Reading Ahead: January 2019, part 1

It's time to start thinking about keeping warm with red-hot thrillers this winter! Here are a few to consider adding to your list as the mercury starts to dip.

The Rule of Law, by John Lescroart. Last seen in 2018's Poison, Dismas Hardy is concerned: something is troubling his long-time and most-trusted assistant, Phyllis. And then? She disappears without a word. Then Hardy finds out that her brother, who has been in prison for armed robbery and attempted murder, has just been released. When Phyllis is found and arrested for the murder of a human trafficker, there's simply too much coincidence for Hardy to leave it alone. He has to put the pieces together, fast, if there's any hope of saving his trusted colleague.

Daughter of War, by Brad Taylor. Pike Logan and fellow Taskforce operator Jennifer Cahill are back after 2018's Operator Down and they're hot on the trail of a North Korean looking to sell sensitive information the Syrian regime. Then they stumble on something even more grave: the sale of a lethal substance known as Red Mercury, a weapon of mass destruction against American and Kurdish forces. Can the Taskforce unravel the plot and neutralize the threat before the conspiracy comes to a deadly end?

Liar, Liar, by James Patterson & Candice Fox. Harriet Blue is a great cop who has gone very, very bad. In the space of a week, she's committed theft and fraud, resisted arrest, assaulted an officer, and is now considered a dangerous fugitive. All of this because of one man who killed the person she held most dear...and intends to kill her next.

The New Iberia Blues, by James Lee Burke. This twenty-second entry in Burke's long-running Detective David Robicheaux series finds Robicheaux meeting up with a figure from his past, a once undersized twelve-year-old boy on the streets of New Orleans who, twenty-five years later, has fulfilled his dreams of Hollywood splendor. But when Robicheaux comes to Cormier's estate, it isn't to offer congratulations--he's looking for answers related to a nearby homicide. Cormier isn't saying much, but Robicheaux knows better. It's only as he wades deeper into the investigation, however, that he discovers just how dark and convoluted this case is.