Thrillers and Mysteries for Summer Reading
by Larry Cox on Jul. 19, 2010, under UncategorizedDeadline by Stella Rimington (Knopf, $25.95)
Stella Rimington, who spent thirty years working in all the main fields Britain’s Security Service (MI5), returns to the agency for the fourth installment featuring Officer Liz Carlyle. While plans are underway for a Middle East peace conference in Scotland, rumors began to circulate that two individuals are determined to disrupt the conference and steering the blame to Syria. Officer Carlyle realizes that the stakes are high as heads of state from the United States, Israel, Syria, Jordon, Lebanon, and Iran begin to arrive. As clue after clue leads to dead ends, the seasoned investigator realizes that once again she must rely on her intuition instead of false leads. Stella Rimington draws on her experience as the first woman Director General of MI5 to give her new novel its sense of authenticity and heart-thumping suspense.
Ice Cold: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel by Tess Gerritsen (Ballantine, $26)
This is truly the summer of Tess Gerritsen, physician and internationally bestselling author, as she serves up her latest Jane Rizzoli & Maura Isles novel just as the series based on the characters debuts on network television. When Boston medical examiner Maura Isles joins a group of friends on a ski trip, their SUV stalls on a snow-packed mountain road and they find themselves in the remote village of Kingdom Come. The residents of the small community have vanished, leaving behind twelve identical homes dark and abandoned. Homicide detective Jane Rizzoli is contacted and told that Mauri’s charred body has been found in a ravine. Shocked and grieving, Jane hurries to the scene, determined to find out what happened to her friend. She quickly discovers that nothing is as it seems to be. Colorful characters and an imaginative plot make this one of the must-reads of the summer.
Midnight Angels by Lorenzo Carcaterra (Ballantine, $26)
Lorenzo Carcaterra, a former writer/producer of Law & Order, stages his latest novel against the dramatic backdrop of the fabled Renaissance city Florence, Italy. This story of mystery and suspense revolves around Kate Westcott, an art historian, who travels to Florence to study the work of Michelangelo. With Marco Scudarti, a fellow art student, she discovers a secret chamber in a corridor that has been sealed since the time of the Medicis. In the chamber are Michelangelo’s Midnight Angels, three incredible sculptures, which could be either the find of a lifetime or the beginning of a nightmare. The Italian setting is so intimate and sensual, the characters and plot seem to leap from the printed page. Fast paced and brilliantly written, this book rings so true it grips readers and holds them until the very last page.
In Harm’s Way by Ridley Pearson (Putnam, $25.95)
Ridley Pearson debuted his “Killer” novel in 2007, and since then has added two more titles to the series. Pearson based his main character on a real person, Walt Femling, longtime Sun Valley sheriff and the author’s good friend. His latest novel finds Walt juggling his job along with his twin girls, an unhappy ex-wife, and a budding romance. When Seattle cop Lou Boldt contacts Walt to warn him that a recent murder in his jurisdiction may have a Sun Valley connection. The victim, a young woman who was brutally beaten to death, had links to several high profile athletes. Boldt asks Walt for permission to gain under-the-radar access to the athletes’ Sun Valley agent who was reportedly in Seattle the night of the crime. When a second badly beaten body turns up along a Sun Valley highway a few days later, it is a former NFL star and Walt immediately realizes that there is, indeed, a connection. When his investigation reveals that his gal pal and crime scene photographer Fiona Kenshaw might be involved, the situation gets dicey. The multi-layered plot and fast pacing makes this edge-of-your-seat crime novel crackle with suspense and unexpected twists.
Inside Out by Barry Eisler (Ballantine, $25)
Barry Eisler, the San Francisco Bay-area writer, spent three years in a covert position with the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Operations, and sets his eighth novel inside the intelligence community of the United States. The action begins when the new Director of Central Intelligence receives a telephone call, directing him to a Website containing footage of waterboarding and torture. He is told that unless one hundred million dollars in uncut diamonds are received, the footage will be released to TV networks. Competing factions of the U.S. government scramble to contain the damage. Colonel Scott “Hort” Horton believes the blackmailer is one of his own, a black ops veteran Daniel Larison, long presumed dead. Timely, intense, and frighteningly real, “Inside Out” is a thriller that could have only been written by a former CIA operative turned bestselling author. It is disturbing and will haunt readers long after the last page has been read.
Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross (Knopf, $25.95)
This is the novel that everyone is talking about this summer. The opening paragraph is a perfect example of why this incredible book has created so much buzz. It begins: “When David Pepin first dreamed of killing his wife, he didn’t kill her himself. He dreamed convenient acts of God. At a picnic on the beach, a storm front moved in. David and Alice collected their chairs, blankets, and booze, and when the lightning flashed, David imagined his wife lit up, her skeleton distinctly visible as in a children’s cartoon, Alice then collapsing into a smoking pile of ash. He watched her walk quickly across the sand, the tallest object in the wide-open space. She even stopped to observe the piling clouds. ‘Some storm,” she said. He tempted fate by hubris. In his mind he declared: I, David Pepin, am wiser and more knowing than God, and I, David Pepin, know that God shall not, at this very moment, on this very beach, Jones Beach, strike my wife down. God did not. David knew more. And in their van, when the rain came so densely, it seemed they were in a car wash, he boasted of his godliness to Alice, asked rhetorically is a penis this large and this erect (thus exposed) could be anything but divine, and he made love to his wife angrily and passionately right in the front seat, hidden by the heavy weather.” By the time this first paragraph is read, the reader is hooked. Alice is, of course, soon found dead and Davis is both distraught and the prime suspect. If you only read one novel this summer, do yourself a big favor and make it this one. This is, without a doubt, some of the darkest, most riveting writing since Edward Albee was in his prime.
