wilder, an FBI agent tasked with investigating the murders of three women in Briar Glen, an affluent and idyllic coastal town in Washington.

Read more …

“The Last Flight” by Julie Clark – Strangers in Shackles

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Short Summary

Julie Clark has managed to shoot her way to literary stardom with only her second published novel, titled The Last Flight. In it, we are presented with the story of Claire, controlled and domineered by her powerful husband at every turn. She concocts a plan to escape, and through a strange twist of fate involving another woman named Eva, the world believes her dead, and she ends up having to live a new life under an assumed identity.

Read more …

“Home Before Dark” by Riley Sager – The Ghosts in the Walls

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Riley Sager has proven himself to be a new powerhouse in the thriller genre, having already penned numerous bestseller in the last few years. His latest novel, Home Before Dark, tells the story of a woman who returns to her childhood home, made famous in her father’s horror memoir. Things take a turn for the strange upon her return, and she begins to wonder if the place is truly haunted, or if something more sinister is afoot behind the old walls.

Read more …

“Street Music” by Timothy Hallinan – The End of the Line

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Timothy Hallinan has accomplished the great exploit of creating characters many of us have grown attached to over the years with his Poke Rafferty Thriller series, and in the ninth novel, titled Street Music, we’re finally reaching the terminal station. In this last outing of his, we witness Poke investigating into the disappearance of a cantankerous old gang member, all while contending with the puzzling trials of being a father and seeing his daughter maturing into a woman.

Read more …

“Last Night in Montreal” by Emily St. John Mandel – Searching for a Vanished Memory

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Emily St. John Mandel has made a splash with her recent novels, but the start of her career was no less impressive, when she published Last Night in Montreal. Following a woman by the name of Lilia Albert, we discover she was taken from her mother as a child and is left with no recollection of her childhood. Determined to somehow find it, she moves from one city to the next looking for any links, shadowed by a private detective… and after a long time searching, she’s on the cusp of making a discovery.

Read more …

“The Glass Hotel” by Emily St. John Mandel – From Swindlers to Ashes

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Emily St. John Mandel isn’t one to tread the simple path in her novels, often favouring layering her works in complexity, as she once again masterfully did in her latest novel, The Glass Hotel. Taking place in modern times, the book follows a sister and her half-brother as they find themselves caught up in a massive Ponzi scheme which ruined many lives, with far-reaching consequences they are both about to experience.

Read more …

“The Unrepentant” by E.A. Aymar – Nowhere to Run

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Short Summary

E.A. Aymar may not be a huge name in the literary crime genre, but he is certainly getting up there with his recent novel titled The Unrepentant. Following the eighteen-year-old Charlotte Reyes, we witness a story taking us to the darkest corners of the human mind as she is first forced to run, and then finally make a stand against the kidnappers relentlessly pursuing her, willing to take her in dead rather than alive.

Read more …

“The Turn of the Key” by Ruth Ware – The Imperfect Victim

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Ruth Ware‘s career may not have started long ago, but she has so far maintained a high standard for herself, one she does her absolute best to live up to in her fifth novel, The Turn of the Key. In it, we follow the story of Rowan Caine who took up a “too good to be true” nanny job at a luxurious estate, only to end up being accused of murdering a child. From her prison cell, she writes to her lawyer, trying to unravel to complexity of all she has been through, consistently adamant she is no killer… but then who is?

Read more …

“Nighttown” by Timothy Hallinan – The Great Doll Heist

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Short Summary

Timothy Hallinan has made Junior Bender into a real staple of the satirical thriller genre, and in Nighttown he embarks on yet another ridiculous adventure which begins with him breaking his most important rule: never accept a job which pays more than it’s worth. Hurting for cash as he is though, he accepts fifty thousand dollar mission to steal a doll from a deceased woman’s collection. Needless to say, he soon finds out he’s not the only one after whatever might be inside of it, and things start to get a bit too serious when an old friend of his ends up murdered.

Read more …

Exit mobile version