In The Late Show, Michael Connelly introduces Detective Renée Ballard of the LAPD. She works the night shift as punishment for unsuccessfully accusing her supervisor of sexual harassment. She likes to surf, sleeps in a tent on the beach, and carries a chip on her shoulder. Her tendency to stretch the rules and to ignore protocol…

The Stolen Marriage by Diane Chamberlain is the story of a young woman who moves to Hickory, NC in 1944 to marry the stranger who impregnated her. It deals with the social taboos of that era such as the stigma of getting pregnant outside of marriage and the illegality of marriage between Negros and Whites. Much…

In A Stranger in the House. Shari Lapena has mastered another thriller. As in The Couple Next Door, she treats the reader to unexpected twists and turns and a surprise ending.

In The Snowman, Jo Nesbo creates an exciting mystery/thriller in which Oslo Police Inspector Harry Hole seeks to stop a serial killer whose trade mark is a snowman left at the scene of each murder. Surprises fill the novel, and the suspense builds as the villain targets Rakel, Harry’s on-again, off-again lover. I highly recommend the…

In The Final Detail by Harlan Coben, sports agent Myron Bolitar returns from a three-week vacation to find one of his clients has been killed and his partner and best friend Esperanza has been charged with the murder. As with all the Myron Bolitar books, Myron teams with Windsor Horn Lockwood III, his wealthy, sociopathic friend, to…

Backspin, published in 1997, is Harlan Coben’s fourth Myron Bolitar novel. As with the other Bolitar books, Myron’s friends Win and Esperanza plan prominent roles as Myron tries to rescue the kidnapped son of two golf pros. Many of the characters have secrets that determine their behavior and some lead to violence and murder.

In Darkest Fear, Harlan Coben has an old girlfriend inform sports agent Myron Bolitar that he has a thirteen-year-old son. The boy has Fanconi anemia and will die unless he receives a bone marrow transport. Unfortunately, there is only one match. He has disappeared and possibly may be a serial killer. Myron is confronted by moral…

One False Move is the fifth book in the Myron Bolitar series by Harlan Coben. In this thriller, Myron helps Brenda Slaughter, a female black professional basketball star, search for her father who has disappeared. He also must protect Brenda from people who wish to kill her. Soon bodies pile up, and Myron faces mobsters and…

Lawrence Wright in The Terror Years: From al-Qaeda to the Islamic State gives an excellent accounting of the evolution of Islamic terrorism in the middle east and its spread to the rest of the world. Much attention is given to Osama bin Laden, the Saudi founder of al-Qaeda: Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian surgeon who succeeded bin…

The Book Case by Nelson Demille is a short mystery in which John Corey, a NYPD detective who appears in multiple Demille novels, is called to the scene of a death of a bookstore owner caused by a falling bookcase. At first it appears to be an accident, but Corey soon suspects murder. The entire novel…