From The Booking Desk:
We have a trio of domestic suspense titles this week. In a break from the norm, I have not yet read any of these books, but two of the authors are consistently excellent and the other is a buzz-worthy newcomer, so I feel confident in recommending these books all the same. It’s a mystery to me why some books are sent to me for review purposes and others are not, but the summer has been jam-packed with excellent new releases, so I wasn’t ever without reading material and I will get to these books in due course.
Alex Dahl – The Boy at the Door (Berkley, Paperback, $16.00, 07/24/2018)
BOLO Books Comments:
Domestic suspense + Scandinavian crime fiction = yes, please! I ordered the overseas version, which should arrive shortly.
Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):
Set against a stunning Scandinavian backdrop, a gritty novel of psychological suspense that asks the question how far would you go to hold onto what you have?
Cecilia Wilborg has it all–a loving husband, two beautiful daughters and a gorgeous home in the affluent Norwegian town of Sandefjord. And she works hard to keep it all together. Too hard. Because one mistake from her past could bring it all crashing down around her.
Annika Lucasson lives a dark life with her abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend. She’s lost everything one too many times and now she’s got one last chance to save herself, thanks to Cecilia. Annika knows her secret–and just how much she’s willing to do to make it all go away…
When someone forgets to pick up their little boy at the local pool, Cecilia agrees to take him home, only to find an abandoned, empty house. It’s the first step in the unraveling of her meticulously crafted life, as her and Annika’s worlds collide…
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Wendy Corsi Staub – Little Girl Lost (William Morrow, Paperback, $7.99, 07/24/2018)
BOLO Books Comments:
After completing her epic Mundy’s Landing trilogy, Wendy now launches a new limited series (The Foundlings Trilogy) – but again, events from the past are having ramifications years later. Wendy is one of the most prolific and consistent of our suspense novelists, so be sure to check out her work.
Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):
MAY, 1968
On a murky pre-dawn Mother’s Day, sinister secrets play out miles apart in New York City. In Harlem, a church janitor finds an innocent newborn in a basket. In Brooklyn, an elusive serial killer prowls slumbering families, leaving a trail of blood and a twisted calling card. Cloaked in lies, these seemingly unrelated lives—and deaths—are destined to intersect on a distant, blood-soaked day.
OCTOBER, 1987
Reeling from shocking personal discoveries, two strangers navigate a world where nothing is as it seems. Amelia Crenshaw embarks on a search to discover the truth about the birth mother who abandoned her, never suspecting she’s on a collision course with a killer. Detective Stockton Barnes, a brash young NYPD detective, trails a missing millionaire whose disappearance is rooted in a nightmare that began twenty years ago.
The past returns with a brutal vengeance as a masked predator picks off victims whose fates intertwine with a notorious murder spree solved back in ‘68—or was it?
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Linwood Barclay – A Noise Downstairs (William Morrow, Hardcover, $26.99, 07/24/2018)
BOLO Books Comments:
Linwood Barclay is one of the male authors writing domestic suspense. His ability to throw shocking events at everyday people is beyond compare. This new novel sounds downright creepy, so read with the lights one for sure.
Jacket Copy (Publisher’s Description):
The New York Times bestselling author of No Time for Goodbye returns with a haunting psychological thriller that blends the twists and turns of Gillian Flynn with the driving suspense of Harlan Coben, in which a man is troubled by odd sounds for which there is no rational explanation.
College professor Paul Davis is a normal guy with a normal life. Until, driving along a deserted road late one night, he surprises a murderer disposing of a couple of bodies. That’s when Paul’s “normal” existence is turned upside down. After nearly losing his own life in that encounter, he finds himself battling PTSD, depression, and severe problems at work. His wife, Charlotte, desperate to cheer him up, brings home a vintage typewriter—complete with ink ribbons and heavy round keys—to encourage him to get started on that novel he’s always intended to write.
However, the typewriter itself is a problem. Paul swears it’s possessed and types by itself at night. But only Paul can hear the noise coming from downstairs; Charlotte doesn’t hear a thing. And she worries he’s going off the rails.
Paul believes the typewriter is somehow connected to the murderer he discovered nearly a year ago. The killer had made his victims type apologies to him before ending their lives. Has another sick twist of fate entwined his life with the killer—could this be the same machine? Increasingly tormented but determined to discover the truth and confront his nightmare, Paul begins investigating the deaths himself.
But that may not be the best thing to do. Maybe Paul should just take the typewriter back to where his wife found it. Maybe he should stop asking questions and simply walk away while he can. . . .
