Twenty years after her dis­ap­pear­ance, the body of teenager Sarah Crosswhite is found. Her older sister Tracy, now a Seattle detective, believes that the man convicted of Sarah’s abduction was framed, and sets out to overturn his conviction. But some people in her hometown are not happy about this.

Dugoni is an en­ter­tain­ing sto­ry­teller. The plot moves along briskly, with enough twists and turns to keep one on the hook. However, the story was pre­dictable and not par­tic­u­lar­ly original.

Fourteen years ago, Sam Bowden testified against Max Cady. Now Cady is out of prison and waging a war of terror against Sam and Carol and their children. Cady is cunning and ruthless and sooner or later he’s going to start killing them. Bowden has always been a strong believer in the law, but until there’s proof, there’s little the law can do about Cady. Sam and Carol have to dig deeper to unearth their primal survival instincts.

Four long novellas about Dalziel and Pascoe: "Fat Andy" Dalziel, the crude and wily Yorkshire su­per­in­ten­dent, and Peter Pascoe, the university-educated, much politer detective inspector. The stories include their first meeting and their last case, set in the future of 2010, in­ves­ti­gat­ing a murder on the moon. The stories are en­ter­tain­ing, combining decent plotting with good char­ac­ter­i­za­tion.

The Arctic convoys, which took much needed supplies from North America and Britain to their besieged Russian ally in World War II, were brutally dangerous. Between the Arctic weather, the cold seas, and the German U-boats and bombers, many ships were lost. As HMS Ulysses opens, the crew are mutinous, having endured more than a year of such relentless conditions with far too little rest. They have to put to sea again, to escort one more convoy. This will be the worst trip of all, as bad weather, ill …continue.

The Netflix series House of Cards is based on a BBC series made in the early 1990s, which in turn are based on three novels—House of Cards, To Play the King, and The Final Cut—by Dobbs. In the first book, Francis Urquhart, tired of being overlooked for a Cabinet position, schemes and murders his way to becoming Prime Minister. In the second, the new PM feuds with the idealistic new king. In the final book, after ten years in office, Urquhart wants to …continue.

Chris Flynn was an out-of-control teenager who spent time in a youth prison, but he’s kept his nose clean since then. He’s laying carpet one day when he finds $50,000 in cash under some floor­boards. He knows it’s trouble and leaves it there–but someone else takes it. Then the original owners reappear and kill one of Chris’s friends.

Pelecanos is known for both characters and plot, and examining how cir­cum­stances can lead flawed people to make decisions that cause events to spiral out of control. Chris and his father …continue.

Every year when the snow first arrives in Norway, a woman disappears and there’s a snowman in the vicinity. No one’s noticed the pattern until now. Harry Hole, the alcoholic detective inspector, starts seeking the links between the cases.

Nesbø’s novels are gripping but over the top.

Tucker may be a white guy but he’s been cooking Chinese food since he was a child, and he’s good at it—good enough to get a job at a Chinese restaurant as a cook. Then there’s Corinne, trying to avoid the Chinese gangsters who are convinced she has their diamonds.

Lowry shows a light touch in this quirky and en­ter­tain­ing boy-meets-girl story.

Allergies kick in strongly for me at this time of year. Usually a daily an­ti­his­t­a­mine is enough. This morning, I woke up from a poor night’s sleep with crusty eyes, itchy nose, and explosive sneezes. I lasted at work until early afternoon, then came home to take to my bed.

An Irish newspaper magnate has been found with his head blown off by a shotgun. Quirke, the pathol­o­gist, looks into it and realizes that it’s not suicide but murder. As he digs deeper, he finds secrets that the wealthy elite of 1950s Dublin do not want revealed, and he finds himself drawn to the dead man’s French widow.

Benjamin Black (aka John Banville) deftly recreates 1950s Ireland through the eyes of Quirke, who, though well placed, is more of an observer than an insider, and of his …continue.