605 results for "Thriller"

John Woman

Walter Mosley
A convention-defying novel by bestselling writer Walter Mosley, John Woman recounts the transformation of an unassuming boy named Cornelius Jones into John Woman, an unconventional history professor--while the legacy of a hideous crime lurks in the shadows. At twelve years old, Cornelius, the son of an Italian-American woman and an older black man from Mississippi named Herman, secretly takes over his father's job at a silent film theater in New York's East Village. Five years later, as Herman lives out his last days, he shares his wisdom with his son, explaining that the person who controls the narrative of history controls their own fate. After his father dies and his mother disappears, Cornelius sets about reinventing himself--as Professor John Woman, a man who will spread Herman's teachings into the classrooms of his unorthodox southwestern university and beyond. But there are other individuals who are attempting to influence the narrative of John Woman, and who might know something about the facts of his hidden past. Engaging with some of the most provocative ideas of recent intellectual history, John Woman is a compulsively readable, deliciously unexpected novel about the way we tell stories, and whether the stories we tell have the power to change the world.
Grove Atlantic 2019-07-16 384 pages

The narrow bed

Hannah, Sophie
Linzi Birrell and Rhian Douglas: murdered. Angela McCabe and Josh Norbury: murdered. A killer the police have dubbed Billy Dead Mates is killing pairs of best friends, one by one. Just before each murder, he sends his victim a small white book...Three regional police forces are working together to identify and catch Billy. For five months, they've been failing. Then a fifth victim, scared by what she's seen and heard on the news, comes forward to seek help. Unlike Billy's first four victims, she isn't dead. Yet.Stand-up comedian Kim Tribbeck has one of Billy's peculiar white books. A stranger gave it to her after a gig she did a year ago. Was he Billy? Now Kim's life depends on working out why she - a woman who has no close friends because she trusts no one - should attract the attention of the Best Friends Killer... And, if Billy has her in his sights, why has he waited so long to strike?
Hodder & Stoughton 2016-02-09 399 pages

A room swept white

Hannah, Sophie
TV producer Fliss Benson receives an anonymous card at work. The card has sixteen numbers on it, arranged in four rows of four - numbers that mean nothing to her. On the same day, Fliss finds out she's going to be working on a documentary about miscarriages of justice involving cot-death mothers wrongly accused of murder. The documentary will focus on three women: Helen Yardley, Sarah Jaggard and Rachel Hines. All three women are now free, and the doctor who did her best to send them to prison for life, child protection zealot Dr Judith Duffy, is under investigation for misconduct. For reasons she has shared with nobody, this is the last project Fliss wants to be working on. And then Helen Yardley is found dead at her home, and in her pocket is a card with sixteen numbers on it, arranged in four rows of four . . .
Hodder & Stoughton 2010 456 pages

The Sisters

Robert Littell
In what Christopher Lehmann-Haupt of The New York Times called "the plot of plots," Robert Littell has created the CIA "legends" Francis and Carroll, dubbed "The Sisters Death and Night" by their cohorts. But few know what these enigmatic and extremely dangerous operatives do. They plot-and they're plotting the perfect crime. They've located the perfect pawn-the Potter, the exiled ex-head of the KGB sleeper school-and, with artful deception, the Sisters coerce him into betraying his last and best sleeper, the man he considers his son. Once awakened, this sleeper, an assassin living secretly in the U.S., will launch a mission of death-unless the Potter, in a desperate race against time, can stop his protege from committing the Sisters' perfect and world-shattering crime.
Harry N. Abrams 2003-06-02 312 pages

The Sitter

R. L. Stine
Master of chilling suspense R. L. Stine proves that you never outgrow a good scare. If he frightened you then, he'll terrify you now. . . . Ellie Saks is dying to escape the city. She's sick of dead-end jobs, her mother's disapproval, her loser ex-boyfriend, Clay, who won't take a hint, and the memories of a terrible incident that occurred years ago. When her best friend suggests a summer in the Hamptons, full of glitzy parties, cool cocktails, and hot dates, Ellie's on the first Jitney out. To fund all this glamour, Ellie takes a job as a nanny. From the outside, the family's beachfront home is perfect. But then Ellie meets four-year-old Brandon, who hasn't spoken for months. The boy's icy stare and demonic laughter make clear to Ellie that he is troubled, haunted by something too horrible for words. She begins to receive threatening messages and disturbing gifts. But it's not until she barely escapes a harrowing experience that she realizes her life may depend on figuring out who's behind it: Clay? Brandon? And why? And every once in a while, in a crowd, she sees a face she hasn't seen in seven years--the face of a boy who died long ago. It would seem that Ellie's summer of fun has turned into a summer of horror--one she'll never forget . . . if she survives it at all. "From the Trade Paperback edition."
Random House Publishing Group 2004-09-28 286 pages

The Seventh Gate

Richard Zimler
By the author of the critically acclaimed international hits The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon and The Warsaw Anagrams , this novel proves Richard Zimler's mastery of the "riveting literary murder mystery" ( Independent on Sunday ). It's Berlin, 1932. Sophie is a smart and sexually precocious fourteen-year-old coming of age during Hitler's rise to power. Forced to lead a double life when her father and boyfriend become Nazi collaborators, she reserves her dreams of becoming an actress for her beloved elderly neighbor, Isaac Zarco, and his friends, most of whom are Jews working against the government in a secret group called the Ring. When a member is sent to Dachau, she realizes there must be a Nazi traitor in the group. But who? Through successive mysteries, reversals, and surprises --and a race against time --The Seventh Gate builds to a shattering end. In its chilling but sensuous evocation of the time and place, Richard Zimler's novel is a love story and a tale of ferocious heroism
Harry N. Abrams 2014-02-04 448 pages

Countdown to Mecca

Savage, Michael
"A plane bound for Amman, Jordan goes down in the Caspian Sea. The crash yields no survivors--save the Russian mercenary who hijacked the flight--and a cask containing an agent of unprecedented destructive potential is missing from the wreckage. A carefully plotted terrorist attack has been put into motion, and the resulting chaos might be enough to push America toward another costly war. The one man who might be able to stop the attack is Jack Hatfield, a freelance reporter who has never shied away from controversy. After making a politically incorrect statement about Islamic extremists, he has been discredited as a journalist and left to pick up the pieces of his career. But when his half-brother Sammy calls him, saying that his neighbor Ana overheard something she shouldn't have and now both their lives are in danger, Jack realizes he's stumbled upon a conspiracy to destroy Mecca. Now he, and a group of likeminded friends on the fringes of the law, must uncover who is behind the plot and stop them--or else witness the collapse of the world into a war of mutually assured global destruction. Michael Savage's COUNTDOWN TO MECCA is a gripping page-turner that takes readers on a journey where even the seemingly innocent aren't always innocent, the loyal aren't always loyal, and that even those counted on to serve their country, cannot always be counted on to protect it. With the threat of a third world war looming, Jack Hatfield must stop the destruction... before somebody can stop him"--
St. Martin's Press 2015-05-12 344 pages

The Halo Effect

M. J. Rose
Dr. Morgan Snow is a well-known sex therapist with a prestigious clinic devoted to the psychology of sex. One of her patients, Cleo, is a beautiful, cultured prostitute who runs her own call-girl business. Cleo has been coming to Dr. Snow because she's fallen in love, but is unable to have a healthy sexual relationship. One day, Cleo arrives with a manuscript for a tell-all book....and then disappears. A serial killer has been at work in the city, and Detective Noah Jordan turns to Morgan Snow to find out more about the psychology of a sexual murderer. Both Morgan and Noah suspect there is a link between the serial killer and Cleo's sudden disappearance, and work together to find her - before it is too late.
Evil Eye Concepts, Incorporated 2014-10-17 368 pages

The Delilah Complex

M. J. Rose
As one of New York's top sex therapists, Dr. Morgan Snow sees everything from the abused to the depraved. The Butterfield Institute is the sanctuary where she tries to heal these battered souls. The Scarlet Society is a secret club of twelve powerful and sexually adventurous women. But when a photograph of the body of one of the men they're recruited to dominate -- strapped to a gurney, the number 1 inked on the sole of his foot -- is sent to the New York Times, they are shocked and frightened. Unable to cope with the tragedy, the women turn to Dr. Morgan Snow. But what starts out as grief counseling quickly becomes a murder investigation, with any one of the twelve women a potential suspect. The case leads Detective Noah Jordan -- a man with whom Morgan has shared a brief, intense connection -- to her office. He fears the number on the man's foot hints that the killings have just begun. With her hands tied by her professional duty, Morgan is dangerously close to the demons in her own mind -- and the flesh-and-blood killer.
Evil Eye Concepts, Incorporated 2014-10-17 362 pages

Spadework for a palace: entering the madness of others

Krasznahorkai, László
"Spadework for a Palace bears the subtitle "Entering the Madness of Others" and offers an epigraph: "Reality is no obstacle." Indeed. This high-octane obsessive rant vaults over all obstacles, fueled by the idées fixe of a "gray little librarian" with fallen arches whose name-mr herman melvill-is merely one of the coincidences binding him to his lodestar Herman Melville ("I too resided on East 26th Street...I, too, had worked for a while at the Customs Office"), which itself is just one aspect of his also being "constantly conscious of his connectedness" to Lebbeus Woods, to the rock that is Manhattan, to the "drunkard Cowley" and his Lunar Caustic, to Bartok. And with this consciousness of connection he is not only gaining true knowledge of Melville but also tracing the paths to "a Serene Paradise of Knowledge." Driven to save that palace (a higher library he also serves), he loses his job and his wife leaves him, but "people must be told the truth": THERE IS NO DUALISM IN EXISTENCE. And his dream, in fact, will be "realized, for I am not giving up: I am merely a day-laborer, a spade-worker on this dream, a herman melvill, a librarian from the lending desk, currently an inmate at Bellevue, but at the same time-may I say this?-actually a Keeper of the Palace.""--
New Directions Publishing 2022 96 pages

Kill and be killed

Begley, Louis
"Master stylist Begley continues the story of Jack Dana, the former Marine Corps officer turned novelist whose quest to avenge his murdered uncle takes a new, more dangerous turn. The man who brutally murdered Uncle Harry is dead. In an effort to recover from the confrontation and collect himself, Jack takes refuge on Torcello, a small island in the Venetian lagoon, to return to his writing career. Even more urgently, he wants to win back Kerry, the beautiful lawyer who rejected him after the bloody episode with Harry's assassin. But events beyond Jack's control intervene: Kerry loses her life in circumstances that contradict everything Jack thinks he knew about her. Soon death begins to stalk Jack himself. It is impossible not to recognize in its drumbeat the machinations of Abner Brown, the man who orchestrated Harry's demise. Jack fights back, driven by cold rage and determination to complete his revenge. At his side is Kerry's best friend, the glamorous and enigmatic Heidi Krohn. Their quest will force Jack to plumb the abyss of depravity into which Kerry had sunk and face one of his fellow Marines who has embarked on a violent feud of his own. Reprising memorable characters from Killer, Come Hither and introducing dangerous new ones, Begley concludes Jack's harrowing vendetta with one last shocking twist"--
Nan A. Talese/Doubleday 2016 269 pages

Red dust

Slovo, Gillian
There was probably only one person who could make Sarah Barcant, successful prosecutor, leave New York and return home to Smitsrivier, the small town in South Africa she left years before. Ben. Her lawyer mentor and inspiration; the man who encouraged her to get out and know the world now needs her back, to help him with one last case, part of the Truth Commission. In the back of a van, handcuffed, Dirk Hendrickes is being driven to the police station where once he was proud to call himself deputy. Later, down the same hot,dry road, will come Alex Mpondo, alternating between cursing Dirk and feeling sick at the idea of facing him, his torturer. And in Smitsrivier: James Sizela, who has passed years waiting for the moment when the man he is certain killed his son, will be forced to tell where the body lies. The people who are about to meet their pasts will not experience the real truth-telling in the court room, at the public show. The real truth will be felt offstage...
Virago 2000 340 pages

Weaponized

Nicholas Mennuti,David Guggenheim
Kyle West is a wanted man. Having fled the U.S. to escape the chareges of unauthorized surveillance filed against himself and his former boss, billionaire government contractor Christopher Chandler, Kyle's hiding in Cambodia, living on borrowed time. When a mysterious stranger named Julian Robinson walks into Kyle's favorite café and offers to swap passports with Kyle, Kyle can't believe his luck. Robinson looks so much like him. The swap seems almost too good to be true. Unfortunately for Kyle, it is. This fateful decision opens a Pandora's Box of intrigue and suspense. Kyle quickly he finds himself being pursued by Russian oligarchs, Chinese operatives, the CIA, and a beautiful woman trained to kill; because Robinson isn't who he seemed. And time is running out for Kyle to discover who he is.
Little, Brown 2014-06-17 352 pages

Damnation Street

Andrew Klavan
They are two sworn enemies with a single obsession: a woman on the run from them both. Scott Weiss is a private detective. John Foy is a professional killer. The woman is Julie Wyant, a hooker with the face of an angel. Julie spent one night with Foy--a night of psychopathic cruelty that Foy called love. Desperate to get away from him, she vanished without a trace. And Foy wants her back. There's only one man who can find her: Weiss, the best locate operative in the business. She's begged him not to look for her, fearing he'll bring the killer in his wake. But Weiss can't stay away. Now, from a town called Paradise, through a wilderness that feels like hell, Weiss searches for Julie--and the killer follows, waiting for his chance. They are two expert hunters matching move for move--until it ends on Damnation Street.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2007-09-10 320 pages

William Goldman's The temple of gold

Goldman, William
Acclaimed for such Academy Award—winning screenplays as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and such thrillers as Marathon Man, not to mention the bestselling classic The Princess Bride, William Goldman stands as one of the most beloved writers in America. But long before these triumphs, he caused a sensation with his brilliant first novel, a powerful story of reckless youth that was hailed as a worthy rival to The Catcher in the Rye. THE TEMPLE OF GOLD Ray Trevitt is coming of age in the American midwest of the late 1950s. Handsome, restless, eager to live life and to find his place in the world, Ray hurtles headlong through a young man’s rite of passage–searching for answers and somewhere to belong. What he discovers is that within friendships and love affairs, army tours and married life, victory and tragedy, lie the experiences that will shape his destiny, scar his soul, and ultimately teach him profound lessons he never expected.
Ballantine Books 2001-10-02 205 pages

Identity crisis

Elton, Ben
"Why are we all so hostile? So quick to take offence? Truly we are living in the age of outrage. A series of apparently random murders draws amiable, old-school Detective Mick Matlock into a world of sex, politics, reality TV and a bewildering kaleidoscope of opposing identity groups. Lost in a blizzard of hashtags, his already complex investigation is further impeded by the fact that he simply doesn't 'get' a single thing about anything anymore. Meanwhile, each day another public figure confesses to having 'misspoken' and prostrates themselves before the judgement of Twitter. Begging for forgiveness, assuring the public 'that is not who I am'. But if nobody is who they are anymore - then who the f**k are we? Ben Elton returns with a blistering comic satire of the world as it fractures around us. Get ready for a roller-coaster thriller, where nothing - and no one - is off limits."--Provided by publisher.
Bantam Press 2019 377 pages

The Venus Fix

M. J. Rose
As one of New York's top sex therapists, Dr. Morgan Snow sees everything from the abused to the depraved. From high-profile clients with twisted obsessions to courageous survivors, the Butterfield Institute is the sanctuary to heal battered souls. Morgan Snow's newest patient is a powerful, influential man -- secretly addicted to watching Internet Web cam pornography. He's not alone in his desires. She's also working with a group of high school teenagers equally and dangerously obsessed with these real-time fantasies. Fantasies that are all too accessible. Then the women start dying online, right in front of their eyes. Now it's all about murder.
Evil Eye Concepts, Incorporated 2014-10-17 398 pages