Thriller Book Reviews

*Trigger warning – this review contains extreme adult themes – NWS*

We’ll All Fall Down, by John duVal, has all the ingredients for a thrilling read: mobsters, murders, mystery, speakeasies, World War II, and a dysfunctional family. The story spans many years and the twists and turns never end. Klaus Altman, a mafia accountant, is being forced by the government to testify against the mob boss in Philadelphia. To keep the witness safe, his name is changed to Max Anders and he moves to upstate New York.

Galena Baldwin is fourteen and when she sees Max for the first […]

Before turning his hand to Sci-fi, J. M. Erickson, the author of Future Prometheus, wrote a series of spy thriller novels, the Birds Of Flight series. Albatross is the first book of that series. In this book we meet Alexander Burns, a former special-ops agent who has been set up by a colleague. Burns’ helicopter is shot down by “friendly fire.” In the accident intended to kill him, Burns loses his memory. With the help of a kind and competent therapist, he regains (some of) his memory, only to discover that some very powerful people are as interested as […]

Oily, paranoid, grim. “Dead Angels” by Glen R. Stott is an uncomfortable book, one that before any further reading should carry the warning that it touches on very sensitive material, and while it does not do so in any way gratuitously, or without proper understanding of the horror of the topic, it does not hold back or shy away from exploring it. This is a book about murder, abuse, and rape from the perspective of a convicted child sex offender.

Three years ago, Shari Darling sent her husband, Carl, to prison for molesting her daughter, Tami. Carl has been released […]

Uptown by J. T. Riggen is a crime thriller telling a story of three parts: Mark Kennedy, now ex-detective doing a life sentence for a brutal mob massacre in conjunction with an underworld comrade in the spirit of what he considers rightful justice; Will Sutherland, working detective looking to do the right thing in a job that looks straight in the eyes of atrocity and the daily horrors of corruption, dirty money and innocent blood; and Rachel Davis, a girl about to face the dark side of the real and adult world on her first steps away from her privileged […]

The opening of The Grand Turk File, a leisurely description of the Turk and Caicos islands, the setting of the primary action of this novel, lets you know right away that you are in the hands of a competent and confident writer. It does not, however, suggest that you might need to fasten your seat belt for the wild ride to come, but that might be a good idea. Grand Turk is most definitely a thriller. However, exacting characterization, careful pacing, and good writing make this book much richer than the average thriller.

Lieutenant Liechester Jones, known to all […]

John Locke, partner in the detective agency Locke and Keyes Investigations, is in his office early one morning working on a letter to his landlord and business partner when Walter  Lewis, a potential client, arrives and asks him to investigate the twenty-five-year-old disappearance of Lewis’ father. The case involves witchcraft and sorcery and hints at some even stranger goings-on. Locke refuses the case, not because it involves the occult (an area in which, as it turns out, he has some experience), but because he sees no hope for solving a twenty-five-year-old mystery. Unfortunately for Locke, this is one case he […]