Tag: Thrillers

Best in Mystery and Thriller!

It’s time to share the top fiction books of the week, and these books are perfect for mystery lovers. Who doesn’t love a page-turning mystery thriller? These five books will be great additions to your TBR and will be hard to put down once you dive into these amazing stories.

 

 

  1. The Wives by Tarryn Fisher

 

Image via Amazon

 

The Wives follows Thursday, whose Husband has two other wives. Thursday knew of his marriages beforehand, but she didn’t care because she’s so crazy about him. Thursday is unable to see beyond her feelings for him, until one day she finds something that she never knew about her husband. Something so horrifying that it leads her down a crazy path filled with the most shocking twist you will ever read.

 

2. In the Dark by Loreth Anne White

 

Image via Amazon

 

In the Dark, follows eight lucky people who believe they’re on their way to a luxurious vacation in the wilderness. A fierce storm approaches and everyone begins to question whether it’s a real vacation or a trap. Each guest has something to hide and now that they’re trapped they begin to fear each other. Cops, Mason and Callie, work together to save the eight guests, but they don’t know how to brave the mountains, leaving the eight guests vulnerable to be hunted and to fight to survive this game.

 

3. The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters

 

Image via Amazon

 

The Dead Girls Club follows Heather Cole, who, back in 1991, was part of a club with her friends where they exchanged tales of murderers and imaginary monsters. One of the monsters they talked about was the Red Lady. One of the girls, Becca, believed the Red Lady was real, and she wanted to prove it. Becca’s search for the Red Lady ended in her death. Now thirty years have passed and Heather has never told anyone the truth about what happened with Becca and the Red Lady until she gets something in the mail. A necklace, Heather hasn’t seen that necklace since the night Becca died, the night Heather killed her. Someone knows Heather did it and wants her to pay.

 

4. Good Girls Lie by J.T Ellison

 

Image via Amazon

 

Good Girls Lie is about a prestigious school, The Goode School, in Marchburg, Virginia. It is an elite school where the daughters of rich parents attend, only accepting the best and brightest students. Like most elite boarding schools, The Goode School has traditions and honor codes that are important for the students because it will prepare them for the Ivy League colleges and a bright future. However, when a stranger turns up at the school, things take a turn for the worse. Appearances are important to uphold and as long as no one steps out of line, no one will question how cruel the inner societies are, and the girls can basically get away with murder. When a popular student turns up dead, nothing can be ignored. People believe she was driven to suicide, but there is always truth, lies and of course the truth to what really happened.

 

5. Madness in Sunshine by Nalini Singh

 

Image via Amazon

 

A Madness of Sunshine, follows the people in a town on the rugged West Coast of New Zealand. However, it is more than just a town. The adults are more than neighbors and the kids are not just schoolmates. One summer, when bodies begin to vanish, things begin to change. The trust shatters on the coast, which leaves broken friendships, and lots of whispers behind closed doors. The silent treatment takes reign in this town, but no one can really hide from the past for long. Eight years later a young woman vanishes and people begin to question their homes and if it hides something more dangerous than an unforgiving landscape. The past and present are close to colliding and exposing deadly secrets.

 

 

Featured Image via BeFunkyCollageMaker

 


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Inside The Outsider

Long live the King, because he’s done it again! Stephen King launched his newest thriller, The Outsider, in 2018, and trust us when we say that it is bone-chilling. And HBO seems to think so too, because yesterday they launched the premier of the 10 episode mini-series based on the book.

image via amazon

The Outsider presents the viewers with a case that is, in every literal sense, impossible. In small-town USA, an 11-year-old boy is found murdered and all evidences—eyewitnesses, security camera footage, fingerprints, DNA—point to one man, Terry Maitland, played by Jason Bateman (Bateman also directs). Here, however, is the catch — there is also legitimate proof that the prime suspect was elsewhere, and thus couldn’t have done the deed. So, this gives rise to an unexplained situation in which two polar opposite things are simultaneously true.

An impossible problem, of course, can only have an equally impossible solution, and the pressing issue in the plot is that the only place for it to go, eventually, is into supernatural territory, and we’re not mad about that. This makes The Outsider an even more gripping and haunting tale, which highlights an unspeakable crime and the strangeness it brought with it.

image via medium

The series may be slightly different from the book, but rumor has it that they may share the same ending. The book and the series continue to cast a chilly spell that creeps into ones bones, and its horror elements are used to amplify the investigation of everyday people’s struggles, with death, tragedy and adversity.

 

If you missed the trailer, here’s a sneak peak! But be careful, because it is creepy.

video via youtube

image via next season tv

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Featured image via HBO

2020’s Most Exciting Thrillers

As the New Year approaches, it is easy for people to throw away essentials. We live by the phrase, ‘out with the old and in with the new.’ Publishing companies are prepared to present us with this, as the new thrillers have proven to show.  These five novels will scare you straight into the new year!

 

The Night Watchman

Image Via Amazon

A jewel bearing, plant night watchman, Thomas Wazhashk, is a member of the Chippewa Council. The council is in heed of a discussion on the new ‘emancipation’ bill, on its way to the United States Congress. It is 1953 and the council members are aware that the bill has no intention of granting freedom, but rather terminates the rights and identities of Native Americans. With government plans in place, Native American treaties will be broken.

 

The Glass Hotel: A Novel

Image Via Goodreads

Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star hotel on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. One night, Vincent is met by a hooded figure who scrawls a message on the lobby’s glass wall: “Why don’t you swallow broken glass.” The shipping executive, Leon Prevant, reads the message and orders a drink. Alkatis, the owner of the hotel, reads the threat unaware that it was meant for him. Alkatis gives Vincent a hundred-dollar tip and a business card, and they reunite a year later.

 

American Dirt: A Novel

Image Via MacMillan Publishers

In the Mexican city of Acapulco, Lydia, a bookstore owner, lives with her son, and the love her life. Though the cracks of Acapulco are beginning to show through the forming of the drug cartels, Lydia’s life remains comfortable. One day, a man enters her shop, bringing four books to the counter, two of which are her favorites. Javier, although charming, is the jefe of the newest drug cartel. Lydia finds herself charmed by his presence, but once her husband figures out Javier’s lifestyle, their lives will turn upside down.

 

Long Bright River

Image Via Amazon

Two sisters from Philadelphia were once close as… sisters? Once the opioid crisis hit, their lives completely changed. Kacey lives on the streets in the depth of addiction. Mickey finds herself walking the same blocks on her police beat. The two no longer speak. Mickey finds herself in worry when she realizes that Kacey has gone missing. Becoming obsessed with finding the culprit for this and other murders, Mickey determines to find her sister before it’s too late.

 

The Other Mrs.

Image Via Amazon

Sadie and Will Foust just moved their family from Chicago to a small town in Maine. Their neighbor, Morgan Baines, is found dead in her home. The island is stricken with fear, but Sadie continues to worry that the killer is in her own backyard.  After inheriting their new home, due to the sudden death of Will’s sister, Sadie finds herself in distress over the decrepit décor and creepy attic. The troubling past, as the blurb states, “continues to wear at the seams of their family”, keeping everyone suspicious of who this murderer could be.


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Featured Image Via LevelEleven

Author of ‘First Blood’ Absolutely Hates ‘Rambo: Last Blood’

David Morell’s bestselling debut thriller, First Blood, was adapted for the screen in 1982. Thirty-seven-years later (seriously, how was Sylvester Stallone still making these almost four decades later) Morell said he left the theater “degraded and dehumanized” after watching Rambo: Last Blood, the last installment in the Rambo series.

 

 

Morell had some limited involvement with the production of Rambo: Last Blood. Stallone spoke with him during the writing process, but their relationship ended quickly because Morell and Stallone had different visions for the main character. Morell wanted to portray Rambo as a more “soulful” character, tracking down a missing child and creating a new sense of family for himself. The finished script does include Rambo rescuing a friend’s granddaughter from a Mexican cartel, but the vision Morell had for the character is absent.

 

 

Morell commented on his experience seeing the movie in an email to Newsweek:

I felt degraded and dehumanized after I left the theater…Instead of being soulful, this new movie lacks one. I felt I was less a human being for having seen it, and today that’s an unfortunate message.

 

Image via Inside Hook

 

Morell’s not alone in his reaction to the new film. Peter Hartlaub, a reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle, had this to say about Rambo: Last Blood:

 

But the latest chapter feels like a bad Rocky sequel has infected a good Rambo movie. And along the way, the makers of Last Blood lose track of the thing that draws us to the character. 

 

And Luke Parker, for wegotthiscovered.com, had this to say:

 

 …between the split bones and compulsive carnage, a disjointed script, co-written by Stallone and Matthew Cirulnick, makes Rambo: Last Blood mindless and messy.

 

 

The film is a far cry from the paradigm-shifting First Blood from which it began, and it’s definitely strayed form the vision Morell had for the character.

 

Image via Maxim

 

Numerous critics have raised concerns about the over-the-top slaughter of the film’s Mexican villains, considering today’s political climate. Morell has distanced himself from the political readings many have made of Rambo: Last Blood, but the Rambo films have always had a political bent, often reflecting on foreign policy after the Vietnam War and during the Reagan era. Morell’s issues with the film seem more to do with the film’s sloppy execution.

 

 

Featured image via Glamour Fame and NY Daily News

 

The 2019 ITW Thriller Award Winners Have Been Announced

International Thriller Writers (ITW) is proud to announce the most thrilling authors of 2019. The winners of this year’s ITW Thriller Awards are:

BEST HARDCOVER NOVEL
Jennifer Hillier — JAR OF HEARTS (Minotaur Books)

BEST FIRST NOVEL
C. J. Tudor — THE CHALK MAN (Crown)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL NOVEL
Jane Harper — THE LOST MAN (Pan Macmillan Australia)

 

Images Via Amazon and Penguin Random House

BEST SHORT STORY
Helen Smith — “Nana” in KILLER WOMEN: CRIME CLUB ANTHOLOGY #2 (Killer Women Ltd.)

BEST E-BOOK ORIGINAL NOVEL
Alan Orloff — PRAY FOR THE INNOCENT (Kindle Press)

BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL
Teri Bailey Black — GIRL AT THE GRAVE (Tor Teen)

 

Images Via Amazon

Also receiving special recognition:

John Sandford, ThrillerMaster
In recognition of his legendary career and outstanding contributions to the thriller genre.

Harlan Coben, Silver Bullet Award

“Mystery Mike” Bursaw, ThrillerFan Award

Margaret Marbury, Thriller Legend Award

 

John Sandford, Harlan Coben, Margaret Marbury, Mystery Mike Bursaw | Images Via Amazon, Penguin Random House, The Strand

 

There’s only one event where you can find New York Times best-selling authors lurking around every single corner, literary agents actually appearing in broad daylight and fans openly plotting and conspiring with the most feared and revered names of the thriller genre. We hope that you join us in 2020 for ThrillerFest XV, the International Thriller Writers’ fifteenth annual celebration of all things Thriller, the largest event of its kind in the world.  The highlight of the festival is the gala ITW Thriller Awards Banquet during which a fresh batch of authors will be announced as the chosen heroes of suspense.www.thrillerfest.com