The Fifth Gospel by Ian Caldwell No! This isn’t a lost thriller by Dan Brown! Far from it (although at times I wish it had had a bit of Brown’s rip-roaring pace). The Fifth Gospel comes from the co-author of a best-selling religious thriller of ten years ago – The Rule of Four, and has Read More
Tag: Thriller
A post Cold-War spy drama
A Spy’s Life by Henry Porter Many moons ago I read Henry Porter’s first novel Rememberance Day (2000) which was a fast-moving spy thriller and I enjoyed it very much indeed. Finally, years later, I’ve read his second – another standalone spy-thriller about an ex-spy who finds out that you can never truly leave your former Read More
The Intruders were in my TBR!…
The Intruders by Michael Marshall British author Marshall began writing stylish SF novels as Michael Marshall Smith – winning the Philip K Dick Award for his debut Only Forward, which I’ve been meaning to re-read for years! After a few more, he dropped the ‘Smith’ and moved into the world of creepy thrillers winning plaudits Read More
The world of espionage is a different place now…
The Director by David Ignatius It’s a while since I’ve read a spy novel set inside the various American intelligence agencies, and they make the British MI5 and MI6 seem totally straight-forward in their organisation of roles and responsibilities in comparison. This novel is set mainly in the CIA, an independent agency, which itself has many Read More
Taking the plunge into the waters of popular thriller-dom…
The Nemesis Program by Scott Mariani Occasionally I read a mindless thriller, something a bit Dan Brown, just to remind myself that I’m not really the target audience for such stuff, although secretly I do enjoy them – a little! My teenage reading diet was absolutely full of thrillers – Alistair MacLean, Desmond Bagley, Hammond Read More
A novel of ‘The Troubles’
Harry’s Game by Gerald Seymour I was amazed to find that this thriller from 1975 was Gerald Seymour’s début novel. Because of its setting, it is the kind of book that my late mother would never have read, and we read a lot of thrillers betweeen us in our household back then. She was born and Read More
Be of good cheer! (No, not that type of cheer)…
Dare Me by Megan Abbott An image of pony-tailed cheerleaders is arguably the ultimate cliché when we think of the most popular girls at High School in the USA. Most teen films portray them as bitchy, and not big on brains. They are there to look like clean-living girls next door, to strike poses, but Read More
Being John Malkovich meets The Matrix
Stray by Monica Hesse Lona Sixteen Always doesn’t have her own life. She spends twenty-three hours a day living the life of someone else. That someone is Julian, a psychologically suitable boy that grew up fifty years ago having all his memories and experiences recorded for Lona and the others on the ‘Path’ to relive Read More
From drifter to hitman …
King of the Ants by Charlie Higson Comedian and author Charlie Higson has lately been very successful in scaring the pants off older children with his rather wonderful zombie novels, and giving a sense of thrilling adventure in his Young Bond series. You may not be aware that before all that, he wrote four gritty adult Read More
Gone Girl meets The Secret History – not quite, but a good try
Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight When a novel sets itself up on the front cover to be compared to Gone Girl (my review here), and in other places I’ve seen it compared to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, it raises the bar rather high… Kate is a hard-working lawyer and single mum to teenage daughter Amelia, Read More
Bought it on Wednesday, read it by Friday, blogged on Saturday
Alex by Pierre Lemaitre Translated by Frank Wynne Alex is one of those thrillers that has been quietly gathering a word of mouth momentum since its publication earlier this year. Now the paperback is out, it is going to go stratospheric as Gone Girl did, (my review of that here). A French teacher friend has been recommending Alex to our book Read More
A new approach to the problem of werewolves …
Red Moon by Benjamin Percy Inside this chunkster of a werewolf novel are at least two shorter novels trying to get out… Imagine a post 9/11 America into which a new threat has emerged to fuel a nation’s paranoia. It’s the age of the werewolf, or Lycans as Percy dubs them. From the opening chapters Read More
Nick loves Amy, Amy loves Nick, don’t they?
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn This book is our book group choice for discussion this month – I would normally wait until after we’ve met to put down some thoughts about our reading, but after devouring this novel in two sittings, (I started at bedtime last night, and finished it when I woke up this morning Read More
To infinity …
The Explorer by James Smythe This brilliant novel’s beginning happens near the end of the story… Cormac Easton is the only remaining living astronaut on the spaceship Ishiguro. Cormac is not even a proper astronaut – he’s a journalist; his part in the team is to observe and document the voyage, to blog and film and send Read More
Getting to grips with the phenomenon that is Lee Child
Killing Floor: (Jack Reacher 1) by Lee Child Lee Child is a phenomenon. Made redundant by Granada TV at the age of forty, the Sheffield man who had initially studied law turned to writing and created the series of thrillers featuring Jack Reacher – there are now seventeen of them. Child is a worldwide bestselling Read More
Q&A with Sophie McKenzie and a giveaway of her latest teen book…
This week the final part of author Sophie McKenzie’s hard hitting ‘Missing‘ trilogy for teens is published. Missing Me completes the story started in Girl, Missing, and continued in Sister, Missing. The books follow the story of Lauren, who is adopted and has always known that. In Girl, Missing, Lauren is fourteen. One day she Read More
“Shaun the Sheep meets Shaun of the Dead “
This post was republished into my blog’s original timeline from my lost posts archive. Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan A comedy thriller featuring sex-crazed zombie cows – The publicity says “Shaun the Sheep meets Shaun of the Dead”. Shouldn’t work, but somehow it does! It won a half-share of the inaugural Terry Pratchett “Anywhere But Read More
Murder – the lawyer’s tale
The Child Who by Simon Lelic After writing a spec fiction thriller for his second novel The Facility, review here, Lelic returns to give us a different take on familiary territory for his third. His stunning debut Rupture, review here, was a Whydunnit which explored how a teacher came to murder his pupils. The Child Who takes its inspiration Read More
3 from April 2011 Set in the USA – Waite – Millar – Kwok
The Terror of Living by Urban Waite – A fine backwoods thriller… It was the quote from Daniel Woodrell, an author of whom I’m a huge fan, on the cover that made me instantly want to read this book, a debut novel set in the backwoods border country near Seattle. To all outward appearances it’s a crime thriller, Read More
Old reviews from 2011 – 2 second novels
The Facility by Simon Lelic Simon Lelic’s first novel, Rupture, (see here) was such a breath of fresh air last year that when I was able to get my hands on an advance copy of his second, I could hardly wait to read it and for the publication date to get near. Would it be as innovative Read More
Stalin & UFOs – a philosophical SF thriller
Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts. This novel was short-listed for the Arthur C Clarke Award for Science Fiction novels last year, but it’s really more of a philosophical thriller and a commentary on the fall of Communism than out and out science fiction. It’s dark, thoughtful, thrilling and hilarious by turns and I loved Read More
When motherhood all gets too much?
The Point of Rescue by Sophie Hannah. Sally and Nick have two young children and they both work hard. The year before, Sally was feeling the strain of juggling motherhood and her career, all the multi-tasking; she was desperate for a break from it all. When a business trip fell through, she didn’t tell her husband. Read More
For want of an old school tie?
Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris. They say that revenge is a dish best served cold. This is the tale of an obsession that goes very wrong, and brews plans for thirteen years before the revenger wreaks absolute havoc by opening a closet full of skeletons that brings a community to its knees. I’ll say at the outset that Read More
An Evening with Sophie Hannah
Last night it was my great pleasure to go to a literary dinner in Abingdon hosted by that second home of mine(!) Mostly Books at a local hostelry – an Abingdon first I believe. The Mostly Booklovers club at the shop had been offered a list of authors who might be approached to give an Read More
A page-turning and fun Victorian melodrama
The Equivoque Principle by Darren Craske Firstly, a word of explanation – Equivocation is the magician’s art making an outcome seem intended when in reality there are several – but all of which are prepared for. The punter doesn’t know this of course, and so is fooled every time when a card is forced on Read More
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
This book comes with a bit of baggage. A debut novel, and thriller no less, set in Stalinist Russia. Its publishers gave it a massive publicity campaign, and got it longlisted for the 2008 Booker. Instant controversy – thrillers can’t be literary can they? Well yes they can, you only have to think of John Read More
Short Takes
I’d like to introduce you to a couple of books that I particularly enjoyed earlier this year before I started my blog … Gold by Dan Rhodes. This is a gently humorous novel about Miyuki and her annual trip to the same Welsh seaside village out of season, where she walks, reads, and drinks beer Read More
