REVIEW: THE BANGKOK ASSET by John Burdett

Title: The Bangkok Asset
Author: John Burdett
Series: Sonchai Jitpleecheep 6
Genres: Mystery, Crime
Publisher: Knoph
Release: August 4th 2015
Source: ebook
Pages: 307

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BLURB:
Sonchai Jitpleecheep, John Burdett's tortured Buddhist detective of the Royal Thai Police Force, has thrilled and charmed readers through the author's five previous Bangkok novels. Now Sonchai's back, struggling to come to grips with the latest horrifying technological innovation to make its way to the streets of Bangkok. It's a conspiracy so big that everyone wants in on the action, not the least Sonchai's corrupt boss Vikorn.

In his latest case, Sonchai is paired with young, female inspector Krom. Like him, she's an outsider on the police force, but she is socially savyy and a technological prodigy. In the midst of a typhoon they witness a deadly demonstration of super-human strength from a man who is seemingly controlled by a CIA operative. Could the Americans really have figured out a way to create some sort of super-soldier who is both physically and psychologically enhanced? Are they testing it, or him, on Thai soil? And why is everyone, from the Bangkok police to the international community, so eager to turn a blind eye?

The case will take Sonchai to a hidden Cambodian jungle compound for aging American vets where he will discover exactly how far a government will go to protect its very worst secrets--both past and present. It is also a case that will shake Sonchai's world to its very foundation and may finally force him to confront his lost father.

 

REVIEW: VULTURE PEAK by John Burdett

Title: Vulture Peak
Author: John Burdett
Series: Sonchai Jitpleecheep 5
Genres: Mystery, Crime
Publisher: Knopf
Release: January 10th 2012
Source: ebook
Pages: 285

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BLURB:
Nobody knows Bangkok like Royal Thai Police Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, and there is no one quite like Sonchai: a police officer who has kept his Buddhist soul intact—more or less—despite the fact that his job shoves him face-to-face with some of the most vile and outrageous crimes and criminals in Bangkok. But for his newest assignment, everything he knows about his city—and himself—will be a mere starting point.

He’s put in charge of the highest-profile criminal case in Thailand—an attempt to bring an end to trafficking in human organs. He sets in motion a massive sting operation and stays at its center, traveling to Phuket, Hong Kong, Dubai, Shanghai, and Monte Carlo. He draws in a host of unwitting players that includes an aging rock star wearing out his second liver and the mysterious, diabolical, albeit gorgeous co-queenpins of the international body-parts trade: the Chinese twins known as the Vultures. And yet, it’s closer to home that Sonchai will discover things getting really dicey: rumors will reach him suggesting that his ex-prostitute wife, Chanya, is having an affair. Will Sonchai be enlightened enough—forget Buddha, think jealous husband—to cope with his very own compromised and compromising world?

All will be revealed here, in John Burdett’s most mordantly funny, propulsive, fiendishly entertaining novel yet.

 

REVIEW: PICNIC AT THE HANGING ROCK by Joan Lindsay

Title: Picnic at the Hanging Rock
Author:  Joan Lindsay
Series: -
Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Australian Classic
Publisher: Vintage
Release: July 2nd. 1998
Source: Kindle
Pages: 189

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BLURB: It was a cloudless summer day in the year nineteen hundred.

Everyone at Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock. After lunch, a group of three of the girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of Hanging Rock. Further, higher, till at last they disappeared.

They never returned.

Whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is fact or fiction the reader must decide for themselves.

REVIEW: THE THREE HARES by Geoffrey Simpson

Title: The Three Hares
Author: Geoffrey Simpson
Series: Bloodline #1
Genres: Mystery, YA
Publisher: Thewordverve inc
Release: June 1st, 2018
Source: ebook
Pages: 222

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BLURB: The Adventure of a Lifetime . . .

Ethan Drake is a living legend.
If only his late father had mentioned it.

Ethan and his friends decode a series of cryptic riddles from an ancient treasure map. Their discovery entangles them in a centuries-old struggle between warring secret societies.

It soon becomes clear that Ethan is not just an adventurous teen who accidentally stumbles upon a shadowy world.

He is a catalyst…
a spark which ignites the resurgence.

The Three Hares is a smart, twisty adventure mystery, one that will keep you reading until the remarkable end.

REVIEW: GHOSTMAN by Roger Hobbs

Title: Ghostman
Author: Roger Hobbs
Series: Jack White 1
Genres: Thriller, Crime, Mystery
Publisher: Corgi Books
Release: July 17th 2014
Source: ebook
Pages: 400

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BLURB: I make things disappear. It’s what I do. This time I'm tidying up the loose ends after a casino heist gone bad. The loose ends being a million cash. But I only have 48 hours, and there’s a guy out there who wants my head in a bag.

He'll have to find me first. They don’t call me the Ghostman for nothing...

REVIEW: BANGKOK HAUNTS by John Burdett

Title: Bangkok Haunts
Author: John Burdett
Series: Sonchai Jitpleecheep 3
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Crime
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Release: June 10th, 2008
Source: ebook
Pages: 368

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BLURB:
Sonchai Jitpleecheep, the devout Buddhist Royal Thai Police detective who led us through the best sellers Bangkok 8 and Bangkok Tattoo, returns in this blistering novel.

Sonchai has seen virtually everything on his beat in Bangkok's District 8, but nothing like the snuff film he's just been sent anonymously. Furiously fast-paced and laced through with an erotic ghost story that gives a new dark twist to the life of our hero, Bangkok Haunts more than lives up to the smart and darkly funny originality of its predecessors.

 

REVIEW: BANGKOK TATTOO by John Burdett

Title: Bangkok Tattoo
Author: John Burdett
Series: Sonchai Jitpleecheep 2
Genres: Crime, Thriller, Mystery
Publisher: Vintage Crime / Black Lizard
Release: July 11th, 2006
Source: ebook
Pages: 320

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BLURB:
Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep of the Royal Thai Police returns in his riveting and smokily atmospheric new thriller.A farang–a foreigner–has been murdered, his body horribly mutilated, at the Bangkok brothel co-owned by Sonchai’s mother and his boss. The dead man was a CIA agent. To make matters worse, the apparent culprit is sweet-natured Chanya, the brothel’s top earner and a woman whom the devoutly Buddhist sleuth has loved for several lifetimes. How can Sonchai solve this crime without sending Chanya to prison? How can he engage in a cover-up without endangering his karma? And how will he ever get to the bottom of a case whose interested parties include American spooks, Muslim fundamentalists, and gangsters from three countries? As addictive as opium, as hot as Sriracha chili sauce, and bursting with surprises, Bangkok Tattoo will leave its mark on you.

 

REVIEW: BIRD BOX by Josh Malerman

Title: Bird Box
Author:  Josh Malerman
Series: -
Genres: Horror, Thriller, Post Apocalypse
Publisher: Ecco
Release: 2014
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 262

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BLURB:
Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.

Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remains, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it's time to go, but the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat--blindfolded--with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster?

Interweaving past and present, Bird Box is a snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page. 

REVIEW: A WOMAN IN THE WINDOW by A.J. Finn

Title: A Woman in the Window
Author:  A.J. Finn
Series: -
Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Psychological
Publisher: William Morrow
Release: January 2nd 2018
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 427

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BLURB:
Anna Fox lives alone—a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors.

Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother, their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble—and its shocking secrets are laid bare.

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.

REVIEW: THE FIRE by Katherine Neville

POSSIBLE SPOILERS FROM BOOK #1
Title: The Fire
Author: Katherine Neville
Series: The Eight #2
Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: DeBolsillo
Release: (First published 2008)
Source: Paperback
Pages: 552

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BLURB: 2003, Colorado: Alexandra Solarin is summoned home to her family’s ancestral Rocky Mountain hideaway for her mother’s birthday. Thirty years ago, her parents, Cat Velis and Alexander Solarin, believed that they had scattered the pieces of the Montglane Service around the world, burying with them the secrets of the power that comes with possessing it. But Alexandra arrives to find that her mother is missing and that a series of strategically placed clues, followed swiftly by the unexpected arrival of a mysterious assortment of house guests, indicates that something sinister is afoot.
When she inadvertently discovers from her aunt, the chess grandmaster Lily Rad, that the most powerful piece of Charlemagne’s service has suddenly resurfaced and the Game has begun again, Alexandra is swept into a journey that takes her from Colorado to the Russian wilderness and at last into the heart of her own hometown: Washington, D.C.

1822, Albania: Thirty years after the French Revolution, when the chess service was unearthed, all of Europe hovers on the brink of the War of Greek Independence. Ali Pasha, the most powerful ruler in the Ottoman Empire, has angered the sultan and is about to be attacked by Turkish forces. Now he sends the only person he can rely upon—his young daughter, Haidee—on a dangerous mission to smuggle a valuable relic out of Albania, through the mountains and over the sea, to the hands of the one man who might be able to save it.

Haidee’s journey from Albania to Morocco to Rome to Greece, and into the very heart of the Game, will result in revelations about the powerful chess set and its history that will lead at last to the spot where the service was first created more than one thousand years before: Baghdad.

Blending exquisite prose and captivating history with nonstop suspense, Neville again weaves in this sequel to The Eight an unforgettable story of peril, action, and intrigue.

REVIEW: BANGKOK 8 by John Burdett

Title: Bangkok 8
Author: John Burdett
Series: Sonchai Jitpleecheep 1
Genres: Mystery, Crime, Thriller
Publisher: Vintage Crime / Black Lizard
Release: July 13th 2004
Source: eBook
Pages: 375

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BLURB:
A thriller with attitude to spare, Bangkok 8 is a sexy, razor-edged, often darkly hilarious novel set in one of the world’s most exotic cities.

Witnessed by a throng of gaping spectators, a charismatic Marine sergeant is murdered under a Bangkok bridge inside a bolted-shut Mercedes Benz. Among the witnesses are the only two cops in the city not on the take, but within moments one is murdered and his partner, Sonchai Jitpleecheep—a devout Buddhist and the son of a Thai bar girl and a long-gone Vietnam War G.I.—is hell-bent on wreaking revenge. On a vigilante mission to capture his partner’s murderer, Sonchai is begrudgingly paired with a beautiful FBI agent named Jones and captures her heart in the process. In a city fueled by illicit drugs and infinite corruption, prostitution and priceless art, Sonchai’s quest for vengeance takes him into a world much more sinister than he could have ever imagined.

 

REVIEW: BEHIND HER EYES by Sarah Pinborough

Title: Behind her Eyes
Author:  Sarah Pinborough
Series: -
Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Paranormal
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Release: January 31st 2017
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 307

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BLURB:
Louise is a single mom, a secretary, stuck in a modern-day rut. On a rare night out, she meets a man in a bar and sparks fly. Though he leaves after they kiss, she’s thrilled she finally connected with someone.

When Louise arrives at work on Monday, she meets her new boss, David. The man from the bar. The very married man from the bar…who says the kiss was a terrible mistake but who still can’t keep his eyes off Louise.

And then Louise bumps into Adele, who’s new to town and in need of a friend, but she also just happens to be married to David. David and Adele look like the picture-perfect husband and wife, but then why is David so controlling, and why is Adele so scared of him?

As Louise is drawn into David and Adele’s orbit, she uncovers more puzzling questions than answers. The only thing that is crystal clear is that something in this marriage is very, very wrong, but Louise can’t guess how wrong―and how far a person might go to protect their marriage’s secrets.

REVIEW: THE EIGHT by Katherine Neville

Title: The Eight
Author: Katherine Neville
Series: The Eight #1
Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Ediciones B
Release: (First published 1988)
Source: Paperback
Pages: 864

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BLURB: The riveting #1 international bestselling novel about the quest across centuries by two intrepid women in different eras to reunite the pieces of a powerful, ancient chess set

A fabulous, bejeweled chess set that belonged to Charlemagne has been buried in a Pyrenees abbey for a thousand years. As the bloody French Revolution rages in Paris, the nuns dig it up and scatter its pieces across the globe because, when united, the set contains a secret power that could topple civilizations. To keep the set from falling into the wrong hands, two novices, Valentine and Mireille, embark on an adventure that begins in the streets of Paris and leads to Russia, Egypt, Corsica, and into the heart of the Algerian Sahara.

Two hundred years later, while on assignment in Algeria, computer expert Catherine Velis finds herself drawn unwillingly into the deadly “Game” still swirling around the legendary chess set—a game that will require her to risk her life and match wits with diabolical forces.

REVIEW: A LINE IN THE DARK by Malinda Lo

Title: A Line in the Dark
Author:  Malinda Lo
Series: -
Genres: YA, LGBT, Romance
Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers
Release: October 17th 2017
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 288

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BLURB:
Jess Wong is Angie Redmond’s best friend. And that’s the most important thing, even if Angie can’t see how Jess truly feels. Being the girl no one quite notices is OK with Jess anyway. While nobody notices her, she’s free to watch everyone else. But when Angie begins to fall for Margot Adams, a girl from the nearby boarding school, Jess can see it coming a mile away. Suddenly her powers of observation are more curse than gift.

As Angie drags Jess further into Margot’s circle, Jess discovers more than her friend’s growing crush. Secrets and cruelty lie just beneath the carefree surface of this world of wealth and privilege, and when they come out, Jess knows Angie won’t be able to handle the consequences.

When the inevitable darkness finally descends, Angie will need her best friend.

“It doesn’t even matter that she probably doesn’t understand how much she means to me. It’s purer this way. She can take whatever she wants from me, whenever she wants it, because I’m her best friend.”

A Line in the Dark is a story of love, loyalty, and murder.

REVIEWS: LULLABY by Leila Slimani and FRENCH GIRL by Lexie Elliott

SPOILER FREE REVIEWS

SPOILER REVIEWS

REVIEW: THE THIRTEENTH TALE by Diane Setterfield

Title: The Thirteenth Tale
Author: Diane Setterfield
Series: -
Genres:Mystery, Horror, Thriller, Gothic
Publisher: Atria Books
Release: September 12th, 2006
Source: Paperback
Pages: 406

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BLURB:

All children mythologize their birth...So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and enchantment of the twelve that do exist.

The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself -- all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.

As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire.

Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.

The Thirteenth Tale is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.

 

REVIEW: REAL MURDERS by Charlaine Harris

Title: Real Murders
Author:  Charlaine Harris
Series: Aurora Teagarden #1
Genres: Mystery, Crime
Publisher: Walker & Company
Release: 1990
Source: Paperback
Pages: 175

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BLURB:
Though a small town at heart, Lawrenceton, Georgia, has its dark side-and crime buffs. One of whom is librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden, a member of the Real Murders Club, which meets once a month to analyze famous cases. It's a harmless pastime—until the night she finds a member killed in a manner that eerily resembles the crime the club was about to discuss. And as other brutal "copycat" killings follow, Roe will have to uncover the person behind the terrifying game, one that casts all the members of Real Murders, herself included, as prime suspects-or potential victims. 

REVIEW: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Stieg Larsson

Title: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Author: Stieg Larsson
Series: Millennium #1
Genres: Mystery, Fiction
Publisher: Norstedt
Release: August 2005
Source: Kindle Edition
Pages: 658

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BLURB: Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch—and there’s always a catch—is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson’s novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don’t want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo.

REVIEW: THE POSSIBLE by Tara Altebranto

Title: The Possible
Author: Tara Altebranto
Series: -
Genres: YA, Mystery
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Release: June 6th 2017
Source: eBook
Pages: 304

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BLURB:
Some storms rage from within.

What if…a teenage girl could move objects with her mind?

What if…someone turns up at her door asking questions she doesn’t want to answer?

Kaylee lives a normal life with her adoptive parents, and almost never thinks of her birth mother, Crystal, who is serving a life sentence in prison. But the woman at the front door is producing a podcast about Crystal that is about to blow Kaylee’s forgotten past wide open.

What if strange things have been happening Kaylee’s entire life, things she could not explain? What if she’s more like her mother than she ever imagined?

What if the podcast is about to put her on a collision course with Crystal—and her darkest self?

REVIEW: DOCTOR SLEEP by Stephen King

Title: Doctor Sleep
Author: Stephen King
Series: The Shining #2
Genres: Horror, Mystery
Publisher: Scribner
Release: 2013
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 531

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BLURB:
Stephen King returns to the characters and territory of one of his most popular novels ever, The Shining, in this instantly riveting novel about the now middle-aged Dan Torrance (the boy protagonist of The Shining) and the very special 12-year-old girl he must save from a tribe of murderous paranormals.

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless - mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky 12-year-old Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the "steam" that children with the "shining" produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father's legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant "shining" power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes "Doctor Sleep."

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan's own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra's soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of hyper-devoted fans of The Shining and wildly satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.