Psychological

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Ruth Ware is capable like very few others of weaving together complex, somber and wholesome murder mysteries reminiscent of the Agatha Christie days. After writing numerous bestsellers which are now being made into movies, she continues her body of work with The Death of Mrs. Westaway , following a professional tarot reader, Harriet Westway. One day she inherits a fortune from a recently deceased woman, seemingly by total error. Upon arriving at the funeral however, it dawns on her something might be terribly wrong and rotten in this situation.

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Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Life seldom gives us what we want, and when it does it seems there is always some sort of perversion attached to the deal. In Saigon Dark, Elka Ray shows us just how curious the unexpected twists of fate can be as we are presented with Lily Vo, a young single mother of a boy and a girl living in Saigon. On a tragic night, her infant daughter wanders off into the backyard and drowns in the small pond. Desperate, in shock and grief, Lily decides to bury her daughter on her own, and at that moment fate throws the most unexpected wrench in her plans as she ends up taking in the abused infant daughter of her neighbours, marking the beginning of her painful odyssey.

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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Chris Bohjalian knows how to use the thrill of mystery to its fullest and puts his talent to use in The Flight Attendant. A riveting novel largely set in the world located forty thousand feet above the ground, it follows the titular attendant, Cassandra Bowden, as she wakes up in a Dubai hotel room with no recollection of what happened… a situation made far worse by the dead man laying besides her. As the web of lies she weaves chokes her tighter and tighter, it becomes obvious that only facing the truth will bring peace to anyone.

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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Short Summary

Timothy Hallinan has proven himself to be one of the most creative and entertaining writers today, with his ability to infuse side-splitting humour with profound mysteries. In Fields Where They Lay he takes us inside the rather dysfunctional Edgerton Mall where our hero, Junior Bender, a burglar extraordinaire, has been hired by the homicidal Russian mobster owner of the place to put a stop to the shoplifting problem. Unfortunately, when dead bodies start popping up one after the next, the whole thing turns into a murder mystery rather than routine crime prevention.

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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Short Summary

Timothy Hallinan takes us back into the beautiful, mysterious and sometimes seedy land of Bangkok in Thailand, following once again the rather difficult adventures of Poke Rafferty, a man whose name is the least strange part of his life. In Fools’ River, Poke finds himself in a race against time as it becomes apparent that the father of his daughter’s boyfriend, Buddy, has been kidnapped by a pair of killers who are now bleeding him dry of all his money, eventually preparing to kill him like they have so many others… but in a place like Bangkok, finding such people can be like looking for the right needle in a haystack full of them.

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Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Short Summary

Robert Harris takes us behind closed doors into the secretive world of the Church as we follow the thrilling proceedings of 118 cardinals who must elect a new pope after the last one’s death, all while being completely sequestered from the outside world. However, the minds of men are easily distracted and corrupted by other worldly pursuits, and this most holy election turns more and more into a contest of cunning and intelligence. These men of God are, after all, nothing but men, and while the allure of power may drive a few to self-discovery and enlightenment, there are many who become dangerously corrupted by it.

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