The Intruders


Michael Marshall - 2007
    The family members of a scientist have been brutally murdered, and the scientist—who may have had something to hide—is nowhere to be found.But Jack has more pressing matters on his mind. His wife has told him that she's on a routine business trip to Seattle, yet she hasn't checked into her hotel. Calls to her cell phone go unanswered, and when Jack travels to Seattle to investigate, she's vanished.And in Oregon a little girl goes missing. She's found miles away, but it soon becomes clear that she's not an innocent victim, and is far from defenseless.Unusual events, all leading to the same place. As a former patrol cop who left the force under difficult circumstances, Jack is determined to find some answers. Yet the more he digs, the more the intrigue grows. Searching into the dark secrets of a past that still haunts him, Jack discovers that the truth has roots deeper and more evil than he ever feared.

After Her


Joyce Maynard - 2013
    Left to their own devices, the inseparable sisters spend their days studying record jackets, concocting elaborate fantasies about the life of the mysterious neighbor who moves in down the street, and playing dangerous games on the mountain that rises up behind their house.When young women start showing up dead on the mountain, the girls' father is charged with finding the man responsible, known as The Sunset Strangler. Seeing her father's life slowly unravel when he fails to stop the murders, Rachel embarks on her most dangerous game yet: setting herself up as bait to catch the killer, with consequences that will destroy her father's career and alter the lives of everyone she loves. It is not until thirty years later that Rachel, who has never given up hope of vindicating her father, finally smokes out the killer, bringing her back to the territory of her childhood, and uncovering a long-buried family secret. As with her novel Labor Day, Maynard's newest work is part thriller, part love story. Loosely inspired by the Trailside Killer case that terrorized Marin County in the late seventies, her tale delves deep into the alternately thrilling and terrifying landscape of a young girl's first explorations of adult sexuality and the loss of innocence, the bond between sisters - and into a daughter's tender but damaged relationship with her father, and what it is to finally trust a man.

Promise Not to Tell (Ulverscroft)


Jennifer McMahon - 2007
    On the night she arrives, a young girl is murdered—a horrific crime that eerily mirrors another from Kate's childhood. Three decades earlier, her dirt-poor friend Del—shunned and derided by classmates as "Potato Girl"—was brutally slain. Del's killer was never found, while the victim has since achieved immortality in local legends and ghost stories. Now, as this new murder investigation draws Kate irresistibly in, her past and present collide in terrifying, unexpected ways. Because nothing is quite what it seems . . . and the grim specters of her youth are far from forgotten.More than just a murder mystery, Jennifer McMahon's extraordinary debut novel, Promise Not to Tell, is a story of friendship and family, devotion and betrayal—tautly written, deeply insightful, beautifully evocative, and utterly unforgettable.

11/22/63


Stephen King - 2011
    What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force. Following his massively successful novel Under the Dome, King sweeps readers back in time to another moment—a real life moment—when everything went wrong: the JFK assassination. And he introduces readers to a character who has the power to change the course of history.Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk. Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination.So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.

The City


Dean Koontz - 2014
    I need to tell you about her and some terrible things and wonderful things and amazing things that happened . . . and how I am still haunted by them. Including one night when I died and woke and lived again. Here is the riveting, soul-stirring story of Jonah Kirk, son of an exceptional singer, grandson of a formidable “piano man,” a musical prodigy beginning to explore his own gifts when he crosses a group of extremely dangerous people, with shattering consequences. Set in a more innocent time not so long ago, The City encompasses a lifetime but unfolds over three extraordinary, heart-racing years of tribulation and triumph, in which Jonah first grasps the electrifying power of music and art, of enduring friendship, of everyday heroes. The unforgettable saga of a young man coming of age within a remarkable family, and a shimmering portrait of the world that shaped him, The City is a novel that speaks to everyone, a dazzling realization of the evergreen dreams we all share. Brilliantly illumined by magic dark and light, it’s a place where enchantment and malice entwine, courage and honor are found in the most unexpected quarters, and the way forward lies buried deep inside the heart.

The Blood Gospel


James Rollins - 2013
    A trio of investigators—Sergeant Jordan Stone, a military forensic expert; Father Rhun Korza, a Vatican priest; and Dr. Erin Granger, a brilliant but disillusioned archaeologist—are sent to explore the macabre discovery, a subterranean temple holding the crucified body of a mummified girl.But a brutal attack at the site sets the three on the run, thrusting them into a race to recover what was once preserved in the tomb’s sarcophagus: a book rumored to have been written by Christ’s own hand, a tome that is said to hold the secrets to His divinity. But the enemy who hounds them is like no other, a force of ancient evil directed by a leader of impossible ambitions and incalculable cunning.From crumbling tombs to splendorous churches, Erin and her two companions must confront a past that traces back thousands of years, to a time when ungodly beasts hunted the dark spaces of the world, to a moment in history when Christ made a miraculous offer, a pact of salvation for those who were damned for eternity.Here is a novel that is explosive in its revelation of a secret history. Why do Catholic priests wear pectoral crosses? Why are they sworn to celibacy? Why do the monks hide their countenances under hoods? And why does Catholicism insist that the consecration of wine during Mass results in its transformation to Christ’s own blood? The answers to all go back to a secret sect within the Vatican, one whispered as rumor but whose very existence was painted for all to see by Rembrandt himself, a shadowy order known simply as the Sanguines.In the end, be warned: some books should never be found, never opened—until now.

Bad Monkeys


Matt Ruff - 2007
    What follows is one of the most clever and gripping novels you'll ever read.

The Scorpio Illusion


Robert Ludlum - 1993
    Now Hawthorne has been called out of retirement for one last assignment. For he is the only man alive who can track down the world's most dangerous terrorist. Amaya Bajaratt is beautiful, elusive, deadly - and she has set in motion a chilling conspiracy that a desperate government cannot stop. With the life of the president hanging in the balance, Hawthorne must follow Amaya's serpentine trail to uncover the sinister network who exist to help this consummate killer. And Hawthorne must discover the shattering truth behind the Scorpio Illusion ...

Vanish with the Rose


Barbara Michaels - 1992
    Taking a job as a landscape architect at the last place Brad was seen—the sprawling estate where he worked as a caretaker—she prowls the strange old house determined to unlock its secrets. But each mystery Diana uncovers is more unsettling than the last, as odd visions, scents, and sounds pervade an atmosphere of dread and barely suppressed violence. And in her zealous search for answers, she may have inadvertently opened a door to something frightening and deadly that can never be closed again.

Black Sunday


Thomas Harris - 1975
    . . 80,000 people had better get ready to die. — The Super Bowl--where thousands have gathered for an all-American tradition. Suddenly it's the most terrifying place on earth . . . — Michael Lander is the most dangerous man in America. He pilots a television blimp over packed football stadiums every weekend. He is fascinated with explosives. And he happens to be very, very crazy. That's why a beautiful PLO operative has seduced him. That's why--on Super Bowl Sunday--the world will witness the bloody assassination of the U. S. president and the worst mass murder in history. Unless someone discovers what Michael Lander plans . . . and can kill him first.

The Armageddon Rag


George R.R. Martin - 1983
    R. Martin comes the ultimate novel of revolution, rock ’n’ roll, and apocalyptic murder—a stunning work of fiction that portrays not just the end of an era, but the end of the world as we know it.Onetime underground journalist Sandy Blair has come a long way from his radical roots in the ’60s—until something unexpectedly draws him back: the bizarre and brutal murder of a rock promoter who made millions with a band called the Nazgûl. Now, as Sandy sets out to investigate the crime, he finds himself drawn back into his own past—a magical mystery tour of the pent-up passions of his generation. For a new messiah has resurrected the Nazgûl and the mad new rhythm may be more than anyone bargained for—a requiem of demonism, mind control, and death, whose apocalyptic tune only Sandy may be able to change in time . . . before everyone follows the beat.

Runaway


Peter May - 2015
    Yet before year's end three returned, and returned damaged. In 2015, a brutal murder forces those three men, now in their sixties, to journey back to London and finally confront the dark truth they have run from for five decades. Runaway is a crime novel covering fifty years of friendships solidified and severed, dreams shared and shattered and passions lit and extinguished; set against the backdrop of two unique and contrasting cities at two unique and contrasting periods of recent history.

Second Child


John Saul - 1990
    Ruggedly beautiful and remote, bordered by dark woods and deserted beaches, this postcard-perfect village harbors the mansions of the wealthy—families who have summered in splendid seclusion at Secret Cove for generations. Here, one hundred years ago, on the night of the annual August Moon Ball, a shy and lovely servant girl committed a single, unspeakable act of violence—an act so shocking its legacy lives still.And now, long after the horror of that night has faded to a tale whispered by children around summer camp fires, an unholy terror is about to be reborn.Now, one family is about to feel the icy hand of supernatural fear—as Melissa Holloway, shy and troubled and just thirteen years old, comes to know the blood-drenched secret that waits behind a locked attic door... For in the dead of night a Secret Cove sleeps unaware, a soul-chilling presence slowly begins to enact a terrifying vengeance.Second Child: It is unspeakable evil merely Melissa's nightmares made horrifyingly real? Is it the manifestation of deadly fury risen from the grave? Or is the heart-stopping horror soon to be unleased in Secret Cove something even more insidious--something unimaginably evil...and alive?

Getting Back


William Dietrich - 2000
    The world's population has doubled. Wilderness exists only in old movies. Every region on Earth has been explored, organized, and tamed. But in this brave new age one secret organization promises the most forbidden pleasure of all: a true outdoor adventure. The price is a year's salary. The destination is a continent that disease has put off-limits. And the catch is that on this expedition, you may never return...In the belly of a shimmering 21st Century pyramid, Daniel Dyson occupies Cubicle 17 and fantasizes about love and escape. By day he pursues petty ways to subvert his overly programmed life. By night he flirts with a shadowy group that dares him to rebel and reclaim his autonomy. Then he stumbles onto Outback Adventure.Outback doesn't advertise and keeps its Internet site heavily encyrpted. Yet Daniel, partly to seek deeper meaning in his life, partly to find a woman who doesn't want to be found, soon finds himself taking a perilous trek across the forbidden continent of Australia. There, Outback has promised he will find out what it means to be truly alive, to test his limits, and to understand real survival. What he and his two dozen fellow adventurers don't know is that all their high-tech gear and all their plans haven't prepared them for what lies ahead. Because this journey will not only plunge them into a stark desert and through a gauntlet of natural dangers, it will force them to face the most dangerous creatures on earth: their fellow humans.Getting Back is a novel of survival and a search for meaning where both have gone extinct - a thriller that asks us whether getting back is the object of the game, or the punishment for losing...Road Warrior," a journey into a wasteland depopulated of civilization but not of ideas...speculative fiction at its best, a brainy amalgam of action, romance, and a probing of post-twentieth-century urban civilization that cuts disturbingly close to the bone." Steven Pressfield, author, ."If you've never understood why some people care so much about wildness, then this gripping novel will provide a few of the answers." Bill McKibben, author, The End of Nature."Dietrich has married the traditions of "1984" and "Deliverance" to produce a futuristic wilderness thriller that is not only utterly gripping but thought-provoking." Robert Clark, author, In The Deep Midwinter."An engaging read with considerable depth." Christian Science Monitor.

River of Death


Alistair MacLean - 1981
    But the secret that awaits them in the lost city is more dangerous still - as a legacy of theft, treachery and murder stretching back to war-torn Europe comes to a deadly climax beneath the ancient walls.