Tag: suspense

  • A wreck, a murder, a mystery

    Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson A STRANGER IN THE HOUSE. By Shari Lapena. Penguin Audio. Read by Tavia Gilbert. 9 hours; 7 CDs. $47. If Shari Lapena’s first suspense novel, The Couple Next Door, was as good as most people seemed to think it was, then she’s suffering from sophomore slump with A Stranger in…

  • One last taste…

    Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE PAINTED QUEEN. By Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess. William Morrow. 352 pages. $27.99. Fans of Elizabeth Peters’ beloved Amelia Peabody series can enjoy this final installment if they read it as light entertainment, a glimpse of sorts of the beloved characters and perhaps a reminder of just how extraordinary…

  • Love, war and murder

    Chris Bohjalian is without a doubt one of the finest writers in America today. His novels are literary without pretension and compelling stories without unnecessary artifice. He writes about terrible events so that we comprehend their enormity without being blinded by our horror to their greater truths. Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE LIGHT IN…

  • This one’s a reach for Reacher

    Bob Moyer has returned from points north just in time to see snow here in North Carolina – and to tell us about one of the books he read when he was traveling. By Robert Moyer A WANTED MAN. By Lee Child. Delacorte Press. 405 pages. $28. A bevy of federal agencies shows up to…

  • Mortality in the bayous

    In case anyone wonders about the high-tech and high-brow credentials of this blog, I am posting a picture of how books for review are exchanged. In this picture, you can see Bob Moyer and his Harley, which he recently rode to Walnut Cove, N.C., for an editorial meeting with me. After a delicious lunch of…

  • Is there romance in Doc Ford’s future?

    By Linda C. Brinson I did this all backwards. The news here for fans of Randy Wayne White is that he’s introduced a new character, a woman who just happens to have an interest in Doc Ford, the hero of 19 suspense novels by White. I stumbled upon Gone, the book introducing Hannah Smith, grabbing…

  • Spies, air raids, Churchill – and a young lady who can handle them all

    I like fiction that deals with fairly recent history and sometimes includes real people. Maybe that’s because most of the history courses I had in school stopped at about the beginning of the 20th century, so fiction grounded in fact helps to fill in the gaps. Maybe it’s because the links between what happened in…

  • A chase with a twist

    In advance of his homecoming from his European junket, Bob Moyer has been sending book reviews.  I’ll have to reward him with more books when he arrives stateside. By Robert Moyer THE DEVIL SHE KNOWS. By Bill Loehfelm. Farrar Straus Giroux. 322 pages. $26. By page 43, both the bar maid Maureen and the reader…

  • Bricks and bullets

    Here’s Bob Moyer again, this time in D.C., taking a look at the second book in a new series. By Robert Moyer AGENT X. By Noah Boyd. William Morrow. 391 pages. $24.99 Take a deep breath before you begin this book.  The Bricklayer, a cross between James Bond and Sherlock Holmes (with a touch of…