Reading Ahead: January 2018, Part 2

Ready or not, more suspense and thrillers are on the horizon!

The Take, by Christopher Reich. Reich's (Invasion of Privacy, etc.) latest follows a hero, Simon Riske, who is part James Bond and part Jack Reacher. The London-based freelance industrial spy lives a mostly quiet life despite his job title. In fact, he does his best to avoid messy, complicated jobs, preferring to do odd jobs for banks and insurance companies. Until now. A former brother-in-arms, gangster Tino Coluzzi, has orchestrated the greatest street heist in Paris history. Their shared history ended with Riske in prison, so when the CIA asks Riske to intervene, he's only too ready to make this fight thief vs thief. If you're looking for something to take the edge off while you're waiting for the next Reacher, I highly recommend Reich.

Unbound, by Stuart Woods. There's no shortage of Stone Barrington novels these days! In the wake of personal tragedy, former CIA operative Teddy Fay takes a personal leave to travel and process his grief, only to land in Santa Fe with pal Stone Barrington. There, fate hands Teddy the means to work through his loss: a chance to exact revenge. But it will take all Stone's skill to help Teddy while keeping innocents out of the crossfire once the battle heats up.

Hellbent, by Gregg Hurwitz. Fans are loving Hurwitz's Orphan X series (which starts with 2016's Orphan X, in case you missed it), and this third installment is sure to win more readers over. And you might want to join them, especially since Hurwitz is hard at work on a script to bring an Orphan X adaptation to the big screen. Orphan X himself is Evan Smoak, taken from his home at age twelve and trained as an off-the-books government assassin. He eventually broke with the Orphan program and reinvented himself as the Nowhere Man, dedicated to helping the truly desperate. Now, Evan's past is reaching out: Jack Johns, the only father Evan has ever known, is in the crosshairs as the government works to eradicate the last traces of the Orphan program. Jack's task for Evan: find and protect Jack's last protege from the new head of Orphan.