Showing posts with label thrillers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thrillers. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Sister by Rosamund Lupton

Sister by Rosamund Lupton

Let me start by saying that this is not my usual type of book. I'm not too into thrillers or mysteries, mostly because they tend to freak me out. (That is not to say that I don't like those procedurals on tv, such as CSI, SVU, etc.) Anyway, this book was a book club selection that I went in to half-heartedly.

Sister is the story of two sisters who are extremely close. They are five years apart, but shared a childhood trauma that kept them closer than expected. The two share the minutiae of their lives, including their eating habits, friends, and even things they've purchased recently.

Beatrice (Bee) is the quintessential older sister, always trying to protect her younger, artsy, flighty sister Tess. Tess is in their hometown London, while Bee works in a high-powered, but somewhat safe, corporate job in New York City. Despite their distance, they remain close. So when Tess goes missing, Bee hops a flight to London immediately, surprised that she didn't notice it herself.

That's where the story begins. Bee is determined to find out what happened her sister, going up against the police frequently, who seem to think that Tess is another flighty art student who up and disappeared. Bee continues to contradict their ideas about her beloved sister. Conducting her own investigation, Bee learns things about her sister that contradict what she thought she knew, and begins to question if she really knew her as well as she thought.

This book was awesome. As stated, this isn't my usual read, but it delivered. The book has a huge twist to it near the end that changes how you see everything. (I will not spoil it for you.) I read this book a few months ago for one of my book clubs, and the second club I run was reading it recently as well, so I gave it a second reading. It was even better the second time, since I knew the twist and was able to watch for the hints that had previously gone unnoticed.

If you are remotely interested in mysteries, thrillers, or books that trick you (in a good way), give this one a read.

~Cailey W.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Interns and Assassins

It is no secret that I read a lot. In fact, I also listen to audiobooks in order to extend my reading even while driving. I also have a tendency read a lot about reading. So, I come across all sorts of books that I then tell myself to read (via the "Want to Read" list on Goodreads). This particular book I came across on a list of the best audiobooks of the year so far, and I was like, "Cailey, you should read that." It also helped that I had seen Marilyn reading the book not too long ago. Anyway, I just wanted you to know how I got to this book that really isn't in my usual genre.

The Intern's Handbook: A Thriller by Shane Kuhn is a comedy/thriller. It is kind of hard to say which box it ticks. John Lago, orphaned at birth, raised rough in the foster system, was taken in by HR Inc. HR Inc. is a super-secret agency that plants assassins, in the form of interns, for high-profile bad guys--basically, higher-ups in companies who have ticked off the wrong people. So, for years, John has posed as an intern in law firms, accountant firms, Fortune-500s, and more. In each position, he has eliminated a target, and given a plausible fallback for the culprit (i.e. blaming it on the company's competition, the mob, etc.). To do all of this, John has to infiltrate the company at the lowest, most unsuspecting level: intern. Being an intern means that he is invisible. People don't notice him when they are having a conversation, and give him menial tasks that inadvertently reveal their weaknesses.
“Interns are invisible. You can tell an executive your name a hundred times and that executive will never remember it because they have no respect for someone at the bottom of the barrel, working for free.” 
John is good at his job. No, he's great. The fact that John is still alive after all these years is a testament to that. He is very smart, quick on his feet, and inventive. Honestly, that man had some very creative ways to murder someone. This is John's last job though. At the age of 25, he now has to retire. No worries though, because he has a ton of money stored away, and the last job should be a cinch. Of course this isn't the case.
Going into his last job, John encounters unique problems. One in the form of a woman who has piqued his interest more than he has ever encountered. John is great at thinking on his feet, but, as much as he'd hate to admit it, he's human. John makes mistakes and gets himself into trouble. He's plagued by misinformation, competing agencies, and intentional omissions from his own agency. John is determined to complete his mission and get out alive.

The book is written as a "handbook" to the new "interns," but is really more of an account of his last job entirely. I had trouble with this book in some parts, as some things seemed improbable that John would openly share them with the other interns. I liked that there were FBI files interspersed with John's chapters. John isn't the most reliable of narrators, and those sections helped glimpse the reality of his situation.
It was graphic, action-packed, and full of surprises. The book frequently tricked me. I wasn't a huge fan of the ending, but the ride there was good. I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys action films, with a lot of sarcasm on the side. John is a cynical, gritty sort of guy. I, for one, appreciate that in a person. Some people who do not like swear words may not.

For the record, it was a pretty good audiobook. The narrator was able to pack a lot of emotion into the story, and I can't think of the book being narrated by anyone else.

Also, fun fact: this book has already been optioned for film, starring Dave Franco (brother to James Franco).

~Cailey W.

PS-Just take a second to appreciate the beauty of this cover!

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Like a Frontal Lobotomy

I won’t bother going into the roundabout way in which I found this book, but if you’re interested in the way my curiosities take me through the internet go here and here. I actually can’t recommend that second piece highly enough. It’s a fascinating look at a complicated man (choice quote, “from this point of view, Dr. Eben Alexander looks less like a messenger from heaven and more like a true son of America, a country where men have always found ways to escape the rubble of their old lives through audacious acts of reinvention.”) That actually segues nicely into my review of The Patient by Michael Palmer. Dr. Eben Alexander (author of Proof of Heaven) worked closely with Palmer as a consultant for The Patient.

Well, where to begin? The hackneyed plot of The Patient is thus (feel free to fill in the blanks as we go along, I’ve provided you with some other options in case you want to mix things up): Chiseled Jaw, the grizzled, white, male CIA (FBI, Interpol, NSA) agent has gone rogue in order to take down one last case in order to avenge his brother (wife, daughter, friend). He’s helped by Sexy Glasses, the brilliant, beautiful doctor (psychologist, museum curator, linguist) who finds herself tangled up between Chiseled Jaw and French mercenary Claude Malloche (I remember his name due to him being utterly ridiculous) who I imagined looked, give or take, like Bomb Voyage from The Incredibles as he acted more or less like a cartoon villain. The biggest surprise here was that Sexy Glasses didn’t also find herself tangled up in the sheets with Chiseled Jaw. Anyway, Sexy Glasses has to remove a tumor from Malloche’s brain before he releases a deadly toxin in the city of Boston.

I rarely touch novels like these; (and others like Patterson, Baldacci, Connelly, etc) these paint by number thrillers that barely resemble books, starring a list of rotating stock stereotypes (It would be insulting to actual characters to refer to them as anything else) aren’t really worth my time. I assume the medical science within is sound, so it at least has that going for it. So, if you like these types of books, have at it. I have my own literary vices.

My recommendations – read literally anything else.

~Meredith T.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Librarians' Best 2012 Part One


This week and next, we will be sharing the MPL librarians' favorite books read in 2012.

“We don't need to have just one favorite. We keep adding favorites. Our favorite book is always the book that speaks most directly to us at a particular stage in our lives. And our lives change. We have other favorites that give us what we most need at that particular time. But we never lose the old favorites. They're always with us. We just sort of accumulate them.”  ~Lloyd Alexander

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

My favorite book this year was Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. It usually takes me a while to get into a book, but I was hooked from the first chapter. Wade Watts lives in the near future (2044) where the world has fallen on hard times, and most people escape to the virtual world, OASIS, to avoid facing it. OASIS was created by James Halliday who has become a recluse in recent years. When Halliday dies, it is revealed that he has left clues in OASIS, and whoever finds these clues will win Halliday’s giant fortune. And so the hunt begins. Along with the average Joe who dreams of finding the fortune, Halliday’s rival company, IOI wants to find the clues so it can take over OASIS and commercialize it. IOI is the quintessential evil corporation that will stop at nothing (not even murder) to win. So Wade, as his avatar Parzival, begins his quest.

Imagine The Da Vinci Code mystery with late 20th century pop culture references and a virtual world where anything is possible. So addicting and fun.

~Amanda D.

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

 Written by Barbara Pym and published in 1952, I was thoroughly delighted by Excellent Women and it was easily the best book I read in 2012. A comedy of manners, Excellent Women tells the story of spinster Mildred Lathbury and her involvement with church jumble sales, afternoon teas, and the goings on of her neighbors. If this doesn’t already make you faint with excitement, Mildred’s life gets a little more complicated with the arrival of Helena and Rocky Napier, a whirlwind of a couple who sweep into Mildred’s life and pull her into their dramatic hot-and-cold relationship.

 And yet, through all of this, Mildred Lathbury remains an admirable, steadfast, excellent woman. Smart, supportive, and terribly taken for granted. This book is utterly charming, full of witty conversation and sharp social observation.  An excellent book, indeed.

 ~Meredith T.


Ashfall by Mike Mullin

I read the start of a great new series, Ashfall by Mike Mullin.

Plot line: Super volcano in Yellowstone National Park explodes.  Ash begins to fall.  Alex had been left home while his mother father and younger sister went to visit his uncle’s farm.  Alex decides to walk the 140 miles east to find his family.  Along the way he meets good people, bad people, and gets a companion for the journey, Darla.

Why I liked it:  It was very easy to get attached to the main character. Alex was not too knowledgeable which is a problem in some disaster fiction, nor did he seem too young for the book.  The side characters had lots of depth and you could imagine the adventures and trouble they had outside of Alex’s view.

 And I don’t read a lot of volcano books so it was a nice change.

~Amy W.


**Tune in next week for the remaining three librarians' favorites!**

What was your favorite of 2012? Feel free to comment below. A book is always better when shared.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Guest Blogger: Steve H.

Pompeii: a novel, by Robert Harris - Twentysomething Book Club
We venture back to Rome for this historical thriller, set on the eve of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and what a blast it is. The story begins with engineer Marcus Attilius, newly appointed charge of the Aqua Augusta, on a mission to find a spring in the midst of a drought. He fails in this assignment and heads home dejected, only to be pulled into a situation in which a slave is to be executed for the death of his master’s expensive fish. Attilius is summoned by the master’s daughter, Corelia, who believes there is something in the water that is killing the fish, perhaps having to do with the sulfur smell in the water, and thus the slave is not responsible. There begins the quest for the source of what may be polluting the water. Attilius soon discovers that the aqueducts in the local provinces are drying up too, and that there seems to be a much larger problem at hand. I am a fan of history and was pleased with this story, not only for its accurate depiction of the time period, but for the quick paced suspense. You have to hand it to Harris, keeping the story engaging despite the fact that the reader knows the ultimate outcome, the destruction of Pompeii, is a great feat. Harris also mixes together fictional characters with real historical characters, such as Pliny the Elder. Although the villain he created in the character of Numerius Popidius Ampliatus has a couple of excellent scenes, most of the characters fall somewhat flat, and the love story between Attilius and Corelia is quite thin. Various subplots though, like the one involving the missing aquarius, Exomnius, who Attilius replaced, add to the drama. And there is a nice amount of rich historical detail that I enjoyed, with Harris not going overboard on the history and burdening the story. We learn about the precision needed to create the great aqueducts and the mastery the Romans had with cement. One device Harris used which I simply glanced over was the volcanic information at the beginning of each chapter. These ranged from encyclopedic entries to formulas on the force of explosions. For me these were too scientific but I can see where some would enjoy these snippets. And at the beginning of the book, the similarity of Roman sounding names were a little hard to keep track of, but I found this to ease as the story evolved. Overall though this title was a fun and engaging read. It was a nice suspense thriller with some substance, and the right amount of historical accuracy. Give it a try for a quick summer read.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

When did clowns and little girls get so scary?


Promise Not to Tell by Jennifer McMahon


I like mysteries that are not labeled as mysteries and just kind of reveal themselves to be once you’re reading it. That’s what happened with Promise Not to Tell by Jennifer McMahon. It was an engrossing book about murder and revenge and all that fun stuff you expect out of a great mystery. Plus there’s a ghost. Awesome. The thing is, I have this strange habit of assuming the protagonist is somehow the murderer in basically every thriller/mystery I read. It’s quite annoying and surprisingly distracting. I don’t know when I lost total faith in the character telling me her story, but at some point the trust disappeared and I was left just waiting for the moment when it is revealed that the person I’ve been listening to for the past 200-odd pages is really the psycho bent on murder. So let’s just get that out of the way right now: Kate is not the killer. There are times when she’s not the most fleshed out character, but the first victim, Del Griswold, is a great person to meet and feel for and even admire. She is probably the main reason I recommend the book; because her presence, despite being the victim, is strong and ever-present in the novel. It was a book I did not want to put down, and although ghosts open the door for situations that could deflate an otherwise realistic story with unexplained conveniences, McMahon accomplished what she set out to do; tell a story about redemption and a darn scary murder. Oh, and because I happen to know someone who does not like to read about kids bullying kids, I would just like to inform that person now that this book does involve that subject. And although it is brief, it does form a key and deeply moving element to the story. So heads up.


Friday, January 30, 2009

The man in the trees wants you to read it

Immoral by Brian Freeman
Wow, I can’t believe the month of killer thrillers are over (did anyone get the Michael Jackson reference with the “killer thriller” thing? I was thinking about adding a picture of him as a sort of visual aid. Shoot, now I’m going to have “Thriller” in my head). The last book I read in the genre was called Immoral by Brian Freeman. It was good. It had the required twists and (yawn) turns. Oh, excuse me. Sometimes it felt like you read one thriller you read them all. I mean, yeah, it kept me turning the pages, but it also didn’t do anything new and exciting for me. Plus, the author chose to insert graphic (now how shall I put this?) “love” scenes randomly throughout. Now I don’t want to say the scenes were forced, but yeah. Just because you know how to put words together to produce a “love” scene, doesn’t mean you have to. Or should. And I don’t want to ruin it for you, but the romantic relationship actually played a large part in the ending which seemed a little too convenient. I’m sorry. I’m being very critical. It’s just that, well, it would be nice to pick up a book with a thoroughly thought out mind bending love story, you know? Wow, how convenient for me that February’s Flavor of the Month is Romance! This is very exciting! So get some green M&M’s (apparently the new color of love) and settle into a book of romance. Or just pick up the one with the cheesiest bodice ripping cover. I’ll be talking about some choices next week of both the mind bending thought out love story and bodice ripping variety.

graphic "love" scenes, eh?

Monday, January 12, 2009

Book Immersion: Bad Monkeys

I’ve never done this before, but everything about this book makes me want to, so let us for a moment immerse ourselves in Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff.
First, the cover. It grabs me from the beginning. It has a vibrant yellow paperback cover, and is slightly taller and narrower than most books. Plus, I don’t know what it’s made of, but it feels really neat. And right on the front there’s a Rorschach ink blot resembling a monkey (well, that’s what I see. I wonder what that says about me?). Above the image is a review by Christopher Moore, an author that I just love, so I’m already hooked. There is red text to offset the dominant black, and a couple more tiny Rorschach’s thrown in on the spine and back for good measure. The very first page after the cover is black, then we move on to the story itself (Well, ok, you get the standard title page, and the dedication is set on top of the publisher information—“For Phil,” but then we get to the story, which was published in 2007 by Harper Collins). The type font is Times New Roman, just like this post. We get some quotes from the Bible and an H.L. Mencken and then a chapter labeled “white room (i).” As it turns out, there will be more white room chapters, intermingled with the others. Ruff decides to literally set the stage for the readers by telling us about this white room. He does so in a way that seems like it could be from a movie script. This intrigues me. In this white room we see a woman and a psychologist. The woman has been sent to this psychologist because she confessed that she is a member of a secret organization that kills bad people, or Bad Monkeys (Ooooh, it’s all coming together!). The rest of the story is devoted to Jane Charlotte explaining who she is and what she does. There are some sci-fi elements thrown in because, well, it’s kind of hard to explain a super secret organization that finds bad people and kills them. For example, instead of just killing the Bad Monkeys any old way, the organization has a gun that sends out some sort of (mumble mumble sci-fi) pulse to give the victims a heart attack or aneurism. This book is quite a page turner. Jane Charlotte is a character that’s hard to figure out, but she is intriguing anyways, and keeps you guessing. The plot has many twists and turns, especially towards the end where you could get whiplash if you’re not careful. The 227 page book ends, then there’s an acknowledgment and an about the author page. I guess we can’t get totally immersed without talking about the plot, but I don’t want to ruin anything. I want you to read it, and then you can have a Bad Monkeys experience of your own. Yay.


Check it out.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

More ideas from the flavor of the month

Are you reading a thriller yet? I just started Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff, and it's pretty fun. I'll let you know all about it when I finish. It's a psychological thriller, but there are so many different kinds. We're making lists to help you out here at the library in case you aren't sure what you want. Here are some titles from the psychological thriller list that I think you might like. Psychological thrillers focus more on the mind games people play with each other and less on the action that you sometimes find in other thrillers. I am respectfully choosing these suggestions from the Novelist website.



Delusion by Peter Abrahams
A woman's world is turned upside down when new evidence frees a man she put in prison with her testimony years ago.

The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri by David Bajo
Left an extensive personal library when his long-time paramour disappears, genius mathematician Philip Mazyrk finds buried within the books puzzling clues about her disappearance, in a mystery that is further complicated by an enigmatic woman and his stepchildren's personal troubles.



Pig Island by Mo Hayder
Debunking supernatural hoaxes for a living, journalist Joe Oakes finds everything he believes coming into question during a visit to a remote Scottish island, on which a secretive religious community lives apart from a violent band of isolationists who harbor a murderous strange creature.

Eye of Vengeance by Jonathon King
Covering the story of a convicted murderer who has been killed in front of a corrections facility, veteran crime reporter Nick Mullins becomes increasingly alarmed when he realizes that his own news subjects are being targeted by a serial killer.

Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff
Confessing that she is a member of a secret organization dedicated to assassinating bad guys, murder suspect Jane Charlotte lands in a psychiatric hospital, where she recounts her increasingly bizarre life as a trained killer.

18 Seconds by George D. Shuman
A blind psychic possessing an ability to see murder victims' final moments of life, Sherry Moore is enlisted for help by New Jersey police Lieutenant Kelly O'Shaughnessy, who is being targeted for her father's role in a serial killer's capture years earlier.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Share a killer thriller

We’re starting something new at the library this year. Every month we’re going to introduce a new genre, and display books from that genre at the front of the library. We’re calling it “the flavor of the month,” and I’m personally inviting you, no, daring you to read a different book each month from that genre. This month we’re doing Suspense/Thrillers. According to Novelist, Thrillers/Suspense have a “sense of menace that permeates these books from early on, and the growing unease builds to a climax. Action drives the stories, and dangers beset the characters at every turn.” Wow. Pretty intense. Makes me want to read one. How about you? Here are some author suggestions:
Brad Meltzer
Jeffrey Deaver





Robin Cook

And let me know what you think when you read outside your comfort zone. I'll definitely be talking about it.