I am writing this on the Sunday evening of a weekend during which the movie “Insidious: Chapter 2″ made $41 million dollars at the box office. Tomorrow evening “Sleepy Hollow” premieres on Fox and CBS airs the finale of the first season of “Under the Dome”. “The Walking Dead” is on the cover of this [...]
Weekly Reviews: Monster Thrillers
By on July 30, 2013
Benjamin Percy’s Red Moon is a political thriller as much as werewolf horror novel, in the same way that World War Z is about military strategy. Red Moon reflects the current state of our world, in particular terrorism, persecuted minorities, and the importance of energy sources in today’s political decision-making. In fact, Justin Cronin (author of The [...]
Weekly Reviews: Murder in London
By on July 22, 2013
Two excellent murder mysteries set in 19th century London begin our week. Veteran action/thriller writer David Morrell mixes fact and fiction in his latest, Murder as a Fine Art. It has been so successful that he plans to write at least one more book featuring Thomas De Quincey and his daughter Emily. Morrell was awarded the International Thriller Writers’ [...]
Review: 17 and Gone
By on April 30, 2013
Review: 17 and Gone
By on April 25, 2013
Weekly Reviews: Debut Novels
By on April 3, 2013
Today’s reviews are all notable debut novels by women. I spent part of my spring break tearing through Kimberly McCreight’s Reconstructing Amelia, and let me tell you — teens are going to eat this up. It came out just yesterday, so go order a couple copies now. There are several appeal elements here. First, the [...]
Even More Weekly Reviews: Serial Killers
By on March 21, 2013
We have a huge backlog of wonderful reviews right now, so this week we’re giving you even more weekly reviews. The great film reviewer Jonathan Rosenbaum once commented that “it’s pretty safe to say that there are more serial killers in movies than there are in real life” and puzzled over why so many viewers [...]
Weekly Reviews: Sequels
By on March 12, 2013
Weekly Reviews: Speculative Fiction
By on February 25, 2013
Today we review three thrillingly original works of speculative fiction. Let’s start with a post-apocalyptic, dystopian debut novel. The Office of Mercy is being marketed as a Hunger Games readalike. (I’ve also seen comparisons to recent Alex Award winner, Pure). However, debut author Djanikian is more concerned with ethical questions than fast-paced action. The Alphas had good intentions [...]
The Six-Gun Tarot
By on January 25, 2013
Weekly Reviews: Raiders! and Little Wolves
By on January 23, 2013
I am sharing two very different books today, which I can only tenuously connect thanks to the Alex Awards. (Thus the completely unimaginative title of this post!) Let’s begin on a light-hearted note. First, a review of Raiders!, which won a place on the Booklist Editors Choice: Adult Books for Young Adults, 2012. Our reviewer [...]
Weekly Reviews: 2012 Thrillers
By on January 14, 2013
Pick of the Day: Don’t Turn Around
By on November 5, 2012 Leave a Comment
GAGNON, Michelle. Don’t Turn Around. 310p. CIP. HarperCollins/Harper. 2012. Tr $17.99. ISBN 978-0-06-210290-4; ebook $9.99. ISBN 978-0-06-210292-8. LC 2012009691.
Gr 8 Up–Teen runaway Noa has managed to make a tolerable life for herself. She has an apartment, a job as a freelance computer security specialist (she’s a hacker), and a fake foster family to make it all legal. Most importantly, she is off the grid and all but invisible–until she wakes up on an operating table with no memory of [...]
