Thriller Book Reviews

A NY detective falls from grace into the crosshairs of a deadly conspiracy in Rats in a Maze by Peter Bailey, a disturbing and timely thriller.

Ray Fisher is the grizzled detective at the center of this story, a man bearing the immense weight of his own sins and self-doubt, until he realizes that someone is playing a dangerous game – with his mind. After a slow-burning, mood-setting first half of this novel, the true darkness of the plot comes into focus, leading to a furious, action-fueled reckoning, along with some heavy commentary on American politics and power.

While the […]

Edward Izzi delivers a sharp, smart, and wickedly unpredictable novel in Demons of Divine Wrath, his latest literary shot across the Roman Catholic bow.

Mobsters with money on the mind and a pope who will stop at nothing to restore his reputation – and the coffers of the church – make this a globe-spanning thrill ride of violence and shadowy conspiracies. Add to that a dauntless, wise-cracking reporter, and a slick art dealer named Wolfgang with Nazi ties, and you have a complex tangle of money, power, history, and deception that will thrill loyal readers of a wide range […]

Vigilante serial killers, dark sacred secrets, and painfully true history collide in A Rose from the Executioner, the gritty new novel from author Edward Izzi. A devious idea to collect life insurance policies by killing off pedophile priests appears to become a horrific reality in Chicago, throwing a Catholic cop onto a tangled trail of mobsters, monsignors, and rose-signed murder scenes.

Despite being a work of fiction, the story is laid on a very real foundation, which ups the narrative stakes from the very beginning. Interspersing the detective’s first-person investigation with expositional chapters and victim/criminal backstories results in a […]

A tragic ghost from the past upends the life of a veteran lawyer in A Tissue of Lies by CD Wilsher.

Frank Connor is a lawyer who has spent his career defending murderers, but when he finds himself on the wrong side of an ex-client’s death vengeful spree, it feels like the small mistakes of his past are closing in. Connor begins digging into the old case, trying to protect or defend himself, but only ends up finding more questions and dead ends, as well as the whiff of a cover-up. When the freshly released and heavily financed Tyrell Sikes […]