Reading Ahead: March 2015, part 1

Looking for something to get your blood pumping as winter hangs around? Here are some suspense/thrillers to look forward to, coming to your local library next month!

The Patriot Threat, by Steve Berry. Cotton Malone, once a member of an elite intelligence division within the Justice Department known as the Magellan Billet, is now retired and owns an old bookshop in Denmark. But when his former-boss, Stephanie Nelle, asks him to track a rogue North Korean who may have acquired some top secret Treasury Department files—the kind that could bring the United States to its knees—Malone is vaulted into a harrowing twenty-four hour chase that begins on the canals in Venice and ends in the remote highlands of Croatia. Berry's Cotton Malone series has been steadily gaining popularity, so should you want to catch up while waiting for this latest installment, start with The Templar Legacy.

Someone is Watching, by Joy Fielding. As a special investigator for a hotshot Miami law firm, Bailey Carpenter is smart, savvy, and fearless. When she’s assigned to spy on a deadbeat dad in the middle of the night, Bailey thinks nothing of the potential dangers, only that she needs to gather evidence. Then she is blindsided—attacked and nearly killed. Now the firm grip Bailey once had on her life is shaken. Her nightmares merge into her waking hours and she’s unable to venture beyond her front door without panicking. Essentially prisoner in her own home, Bailey is uncertain whom she can trust. But old habits die hard, and soon Bailey finds a new use for her idle binoculars: casually observing from her window neighboring buildings and other people’s lives. This seemingly harmless diversion becomes a guilty pleasure when Bailey fixates on the handsome guy across the street—until she realizes that he is also watching her. Suddenly she must confront the terrifying possibility that he may be the man who shattered her life. This thriller, a bit of a departure for Fielding, has a sly nod to Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, and I'm recommending it to fans of Lisa Gardner or Mary Higgins Clark.

The Stranger, by Harlan Coben. Adam Price has everything he could have hoped for: a comfortable marriage to a beautiful woman, two great kids, a big house, a job he enjoys. What he didn't know was that it was all built on a lie, until The Stranger lets him in on the secret his wife is keeping from him. Upon confronting his wife, Adam's perfect life disappears, replaced by his tenuous existence as he tries to untangle himself from a conspiracy he never imagined. It's either find a way out, or else. Coben is a master at suspense, so I don't expect anything but tight plotting and a heart-pounding read from this latest outing. 

World Gone By, by Dennis Lehane. Ten years have passed since Joe Coughlin’s enemies killed his wife and destroyed his empire, and much has changed. Prohibition is dead, the world is at war again, and Joe’s son, Tomás, is growing up. Now, the former crime kingpin works as a consigliore to the Bartolo crime family, traveling between Tampa and Cuba, his wife’s homeland. A master who moves in and out of the black, white, and Cuban underworlds, Joe effortlessly mixes with Tampa’s social elite, U.S. Naval intelligence, the Lansky-Luciano mob, and the mob-financed government of Fulgencio Batista. He has everything—money, power, a beautiful mistress, and anonymity. But success cannot protect him from the dark truth of his past—and ultimately, the wages of a lifetime of sin will finally be paid in full.