Best of
Suspense

1990

Final Approach


John J. Nance - 1990
    Nance In the control tower at Kansas City International Airport, all the radar displays are red. But for the experienced pilots of North America Airlines, the thunderstorms aren’t the problem: NAA has been cutting costs to stave off bankruptcy, and will do anything to keep their planes in the air. Unfortunately, no matter what they do, one is on its way down.   After the aircraft collides with another plane on the Kansas City runway, in one of the worst aviation disasters of the decade, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Joe Wallingford arrives on the scene. As he studies the wreckage and pieces together the events that led to the tragedy, he realizes there’s far more at play than pilot error or equipment malfunction. Wallingford will have to risk his career—and perhaps even his life—to solve the puzzle of the crash.

Gold Coast


Nelson DeMille - 1990
    Here two men are destined for an explosive collision: John Sutter, Wall Street lawyer, holding fast to a fading aristocratic legacy; and Frank Bellarosa, the Mafia don who seizes his piece of the staid and unprepared Gold Coast like a latter-day barbarian chief and draws Sutter and his regally beautiful wife, Susan, into his violent world. Told from Sutter's sardonic and often hilarious point of view, and laced with sexual passion and suspense, The Gold Coast is Nelson DeMille's captivating story of friendship and seduction, love and betrayal.

Public Secrets


Nora Roberts - 1990
    Emma. Beautiful, intelligent, radiantly talented, she lives in a star-studded world of wealth and privilege. But she is about to discover that fame is no protection at all when someone wants you dead.... All she has to do is close her eyes and she remembers the magical day her father came into her life. She was a frightened, lonely toddler, hiding, always hiding, from her mother's wrath, when Brian McAvoy swept in and took her away. She didn't know then that she was his illegitimate daughter or that she had just been rescued by pop music's rising new star. All she knew was that suddenly she felt safe. And there wasn't only Brian...his new wife became Emma's loving stepmother, his band members became her surrogate uncles, and soon Emma even had a new baby brother to care for. Then just when everything seemed perfect, a horrifying event shattered all their lives: a botched kidnapping attempt, shocking theworld, traumatizing Emma, leaving her bereft of her newfound happiness. Yet now, after so many years of pain and guilt, of being overprotected and hounded by the press, Emma finally feels as if she's put the tragedy behind her. A determined, self-sufficient young woman, she has carved out a thrilling career, and even dared to fall rapturously in love. But the man who will become her husband isn't all that he seems. And Emma is about to awaken to the chilling knowledge that the darkest secret of all is the one buried inher mind--a secret that someone may kill to keep. With Public Secrets, Nora Roberts has woven an absorbing tale of a woman you can't help but care for, trapped in a terrifying web of suspense that willkeep you reading long into the night.

Longshot


Dick Francis - 1990
    A starving writer turns to work that will at least pay the bills, but he soon discovers the perils of rural England. His agent had warned that his impulses would kill him, but he didn't listen--not by a longshot.

Black for Remembrance


Carlene Thompson - 1990
    Twenty years ago, her five-year-old daughter, Hayley, was the light of her life, her treasure, her angle. Then came the terrible day when Hayley was kidnapped from her favorite swing. More than a month passed before her burned, lifeless body was found. All that remained was the silence of Caroline's heartache--and her guilt...Now, Caroline has started over with a new husband. She even has another precious daughter, Melinda. She thinks she has put the ghosts of her past behind her. But without warning, those ghosts once again start to echo in the night. Suddenly, Hayley's favorite doll reappears...strange murders rock the Webbs' small town...Caroline even claims she has heard the voice of the little girl she lost all those years ago. Could Hayley still be out there somewhere, somehow? Now a killer waits in the wings--waiting to make Caroline live her worst nightmare yet...

Impulse


Catherine Coulter - 1990
    When a journalist learns that her real father is a powerful arms dealer, she travels to his private Caribbean island?where her attraction to a resort manager spirals out of control.

The Old Corps (The Old Corps & No Better Way to Die Book 1)


Johnnie M. Clark - 1990
    His sacrifice and the men around him and the wife he loved was quite often more than just blood. Based on real Marines and real combat the life of Gunnery Sergeant Jessie Slate will make you proud of America and proud of the Corps.

Postmortem


Patricia Daniels Cornwell - 1990
    Four brutalized victims of a brilliant monster - a "Mr. Nobody", moving undetected through a paralyzed city, leaving behind a gruesome trail of carnage . . . but few clues. With skilled hands, an unerring eye, and the latest advances in forensic research, an unrelenting female medical examiner - Kay Scarpetta - is determined to unmask a maniac. But someone is trying to sabotage Kay's investigation from the inside. And worse yet, someone wants her dead . . .

Mirror Image


Sandra Brown - 1990
    But it also makes her the crucial player in a drama of violent passions and deadly desires. After plastic surgery transforms her face, Avery is mistaken for the glamorous, selfish wife of Tate Rutledge, the famous senatorial candidate and member of a powerful Texas dynasty. As she lays helpless in the hospital, Avery makes a shattering discovery: someone close to Tate planned to assassinate him. Now, to save him, she must live another woman's life -- and risk her own.

Hideaway


Hannah Alexander - 1990
    The community is terrorized by a vandal, who soon targets Cheyenne. Now only her trust in her charismatic neighbor and her faith can help her. Reissue.

The A.B.C. Murders / The Mirror Crack'd / Cat Among the Pigeons / The Clocks


Agatha Christie - 1990
    Next to die is Miss Bernard in Bexhill, then Mr. Clarke in Churston. More disturbing than the alphabetic sequence of the killings or the ABC Railway guide that the killer leaves at the scene of each crime are the taunting notes Hercule Poirot receives each time the killer is about to strike again. It is one of Poirot's most challenging cases yet.Also published as The Alphabet Murders.The Mirror Crack'd (Miss Marple, Bk 8)Marina Gregg, an actress whose best years are behind her, hosts a dinner party and, when one of her guests is poisoned, most suspect a homicidal hostess.Cat Among the Pigeons (Hercule Poirot, Bk 33)Welcome to Meadowbank, an exclusive school for privileged young ladies. A fine lot. A dangerous one, too. Two teachers have already bitten the dust. It's obvious to Hercule Poirot that someone is out to scratch Meadowbank's respectable veneer.The Clocks (Hercule Poirot, Bk 34)As instructed, stenographer Sheila Webb let herself into the house at 19 Wilbraham Crescent. It was then that she made a grisly discovery: the body of a dead man sprawled across the living room floor. What intrigued Poirot about the case was the time factor. Although in a state of shock, Sheila clearly remembered having heard a cuckoo clock strike three o'clock. Yet, the four other clocks in the living room all showed the time as 4.13. Even more strangely, only one of these clocks belonged to the owner of the house...