Easy Innocence by Libby Fischer Hellmann

Easy Innocence by Libby Fischer Hellmann

Synopsis

When pretty, smart Sara Long is found bludgeoned to death, it's easy to blame the man with the bat. But Georgia Davis — former cop and newly-minted PI — is hired to look into the incident at the behest of the accused's sister, and what she finds hints at a much different, much darker answer. It seems the privileged, preppy schoolgirls on Chicago's North Shore have learned just how much their innocence is worth to hot-under-the-collar businessmen. But while these girls can pay for Prada pricetags, they don't realize that their new business venture may end up costing them more than they can afford... Libby Fischer Hellmann writes the award-winning suspense series featuring video producer and single mother Ellie Forman. She's recently edited the successful anthology Chicago Blues.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Newly minted PI is tasked to absolve a mentally challenged suspect charged of brutally killing a teenager. Teenage prostitution, conspiracy and intrigue are laid bare as the PI, Georgia Davis unravels the thread running through the characters.

Walking Dead by Greg Rucka

Walking Dead by Greg Rucka

Synopsis

In this explosive new thriller, Greg Rucka, the acclaimed author of Shooting at Midnight and Patriot Acts, sets bodyguard-turned-international-fugitive Atticus Kodiak on a one-man crusade where being willing to die for your ideals isn’t enough. You have to be willing to do much worse.…

I will take your place in times of danger.

As an ex-bodyguard, Atticus Kodiak knew the sentiment well. He’d once based his career on it. Now it could cost him more than just his livelihood—more than even his life. For as he wakes to the sound of gunfire, the nightmare is about to begin again.

Atticus knew very well that people came to a place like Kobuleti to hide. After all, that’s why he and Alena Cizkova had come to the secluded Georgian town in the former U.S.S.R. But Atticus never asked his friend and neighbor Bakhar Lagidze why he was in Kobuleti or what he might be hiding from. Now it’s too late. Bakhar and his family have been brutally murdered, and the thuggish local police chief has declared it a murder-suicide. Everyone—even Alena—seems satisfied to leave it at that.

Except for Atticus.

He knows what the police won’t acknowledge: that one person survived the bloodbath in the Lagidze household—their fourteen-year-old daughter. And the nightmare she’s about to experience will make her wish she’d died with the rest.

To rescue her Atticus must enter a web that takes him from Russia to Istanbul, that stretches from Dubai to Las Vegas. But what troubles Atticus the most is that Alena—once one of the world’s most dangerous assassinsand a woman who fears nothing—is clearly terrified of what he’s uncovered. And as Atticus gets closer to learning why, the closer he gets to destroying the life they have made, and each other.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Living incognito, Atticus gets close to his neighbors's family only to find that they are on the run from Russian mafia. Brutal revenge and ruthless killing follows ATticus as he goes on the quest to rescue his neighbor's orphan daughter sold into slavery.

Runner by Thomas Perry

Runner by Thomas Perry

Synopsis

Jane Whitefield—New York Times best-selling writer Thomas Perry’s most popular character—returns from retirement to the world of the runner, guiding fugitives out of danger. After a nine-year absence, the fiercely resourceful Native American guide Jane Whitefield is back, in the latest superb thriller by award-winning author Thomas Perry. For more than a decade, Jane pursued her unusual profession: “I’m a guide . . . I show people how to go from places where somebody is trying to kill them to other places where nobody is." Then she promised her husband she would never work again, and settled in to live a happy, quiet life as Jane McKinnon, the wife of a surgeon in Amherst, New York. But when a bomb goes off in the middle of a hospital fundraiser, Jane finds herself face to face with the cause of the explosion: a young pregnant girl who has been tracked across the country by a team of hired hunters. That night, regardless of what she wants or the vow she’s made to her husband, Jane must come back to transform one more victim into a runner. And her quest for safety sets in motion a mission that will be a rescue operation—or a chance for revenge. Runner is Thomas Perry at the top of his form.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Girl on the run from vicious husband and misguided in-laws comes to Jane Whitefield for help.

Lost Witness by Robert Ellis

Lost Witness by Robert Ellis

Synopsis

Detective Lena Gamble returns in Ellis’s follow-up, a cop held in disgrace by PD higher ups for the explosive way the Romeo case played out, but hailed as a hero by her colleagues for catching the killer. For her punishment, she hasn't handled a real murder investigation in eight months. When the chief finally tosses her a case, she’s thrilled until she realizes he’s probably setting her up for another public fall. The victim is unidentified, there are no witnesses, and no leads. Just the body, chopped into pieces and dropped in a Dumpster—gruesome enough to ensure that once again, the media will be following Lena’s every move.
Robert Ellis delivers another high-speed, commercial, puzzling read, featuring one of the most intense and vivid police characters on the shelf today.

⇒ Via: BN.com

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Night Work by Steve Hamilton

Night Work by Steve Hamilton

Synopsis

Joe Trumbull is not a man who scares easily. As a juvenile probation officer in Kingston, New York, he's half cop, half social worker to the most high-risk youth in the city. And when he's not pounding the streets, trying to keep his kids out of jail, he's pounding a heavy bag in the gym to stay in shape.

But tonight Joe Trumbull is scared to death.

It's been two years since his fiancée, Laurel, was brutally murdered. Two years of grief and loneliness. On this hot summer night, he's finally going out on a blind date, his first date since Laurel's death. He's not looking for love, just testing the waters to see if it's possible to live a normal life again. The thought of it is turning his knees to jelly.

Marlene Frost is a beautiful woman. She's warm and funny, with a smile to match. After the first awkward minutes, Joe finally starts to think this isn't such a bad idea after all. In fact, maybe this blind date will turn out to be one of the best things that ever happened to him.

He couldn't be more wrong. Because somehow, for reasons Joe can barely understand, this one evening will mark the beginning of a new nightmare. A nightmare that will lead him to the faceless man in the shadows....

⇒ Via: BN.com

Parole officer finds himself under scrutiny after close acquaintances get murdered.

Blood Is the Sky by Steve Hamilton

Blood Is the Sky by Steve Hamilton

Synopsis

When a fire is done, what's left is only half-destroyed. It is charred and brittle. It is obscene. There is nothing so ugly in all the world as what a fire leaves behind, covered in ashes and smoke and a smell you'll think about every day for the rest of your life.

Reluctant investigator Alex McKnight finds himself drawn by friendship into a long drive north. The brother of Alex's longtime Ojibwa friend Vinnie LeBlanc works as a hunting guide, serving the rich clients from downstate. It seems that Vinnie's brother and his most recent group of hunters have vanished in northern Ontario, and Vinnie is scared enough to ask Alex to help him find them.

Their arrival sets in motion a heart-pounding string of events that leaves Alex and his friend miles from civilization, stranded in the heart of the Canadian wilderness with no food, no weapons -and no way out. And there's someone out there who definitely does not want them to make it back alive.

At once elegant and enormously suspenseful, Steve Hamilton's Blood Is the Sky heralds his arrival as one of the premier crime writers working today.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Private Investigator is pulled into a murder invertigation when his friend's brother goes missing on an hunting trip.

Mixed Blood: A Thriller by Roger Smith

Mixed Blood: A Thriller by Roger Smith

Publishers Weekly

Screenwriter Smith offers a gritty tale of corruption and vengeance set in South Africa in his absorbing debut. On the verge of financial ruin, American Jack Burn, a security specialist, reluctantly joined a bank robbery plot that he hoped would save his family from disaster. The scheme ended badly, with most of his accomplices dead, along with a policeman, turning Burn, who made off with millions, into a wanted fugitive. Under a new identity, Burn has succeeded in making a new life with his wife and four-year-old son in Cape Town, South Africa. Their tenuous stability ends after two meth-heads invade the Burnses' home and threaten violence. While Jack manages to kill the intruders and dispose of the bodies, the incident draws the unwelcome attention of Insp. Rudi Barnard, a dirty cop who rules the area known as Cape Flats. The grim denouement may not satisfy all readers, but Smith's taut prose bodes well for future thrillers from his pen. Author tour. (Feb.)

⇒ Via: BN.com

American fugitive on the run with his wife and child finds himself facing the raw underbelly of Cape Town. Drug dealers, corrupt cops and addicts form a tale of twists and turns that make you sympathize with the plight of the main characters.

Killing of the Tinkers by Ken Bruen

Killing of the Tinkers by Ken Bruen

Synopsis

When Jack Taylor blew town at the end of The Guards his alcoholism was a distant memory and sober dreams of a new life in London were shining in his eyes. In the opening pages of The Killing of the Tinkers, Jack's back in Galway a year later with a new leather jacket on his back, a pack of smokes in his pocket, a few grams of coke in his waistband, and a pint of Guinness on his mind. So much for new beginnings.

Before long he's sunk into his old patterns, lifting his head from the bar only every few days, appraising his surroundings for mere minutes and then descending deep into the alcoholic, drug-induced fugue he prefers to the real world. But a big gypsy walks into the bar one day during a moment of Jack's clarity and changes all that with a simple request. Jack knows the look in this man's eyes, a look of hopelessness mixed with resolve topped off with a quietly simmering rage; he's seen it in the mirror. Recognizing a kindred soul, Jack agrees to help him, knowing but not admitting that getting involved is going to lead to more bad than good. But in Jack Taylor's world bad and good are part and parcel of the same lost cause, and besides, no one ever accused Jack of having good sense.

Ken Bruen wowed critics and readers alike when he introduced Jack Taylor in The Guards; he'll blow them away with The Killing of the Tinkers, a novel of gritty brilliance that cements Bruen's place among the greats of modern crime fiction.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Jack Taylor returns to his old hauting grounds to be immediately hired by a band of Irish gypsies (Tinkers) who want to get behind who is killing off their kind.

Cold Hit by Stephen J. Cannell

Cold Hit by Stephen J. Cannell

Synopsis

BETWEEN A COLD WAR
Shane Scully has found his footing while his partner is going down in flames and a serial murderer rattles L.A.. Each corpse has been mysteriously defiled. Then, in the middle of the hunt, Scully gets an idea that may cost him his life.

AND COLD, HARD TRUTHS...
Scully suspects that someone with inside information has neatly “hidden” one murder inside this messy serial killer case. His copycat theory ignites a crossfire between LAPD and the Feds.

IS A WHITE-HOT CASE OF MURDER.
Now Scully knows he has a ten-year-old cop-killing to clear, while two street-smart detectives lead him into a secret world of international espionage and a powerful counter-terrorism chief from the top of the U.S. government warns him away. To do his job, Scully must risk everything—unraveling the mystery of a Cold War act of betrayal, a brutal street crime, and a killer just waiting to hit again...

“As the case spirals outward from local crime to international espionage dating back to the 1980s, the action rarely lets up. When it does, we’re reintroduced to the back story that is one of the pleasures of reading the Scully series.”—Los Angeles Times

⇒ Via: BN.com

A LA detective finds that a serial killer investigation morphs into a national conspiracy involving FBI agents.

The Druperman Tapes by John Goodger

The Druperman Tapes by John Goodger

Synopsis

"Emmett Druperman, the CEO of the Galaxy Hotel and Casino and the head of a secret cooperative of the most powerful casinos in Las Vegas, has received a videotape threatening violence against the cooperative's casinos unless a ransom is paid. The criminals identify themselves only by a code name." "Furious and ready for a fight, the ruthless Druperman calls in Steve Forrester, the head of the Galaxy's security team and an ex-Las Vegas cop, to find out who the criminals are - and to stop them. Forrester must now rely on the best cop he knows, his ex-partner, Frank Marshall. Unfortunately, Marshall has a drinking problem and a problem with Forrester - he hates his guts." "When the cooperative refuses to pay the ransom, the criminals go ahead with their violent plans and raise the stakes again. Banded together by greed and pulled apart by egos, the deadly group is surprisingly made up of only three small-time thieves - the glamorous, sophisticated casino grafter Dan Shiller, the mathematical genius and blackjack card counter Jurgen Voss, and the sadistic security guard Buster Malloy. Their plan is flawless - if they can only hold themselves together." As the vicious team puts together their final horrendous plan, the Las Vegas police, Forrester and Forrester's new girlfriend, Lucy Baker, scramble to stop them from killing thousands of innocent people.

⇒ Via: BN.com

A Las Vegas noir about three small time crooks who take a Casino boss for a hustle of a lifetime.

Peril by Thomas H. Cook

Peril by Thomas H. Cook

Synopsis

"Sara Labriola is a married woman haunted by the shattering secrets of her past - and terrified of the future. Tired of living in fear, Sara decides to do the only thing she can: she makes herself disappear." "On the sultry, seductive streets of New York City, Sara will reinvent herself. She will change her identity, and maybe even get the happy ending she's always dreamed of." But six desperate and dangerous men - each with the power to destroy her - are on Sara's trail. And none of them suspect that the woman they are seeking has a dangerous secret of her own. For Sara is leading all of them down a path of private demons, past sins...and the deadliest peril.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Afallen PI, manhunter and a disillusioned barkeep save a woman on the run from clutches of her mafioso Father-in-law.

Night of Thunder by Stephen Hunter

Night of Thunder by Stephen Hunter

Synopsis

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR STEPHEN HUNTER RETURNS WITH HIS MOST RIVETING BOB LEE SWAGGER VOLUME TO DATE.

Talk about a ride!

Woe unto he who crosses Bob Lee Swagger, especially when his daughter's life is at stake. Forced off the road and into a crash that leaves her in a coma, clinging to life, reporter Nikki Swagger had begun to peel back the onion of a Southernfried conspiracy bubbling with all the angst, resentment, and dysfunction that Dixie gangsters can muster. An ancient, violent crime clan, a possibly corrupt law enforcement structure, gunmen of all stripes and shapes, and deranged evangelicals rear their ugly heads and will live to rue the day they targeted the wrong man's daughter. It's what you call your big-time bad career move. All of it is set against the backdrop of excitement and insanity that only a weeklong NASCAR event can bring to the backwoods of a town as seemingly sleepy as Bristol, Tennessee.

A master at the top of his game, Hunter provides a host of thrilling new reasons to read as fast as we can. When Swagger picks up peeling where his daughter left off, and his swift sword of justice is let loose, we find a true American hero in his most stunning action to date. And — in the form of Brother Richard, a self-decreed "Sinnerman" out of the old fire-and-brimstone tradition — Hunter offers up his most diabolical, engaging villain yet. A triumph of story, character, and style, Night of Thunder is Stephen Hunter at his very best.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Swagger breaks a Christian fundamentalist crime ring in backwoods of Arkansas when his daughter stumbles into the conspiracy and is attacked.

The Labrador Pact by Matt Haig

The Labrador Pact by Matt Haig

The Barnes & Noble Review

All roads lead to Shakespeare for Matt Haig, which turns out to be a good thing. There’s no one quite like the Bard for barging head-first into a tale of death, desperation, and betrayal, and wringing out some laughs along the way. No flinching, no sentimental sap, no turning back.

That’s how Haig played it in his weird and wonderful debut novel, The Dead Father’s Club, a modern re-working of Hamlet, and that’s how he hands us The Labrador Pact, an offbeat look at domestic life through the eyes -- and voice -- of the family dog.

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Offbeat story of trials and tribulations endured by a family as seen from the eyes of a dog. Cute and whimsical narration make this a an endearing read.

Sacrifice by S. J. Bolton

Sacrifice by S. J. Bolton

Synopsis

You’re born. You live. They die.

Moving to remote Shetland has been unsettling enough for consultant surgeon Tora Hamilton; even before the gruesome discovery she makes one rain-drenched afternoon…Deep in the peat soil of her field she is shocked to find the perfectly preserved body of a young woman, a gaping hole where her heart has been brutally removed and three rune marks etched into her skin.

The marks bear an eerie resemblance to carvings Tora has seen all over the islands, and she quickly uncovers disturbing links to an ancient legend. But as Tora investigates she is warned by the local police, her boss, and even her husband, to leave well alone.

And even though it chills her to the bone to admit it…something tells her their concern isn’t genuine.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Obstetrician
moves to remote Scottish islands to live in relative peace and quiet until it is shattered by discovery of a mutilated body of a woman on her property. Gripping debut by the author who weaves a tale of deception and intrigue around a long lost legend in Scottish islands.

Crosshairs (Lee Henry Oswald Mysteries Series) by Harry Hunsicker

Crosshairs by Harry Hunsicker

Synopsis

Hard-nosed Dallas detective Lee Henry Oswald is back...and he’s better than ever.

All he wants is to be left alone, a normal existence away from the assorted creeps and lowlifes inherent to his former profession as a private investigator. Unfortunately, peace and solitude are hard to find for Lee Oswald, a battle-hardened veteran of the first Gulf War, now weary after a decade as the fix-it man of last resort on the back streets of Dallas.

But when internationally-renowned medical researcher Anita Nazari begs him to help find the person threatening her daughter’s life, Oswald reluctantly returns to the shadowy world he’s tried so hard to leave behind. Once there, he finds himself engaged in a high stakes battle against a man known only as the Professor, a former intelligence operative intent on destroying the results of the doctor’s latest research, a seemingly innocuous discovery about the mystery illness dubbed the Gulf War Syndrome.

The retired agent leads Oswald on a deadly search for the one man who can identify him and thus unravel a conspiracy of shady former government officials with an unhealthy interest in Dr. Nazari and her work. When Oswald locates the missing witness and learns the startling information the man possesses, Oswald places his allegiance with the truth, as he fights back against an enemy more insidious and deadly than he’s ever faced.

Gritty, tough, and smart, Hunsicker’s tightly-wrapped thriller will leave you breathless long after the final page.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Dallas detective is called upon by a researcher to help her when she is threatened by an unknown attacker. Corporate and government intrigue involving drugs and veterans stars as a backdrop to this whodunit.

A Hard Ticket Home by David Housewright

A Hard Ticket Home by David Housewright

Synopsis

Ex-St. Paul cop Rushmore McKenzie has more time, and more money, than he knows what to do with. In fact, when he's willing to admit it to himself (and he usually isn't), Mac is downright bored. Until he decides to do a favor for a friend facing a family tragedy: Nine-year-old Stacy Carlson has been diagnosed with leukemia, and the only one with the matching bone marrow that can save her is her older sister, Jamie. Trouble is, Jamie ran away from home years ago.

Mac begins combing the backstreets of the Twin Cities, tracking down Jamie's last known associates. He starts with the expected pimps and drug dealers, but the path leads surprisingly to some of the Cities' most respected businessmen, as well as a few characters far more unsavory than the street hustlers he anticipated. As bullets fly and bodies drop, Mac persists, only to find that what he's looking for, and why, are not exactly what he'd imagined.

David Housewright's uncanny ability to turn the Twin Cities into an exotic, brooding backdrop for noir fiction, and his winning, witty hero Rushmore McKenzie, serve as a wicked one-two punch in A Hard Ticket Home, a series debut that reinforces Housewright's well-earned reputation as one of crime fiction's rising stars.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Ex-cop turned PI gets an assignment to track down a runaway but finds himself embroiled in murder and double cross.

Small Crimes by Dave Zeltserman

Small Crimes by Dave Zeltserman

Synopsis

"Unputdownable. Classic noir, dark, funny, shocking and absolutely no compromise. Pure magic of the blackest kind."-Ken Bruen

"A superbly crafted tale. Like the very best of modern noir, this is a story told in shades of grey. This deserves to be massive."-Allan Guthrie

"Zeltserman delves deeply into his specialty, an unorthodox look at the criminal mind. It kept me turning pages and glancing over my shoulder."-Vicki Hendricks

Crooked cop Joe Denton gets out of prison early after disfiguring the local district attorney, which doesn't help his popularity. Nobody wants Joe to hang around-not his ex-wife, his parents, or his former colleagues. Meanwhile, local mafia don Manny Vassey is dying of cancer and keen to cut a deal with God. He's thinking of singing to the DA if this will set him up for a better after life. And he knows stuff that will send Joe down again for a very long time-along with half the local law enforcement.

Set in the pressure cooker of a very small town and following the promise of Dave Zeltersman's earlier novels (Fast Lane and Bad Thoughts), Small Crimes is an explosive noir that brings the claustrophobic hell of Jim Thompson and James M. Cain right up to date.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Crime noir debut by the author in this gripping story about a fallen cop in a small town who is ostracised by the community, family and friends upon his release from prison.

Red Knife (Cork O'Connor Series #8) by William Kent Krueger

Red Knife by William Kent Krueger

Synopsis

The newest book in William Kent Krueger's award-winning Corcoran O'Connor series finds the charismatic private investigator caught in the middle of a racial gang war that's turning picturesque Tamarack County, Minnesota, into a bloody battlefield.

When the daughter of a powerful businessman dies as a result of her meth addiction, her father, strong-willed and brutal Buck Reinhardt, vows revenge. His target is the Red Boyz, a gang of Ojibwe youths accused of supplying the girl's fatal drug dose. When the head of the Red Boyz and his wife are murdered in a way that suggests execution, the Ojibwe gang mobilizes, and the citizens of Tamarack County brace themselves for war, white against red.

Both sides look to Cork O'Connor, a man of mixed heritage, to uncover the truth behind the murders. A former sheriff, Cork has lived, fought, and nearly died to keep the small-town streets and his family safe from harm. He knows that violence is never a virtue, but he believes that it's sometimes a necessary response to the evil that men do. Racing to find answers before the bloodshed spreads, Cork himself becomes involved in the darkest of deeds. As the unspeakable unfolds in the remote and beautiful place he calls home, Cork is forced to confront the horrific truth: Violence is a beast that cannot be contained.

In Red Knife, Krueger gives his readers a vivid picture of racial conflict in small-town America, as well as a sensitive look at the secrets we keep from even those closest to us and the destructive nature of all that is left unsaid between fathers and sons, husbands and wives, friends and lovers.

⇒ Via: BN.com

An insipid story of small town clashes between whites and indians. Preachy and bland , trying to run with many sub plots.

The Assassin by Stephen Coonts

The Assassin by Stephen Coonts

Synopsis

A tale of deadly international conspiracy and nonstop action from perennial bestselling author Stephen Coonts

⇒ Via: BN.com

Group of well heeled do gooders finance a global hunt for an Islamic terrorist, find themselves on the run when this is leaked to the terrorist. Lack lustre, insipid.

Quiver by Peter Leonard

Quiver by Peter Leonard

Synopsis

QUIVER is the razor sharp debut from one of the most riveting new voices in crime fiction today--a superbly crafted thriller from the son of the grandmaster of mysteries
Publishers Weekly

Leonard begins his short debut novel with several disparate sequences that, being exposition, don't give reader Scott Sowers much to work with. A new widow recalls telling her husband of her violent escape from eastern Guatemala. A convict gets an early release from an Arizona prison. The widow's memory shifts to her son accidentally killing his father with a bow and arrow. Three sociopaths engage in various criminal activities. Not only are these story shards confusing, the characters are not very engaging, the one exception being a jive-talking, ultra-cool villain named Dejuan, whom Sowers smartly mines for all his much-needed sinister dark humor. Eventually the elements coalesce into a tense kidnap thriller that Sowers delivers with effective energy and pacing. The package includes a conversation between the author and his father, Elmore Leonard, who discusses his famous "10 Rules of Good Writing." Peter should have paid more attention to the one about leaving out the parts that readers tend to skip. A St. Martin's Minotaur hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 10). (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

⇒ Via: BN.com

Debut novel by Peter Leonard (son of Elmore Leonard) about a widow who is targetted for a con by her ex.