The Bone Orchard

Paul Doiron (Get this book)
Having quit the Maine Warden Service for various personal reasons, Mike Bowditch barely ekes out a living as a fishing guide, showing off Maine's North Woods to tourists, in Edgar finalist Doiron's excellent fifth series installment. Though he still spends most of his time outdoors, Mike is acutely aware that he no longer has the authority to arrest lawbreakers, nor does he have the respect of his former colleagues. Mike realizes just how much of an outsider he is when his mentor and former boss, Sgt. Kathy Frost, kills Jimmy Gammon, a distraught Afghan war veteran and former military policeman, in self-defense. Later, a gunman seriously wounds Kathy outside her farmhouse. Despite his lack of authority, Mike joins the investigation into Kathy's shooting, sorting through the list of suspects, who include members of Gammon's politically connected family, his former platoon mates, and Kathy's vengeful neighbor. Or was Kathy's alcoholic brother with a gambling problem the real target? Thoughtful plotting and strong characters raise this above the crime novel pack.--Publisher's Weekly

The Book of Life

Deborah Harkness (Get this book)
In the final installment of Harkness's All Souls Trilogy witch historian Diana Bishop and her vampiric husband, Matthew Clairmont, freshly returned to the present from their sojourn in Elizabethan England, have ample challenges to contend with. They still seek the missing pages of Ashmole 782, the mystical manuscript known as the Book of Life and the key to the origin of all supernatural beings, and now must negotiate the internal politics of Matthew's extended vampire family. The storytelling is lively and energetic, and Diana remains an appealing heroine even as her life becomes ever more extraordinary. A delightful wrap-up to the trilogy.--Publisher's Weekly

The Butcher

Jennifer Hillier (Get this book)
Thirty years ago, Seattle Police Capt. Edward Shank put down a serial killer dubbed the Butcher. Edward's bullet ended Rufus Wedge's sorry life. But did the killings end? Hillier's third thriller fairly shudders with tension. Edward is ready to retire to an assisted living facility and give his grandson, Matt, the family home, a beloved Victorian in a posh neighborhood. An up-and-coming chef, Matt has parlayed his successful food-truck business into Adobo, the hottest restaurant in town, and the reality show networks are calling. There's no escape from the brutal truths exposed.The secrets of the past refuse to keep quiet in this disquieting, taut thriller. --Kirkus

Days of Rage: A Pike Logan Thriller

Brad Taylor (Get this book)
A Pike Logan thriller filled with heart-thumping action and insane heroics. In Munich in 1972, terrorists murder the entire Israeli team at the Summer Olympics. Echoes reverberate to the present day when a MOSSAD agent sniffs out intelligence in Bulgaria and Turkey. A nefarious Nigerian is up to no good. Two of Logan's Taskforce members die. The Russians have a mole in President Peyton Warren's administration. All this sets up the story of a terrorist plot to strike again in the spirit of the Munich attacks but far, far worse. A fun, satisfying adventure.--Kirkus

Eden in Winter

Richard North Patterson (Get this book)
Patterson concludes his Blaine family trilogy with Adam home on Martha's Vineyard coping with the fallout from the death of his estranged father, Benjamin, a world-famous novelist. Opening with Ben dead, this novel chronologically follows the first in the series, Fall from Grace (2012). The state is determining Ben's cause of death-an accidental fall or murder, with Ben pushed from a steep promontory. Adam knows it was murder, and he knows the killer. Nevertheless, given a multigenerational web of betrayals, infidelity and abuse, Adam decides to protect the murderer. An intriguing psychological examination of a damaged family.--Kirkus

Half a King

Joe Abercrombie (Get this book)
In this superb fantasy trilogy kickoff, Abercrombie regales readers with the tale of a young man who is thrust onto the throne by unexpected betrayal. Yarvi, the king's second son, is not destined for the Black Chair or kingship of Gettland: he has a withered left hand, and is bound to become a minister. But everything changes when his brother and father are murdered. Yarvi is clever and knowledgeable, thanks to the years he spent studying for the ministry, but none of that will amount to much unless he can survive the sheer cruelty of being raised to the crown, nearly murdered, and traded into slavery in the span of days. Abercrombie's stellar prose style and clever plot twists will be sure to please both adult and teen readers.--Publisher's Weekly

Shots Fired: Stories from Joe Pickett Country

CJ Box (Get this book)
Box isn't known for short stories, he's so busy writing full-length novels that it's hard to imagine he has time to do anything else but he has, over the years, published some, not all of them easy to find. This collection includes 10 in all, 3 of them new. The surprise for some readers may be that only 4 of these tie in to the Joe Pickett series. And, while those are a pleasure, it's the others that are most interesting, demonstrating the author's versatility with a diverse array of ideas. Here's hoping we won't have to wait long for more short stuff from Box.--Booklist

Last Orders (War That Came Early)

Harry Turtledove (Get this book)
Turtledove delivers the final installment-and there's room for a maybe in there-of his series developing an alternate-history version of World War II. What if, for instance, the Spanish Civil War had dragged on? Imagine, then, a 1943 where fascist Nationalists backed by Nazi Germany wage trench warfare against Republican communists assisted by independently operating Americans and Europeans. Further suppose that in 1938, when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, Britain and France had allied themselves with Nazi Germany to battle the communist Soviet Union. Disdaining broad brush strokes, Turtledove's focus on the characters serves to fill out the big picture with patient, nitty-gritty detail. It's all quite plausible, sure, and armchair warriors will have much to ponder.Some readers may find the conclusion messy and unsatisfying, but that's part of Turtledove's argument: War often is.--Kirkus

Wayfaring Stranger

James Lee Burke (Get this book)
Early in this epic American saga, Weldon Holland, the grandson of lawman and series character Hackberry Holland, has a chance run-in with Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow in Texas, shortly before the notorious bank robbers are gunned down in Louisiana. Weldon has another, more significant coming-of-age experience toward the end of WWII. As an Army second lieutenant, he rescues Sgt. Hershel Pine when both are trapped behind German lines. Weldon later saves Rosita Lowenstein, a concentration camp prisoner, who fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Burke, best known for his Dave Robicheaux series, writes with great assurance and wisdom, as well as a kind of bitter nostalgia for lost innocence.--Publisher's Weekly

The Hundred-Year House

Rebecca Makkai (Get this book)
Charmingly clever and mischievously funny, Makkai follows her enthusiastically praised first novel, The Borrower, with an intriguingly structured taleeach section takes a step back in timeset on a fabled, possibly haunted estate north of Chicago. After the alleged suicide of its beautiful first matriarch, Laurelfield was turned into an artists' colony in 1906 and thrived until an even more mysterious turn of events led to the property's return to strictly private use. Her offbeat characters and suspenseful story could have added up to a stylish romp. Instead, Makkai offers that and much more as she stealthily investigates the complexities of ambition, sexism, violence, creativity, and love in this diverting yet richly dimensional novel.--Booklist

California

Edan Lepucki (Get this book)
In her suspenseful debut, Lepucki envisions a postapocalyptic America and the people left behind. After fleeing a decaying, ransacked Los Angeles to begin anew in the wilderness, married couple Cal and Frida are faced with dwindling supplies and an uncertain future. When Frida discovers she might be pregnant, the need to connect with other survivors becomes all the more imperative. The couple finds hope after stumbling upon a fortified rogue encampment in the woods with startling connections to Frida's past. As seen in chapters told from their alternating perspectives, the less they trust each other, the more tension mounts, building to an explosive climax that few readers will see coming.--Publisher's Weekly

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

Chris Bohjalian (Get this book)
Even before catastrophe strikes the Cape Abenaki nuclear power plant that her father manages, 16-year-old Emily Shepard's world is less than ideal. As the child of alcoholics she's seen more drama than most people twice her age, but the ordinary insanity of life pales beside the reactor meltdown that turns Vermont's Northeast Kingdom into a wasteland. After losing her parents, home, and dog to the disaster that her father is suspected of causing, Emily is left homeless and alone except for the similarly dispossessed nine-year-old boy that she's taken under her wing. Before long, Emily is cutting herself to relieve her grief, isolation, and overwhelming fear of what she's supposed to do with the rest of her life. No stranger to tough issues, Bohjalian tackles nuclear power, homelessness, and self-mutilation with his trademark sensitivity, careful research, and elegant prose. These are heavy subjects to read about--Emily's story is both heartbreaking and frightening, and even the final denouement is afflicted with sorrow. Nevertheless, the book rings with poetry and truth. Neither Bohjalian's fans nor book clubs will be disappointed.--Library Journl

The Competition

Marcia Clark (Get this book)
In a horrific scene torn from the headlines, two masked gunmen massacre students and staff at a pep rally in the gym of their suburban L.A. high school. Two bodies found in the library, masks at their sides, are presumably the shooters, who committed mutual suicide. But it's soon apparent that the library scene was staged and the real shooters escaped, having not only exceeded Columbine's body count but also having walked away alive. Clark handles sometimes painfully raw scenes with great sensitivity and skillfully works in material about what makes a mass murderer, as she ratchets up suspense to a deadly conclusion. Her fourth legal thriller featuring Knight is another tour de force.--Booklist

The Dead Will Tell

Linda Castillo (Get this book)
A pair of cold cases turns hot for an Ohio police chief with an Amish background. Painters Mill Police Chief Kate Burkholder is just settling into a romantic relationship with Bureau of Criminal Investigation agent John Tomasetti when two cases from the past throw their lives into turmoil. Tomasetti learns that one of the men who murdered his wife and children has gotten off on a technicality. His violent reaction is understandable but still disturbing to Kate, who thought he had put the past behind him; she has little time to ponder, though, when the gruesome killing of a solid citizen demands all her attention. No one who picks up Kate's stunning sixth case, a marriage of thriller and police procedural, will put it down unfinished.--Kirkus

Landline

Rainbow Rowell (Get this book)
A marriage in crisis, a magical intervention and a bittersweet choice. TV writer Georgie McCool is trying to have it all, but it becomes clear that she's failing when her husband, Neal, heads to Nebraska for a family Christmas with their kids-without her. The career opportunity of a lifetime has appeared, but now her marriage may be ending as a result. What seems to be the setup for just another contemporary novel about midlife struggles takes a near-paranormal turn when Georgie finds a way to talk to Neal, but he's not the Neal who's just left her. Though some teens might not be interested in the story, adult fans will love Rowell's return to a story close to their hearts.The realities of a grown-up relationship are leavened by the buoyancy and wonder of falling in love all over again.--Kirkus

Dry Bones in the Valley

Tom Bouman (Get this book)
When an unidentified body is found under a boulder on an old man's land in rural Pennsylvania, the murder investigation reveals that the patchwork assembly of area law enforcement is paper-thin. And, when a second body is discovered, the lawmen find themselves even more shorthanded. Wild Thyme Township police officer Henry Farrell, a bearded, brooding veteran, throws himself into the case, working past the point of exhaustion and neglecting his own health as he navigates personal boundaries that must be considered in the context of property lines. A dark ending unearths a long-held secret but leaves enough ambiguity to suggest plenty of tales to tell in future installments. A strong debut for readers who like their woods dark and deep.--Booklist

House Reckoning

Mike Lawson (Get this book)
In Lawson's enjoyable ninth Joe DeMarco thriller, the Congressional fix-it man steps out of the Washington, D.C., political mud to focus on a personal quest: tracking down the man who murdered his father decades ago. DeMarco has long known that his father, Gino, worked for a violent mobster in New York City. Now a dying mobster who knew Gino reveals that a corrupt cop, whose career has since blossomed, was the killer. A well-balanced plot reveals the intriguing backstory of the likable DeMarco, who knows that handling life's problems is often a matter of compromise.--Publisher's Weekly

Inside Man

Jeff Abbott (Get this book)
Thriller Award winner Abbott draws on Shakespeare's "King Lear" for his outstanding fourth Sam Capra novel. When Steve Robles, an old friend of Sam's, is shot dead outside the Miami bar that Sam runs, Sam, a former CIA agent, resolves to find Steve's killer. Under the name Sam Chevalier, Sam goes "inside" the luxurious Varela family compound in Puerto Rico, where Steve was working a security job for frightened Cordelia Varela. Abbott injects enough of Sam's back story to make his intricate plot believable, judiciously spices his tale with tasteful but usually interrupted romance, and convincingly makes Sam a genuine contemporary "chevalier."--Publisher's Weekly

One Plus One

Jojo Moyes (Get this book)
One Plus One equals one fine novel. With its ensemble cast of skillfully crafted characters from single-mom Jess Thomas to tortured goth teen Nicky and gifted sister Tanzie to Ed Nicholls, technology millionaire each person's story flows on its own, yet they all meld together into an uncommonly good story about family, trust, and love. Bravo to Moyes for delivering toothsome characters in a story readers will truly care about.--Booklist

Peter Pan Must Die

John Verdon (Get this book)
Verdon hit the ground running with his debut novel, and he hasn't lost a step through three more fine thrillers. Here retired NYPD homicide detective Dave Gurney is asked to investigate what may be a cooked guilty verdict in the murder of real-estate tycoon and gubernatorial candidate Carl Spalter. He quickly finds evidence that will overturn the conviction and release Spalter's wife from prison, but he also finds hints that the real culprit is a bizarre, almost-diabolical European assassin known as Peter Pan. Mix in bent cops, gangsters, politics, big money, lies, and hints of incest, and you have a wonderfully compelling page-turner.--Booklist

The Prime Minister's Secret Agent

Susan Elia MacNeal (Get this book)
Back from a deadly undercover mission in Berlin in 1941, agent Maggie Hope feels dead inside. Working as an instructor at the Scottish black-ops base where she herself was trained, Maggie is plagued with what Churchill calls the black dog of depression. But when she takes time off to see a friend's ballet performance in Edinburgh and becomes involved in a murder investigation, her senses are reawakened. In her fourth solidly researched Maggie Hope mystery, MacNeal details small slips that lead to great tragedies as she lays the groundwork for a post-Pearl mission for Maggie. A treat for WWII buffs and mystery lovers alike.--Booklist

Phantom Instinct

Meg Gardiner (Get this book)
A year after Harper Flynn's boyfriend was murdered when gunmen stormed the nightclub where she worked, Harper is still struggling with survivor's guilt and lingering questions. The LAPD investigation concluded that the two gunmen found dead in the club acted alone, but Harper saw three shooters. When she spots someone stalking her, Harper is convinced the third shooter is back. Harper and Aiden's alliance is full of heady chemistry, but a layer of mutual distrust lends a suspense-building unpredictability that thriller fans will love.--Booklist

The Arsonist

Sue Miller (Get this book)
With her trademark elegant prose and masterful command of subtle psychological nuance, Miller explores the tensions between the summer people and the locals in a small New Hampshire town. Frankie Rowley, after years spent doing relief work abroad, has returned to her parents' summer home, unsure of whether she will ever go back to East Africa, feeling depleted by that region's seemingly endless suffering. But the reassuring comfort of the small town she has been coming to since she was a girl is shattered by a series of fires set by an arsonist who has targeted the rambling summer homes of the wealthy. In this suspenseful and romantic novel, Miller delicately parses the value of commitment and community, the risky nature of relationships, and the yearning for meaningful work.--Booklist

Cop Town

Karin Slaughter (Get this book)
In her first stand-alone novel, Slaughter revisits the themes of her best-selling 1970s-set Criminal (2012). In Atlanta in 1974, Kate Murphy shows up for her first day of work at the Atlanta Police Department. Brought up in the genteel section of town, the daughter of a wealthy psychiatrist, Kate is wholly unprepared for the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of a department that is openly hostile to women. Slaughter graphically exposes the rampant racism, homophobia, and misogyny of cop culture in the 1970s, made all the more jarring by its contrast with Kate's cultured upbringing. Winning leads, the retro setting, and a riveting plot make this one of Slaughter's best.--Booklist

The Beekeeper's Ball

Susan Wiggs (Get this book)
The unconscionable incident with Calvin Sharp caused Isabel Johansen to leave culinary school and flee to her family's home, Bella Vista, nestled in the Sonoma wine country. Isabel continues to hone her culinary skills while turning Bella Vista into a destination for food lovers. She even adds a cooking school and is eagerly planning Bella Vista's first major event, her sister Tess' wedding. But Isabel's hard-earned happiness is shattered when Calvin, now a famous TV chef, chooses her town as the venue for his new restaurant. Wiggs' carefully detailed plotlines, one contemporary and one historical, with their candid look at relationships and their long-term effects, are sure to captivate readers.--Booklist

The Silkworm

Robert Galbraith (Get this book)
J.K. Rowling, under her Galbraith pseudonym, again demonstrates her adroitness at crafting a classic fair-play whodunit in a contemporary setting, peopled with fully realized primary and secondary characters. PI Cormoran Strike, who debuted in 2013's The Cuckoo's Calling, has had a professional renaissance after his success in that book. To spite an uppity client, he accepts Leonora Quine's request to trace her missing husband, novelist Owen Quine. Leonora is pretty sure that Owen is at a writer's retreat, but has hit a dead end trying to get its address. Meanwhile, someone is following Leonora, and excrement is being shoved through her mail slot. Strike begins his search in London's literary circles, aided by his resourceful assistant, Robin Ellacott. He eventually finds a horrifically mutilated Owen, who was killed in a manner apparently copied from a controversial unpublished manuscript. The evolving relationship between Strike and Robin, whose fiance objects to her choice of work, is realistically portrayed, and Golden Age fans will be delighted by passages that could have been written by John Dickson Carr.--Publisher's Weekly