Posts Tagged ‘thriller’

What happens when a bored Stanford computer science major signs up to play Fortuna, an online role-playing game set in Renaissance Florence?  More than Jason Lind could ever imagine.  Swept up into the highly addictive game, Jason soon loses interest in his mundane surroundings.

Combining high-tech computer gaming with the mystery of who is behind the game, Fortuna (2010, Oceanview) is a virtual reality thriller written by Michael Stevens. What starts as a great escape may only leave Jason trapped in both the virtual past and the real present.

Stevens is a contributing editor for several high-profile web sites in the technology arena in Berkeley CA.  This is his first novel.

Read globally, but buy from your local independent bookstore and keep more revenue in your community.

Watchlist: Two Serial Thrillers in One Killer Book (Vanguard Press, 2010) is the result of a collaboration between 22 writers, members of International Thriller Writers.

Jeffrey Deaver , the popular thriller writer of 26 books, provides the opening and closing chapters of each segment. The main building block was a lead character that ties the two stories together: Harold Middleton, a former war crimes investigator who unexpectedly gets pulled back into a game of international intrigue at the start of the first novella, “The Chopin Manuscript.” 

“The Copper Bracelet,” is the title of the second novella and sets Middleton and his allies on the track of a Kashmiri planning the assassination of the U.S. secretary of state.

The list of authors who participated in this venture reads like a Who’s Who of the writing world.  Among them, Linda Barnes, Brett Battles, Lee Child (Jack Reacher novels), David Corbett, Joseph Finder, P.J. Parrish, and Lisa Scottoline.

Read globally but buy from your local independent bookstore and keep more revenue in your community.

Final Target  (Harper, 2010) is Steven Gore’s debut novel, an international thriller drawn from his own investigations.  His character, Graham Gage, becomes involved in a stock swindle and an arms deal that threatens the American military in the Middle East.  Gore is a private investigator who has uncovered murder, fraud, money laundering, and other crimes in Europe, Asia and Latin America.  Final Target is a fast-paced, page-turner that you won’t want to put down.

Frame Up (Oceanview Publishing, 2009) by John F. Dobbyn takes us from Boston to Amsterdam in search of priceless art.  Michael Knight practiced with the U.S. Attorney’s office and a prestigious trial firm before he and his mentor, Lex Devlin, form their own criminal defense law firm.  In the wake of his best friend’s murder, Knight must build a defense for the alledged bomber, the son of a Mafia don. 

Dead Air (Oceanview Publishing, 2009) by Deborah Shlian and Linda Reid brings us brash Sammy Greene, the host of The Hot Line, a talk radio show at her ultraconservative college.  When Sammy discovers the body of Dr. Burton Conrad, one of the college’s most esteemed professors, her journalistic drive kicks in and she sets out to find answers to what happened.  Sammy steps on toes and stumbles onto a frightening conspiracy that threatens to reach far beyond the college campus.

Read globally but buy from your local independent bookstore and keep more revenue in your community.

The 13th Hour is a thriller told in reverse, reminiscent of the 2000 film Memento.  This is Richard Doetsch’s third novel after The Thieves of Heaven and The Thieves of Faith.  As a test of his writing skill, Doetsch wrote the story in 30 days.  New Line Cinema has won the film rights to the story.

The story centers around Nick Quinn, a man accused of murdering his wife.  A mysterious stranger visits him in the police interrogation room and offers him a way to go back in time to prevent Julia’s murder.  Nick begins to realize that his actions in the past may have unexpected consequences in the future.

Read globally but buy from your local independent bookstore and keep more revenue in your community.

Level 26: Dark Origins (2009) is by scriptwriter Anthony E. Zuiker. The first script Zuiker wrote was CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which became an overnight sensation and made him a hot Hollywood property.  His first novel, Level 26 is an interactive novel, allowing readers to go from the book to the website, Level26.com. Also called a digi-novel, the reader can access the website and read deeper into the story.The Dark Origins series centers around a rogue serial-killer hunter.  Steve Dark is the head of a highly secret and incredibly skilled black ops element within the U.S. government, which is tasked with finding and bringing to justice the most brutal and horrific murderers in the world.  In the debut novel, Dark has been tapped to find a serial killer so evil that he has been deemed Level 26.  The numbers refer to the 25 levels that murderers can be classified by law enforcement according to the extent of their evil.  Here, the bad guy is so twisted, he’s a 26. 

Buy your books from a local independent bookstore and keep more of the revenue in your community.

Wyatt’s Revenge (2009), latest novel from H. Terrell Griffin, is an action-packed thriller.  Retired trial lawyer Matt Royal lives on Longboat Key, FL, enjoying his laid-back life when he learns of the execution style killing of his dearest friend, Laurence Wyatt.  Not one to turn his back on friends, Matt decides to find out why he was killed.  And, most importantly, who killed Wyatt.   The trail leads Matt from Florida to Germany and a decades old trail of Nazis and collaborators.  This is the fourth novel in the Matt Royal series.  Wyatt’s Revenge has been chosen as a SIBA OKRA pick.

Buy books from your local independent bookstore and keep more revenue in your community.