April’s Best New Thrillers

The Fallen, by David Baldacci
Baldacci’s fourth Amos Decker novel heads to the small rust-belt town of Baronville, where Decker and FBI agent Alex Jamison are visiting with Alex’s family. Baronville’s a town in decline afflicted by an opioid crisis, and dealing with a series of brutal murders marked by mysterious clues that have the local cops stymied. It’s not long before Decker, who has a perfect memory since a head injury he suffered while a pro football player, stumbles onto the next grisly homicide scene—and with his special mental abilities, begins to see a pattern that goes far beyond Baronville. When the pattern touches on people Decker cares about, the mystery becomes a personal one—just as Decker discovers reasons to doubt his perfect memory.

The 17th Suspect, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
Patterson and Paetro return to the Women’s Murder Club for the 17th go-round in a book that focuses on Sergeant Lindsay Boxer and ADA Yuki Castellano. Boxer is approached by a homeless woman who tells her the city’s homeless population is being hunted by a killer and the police are slow-walking the investigation. When Lindsay’s initial inquiries seem to confirm this, she’s outraged and goes on the warpath—with unexpected consequences that are serious enough for her friends in the Club to urge her to step back. Meanwhile, Yuki catches a rape case involving a man accusing his female superior of assault, and she thinks she can make the charges stick. But as she moves forward, the case seems to dissolve under her, and her opponent in the courtroom finds ways of getting under her skin. As Yuki struggles, Lindsay finds herself targeted by the killer she was hunting, as both women deal with personal problems that complicate their professional lives to the breaking point.

Twisted Prey, by John Sandford
The 28th Lucas Davenport novel opens with the car carrying former U.S. Senator Porter Smalls being driven off the road, killing the driver. Smalls is convinced this was an attempted assassination orchestrated by now-Senator Taryn Grant, who narrowly defeated him in a recent election—and also planted faked child pornography on his computer during the campaign. Smalls asks Davenport to help him, and Davenport, who knows Grant to be a sociopath and  guilty of three murders he can’t prove, is more than happy to do so. In Grant, though, Davenport has found an able adversary—a connected, calculating villain who doesn’t leave a trail and has plenty of friends in high places.

I’ve Got My Eyes on You, by Mary Higgins Clark
Eighteen-year-old Kerry Dowling does what kids do when their parents leave them on their own: she throws a party. After it’s over, she’s found dead at the bottom of her pool, fully dressed. Her grief-stricken family immediately blames Kerry’s boyfriend, who she’d been seen arguing with at the party. Suspects are numerous, however, including the neighbor boy who was loudly upset that Kerry hadn’t invited him. Kerry’s older sister Aline gets involved with the investigation, determined to help the police and the prosecutor get to the bottom of her sister’s murder—but she doesn’t realize she’s also putting herself in harm’s way.

Shoot First, by Stuart Woods
Woods’ 45th Stone Barrington novel reminds us that it’s very good to be Stone Barrington. In Key West, Barrington meets Meg Harmon, whose Silicon Valley company is developing a self-driving car—a project her former business partner Gino Bellini believes she stole from him. Gino hires a pair of professional—and determined—assassins to take Meg out in revenge, and Stone gets involved in more ways than one. As he and Meg conduct a passionate affair, he uses all of his wealth, resources, and smarts to protect her from an assassin’s bullet, calling in his friends to help him outsmart and out-maneuver the bitter villain without once losing his sense of humor or his appreciation of the finer things.

The Cutting Edge, by Jeffery Deaver
Lincoln Rhyme is back to investigate the murder of a happily engaged couple who are gunned down in a Manhattan jewelry store while picking up their custom rings. The owner of the store is also tortured and killed, and an employee arriving in the midst of the carnage is shot, but escapes. As Lincoln and his team assess the crime, search for the hiding employee, and pull clues from the scene, more engaged couples are murdered. The killer, known as the Promisor, sends notes to the media vowing to keep killing—while hunting for the witness he let get away.

Shattered Mirror, by Iris Johansen
A charred, burned skull is found in a car parked outside Eve Duncan’s house in the 22nd book in Johansen’s series. As she works to reconstruct the victim’s face, Eva’s ward Cara is attacked in her New York City apartment and comes home under the watchful eye of Eve’s husband, Joe. Eve is suddenly struck by a strong resemblance between Cara’s roommate Darcy and the face she’s reconstructing. Darcy admits that she has a secret twin sister named Sylvia, mentally and physically disabled and never spoken of to protect Darcy’s burgeoning acting career. The investigation leads them to former IRA soldier Rory Norwalk, a man good with a bomb and seething with hatred for Eve’s whole family. Eve must form an alliance against her better instincts in order to protect those she loves.

Warning Light, by David Ricciardi
Zac Miller looks like just another passenger on a commercial flight that suffers engine failure over Iran and is forced to land at a small airport near the city of Sirjan—but he’s actually a strategic weapons analyst for the CIA. Normally a desk-bound agent, Zac volunteered to take over for a field agent when his cover was blown, assuming it would be easy to snap a few photos of the airport and surroundings—where a secret nuclear facility has been established—under cover of being a confused accidental tourist. He miscalculates, however, and is arrested and tortured. Escaping, Zac embarks on a thrilling escape on foot, and begins to think he might have what it takes to be a field agent after all.

Our Little Secret, by Roz Nay
Angela Petitjean was 15 when her family moved to Cove, Vermont. Miserable, she found solace in a friendship with the handsome, charming Hamish Parker—a relationship that evolved into passionate love. Then Angela’s parents forced her to accept a chance to study abroad for a year; when Hamish visits he meets Saskia. After Hamish and Angela fight, Hamish goes home with Saskia—and later marries her, turning Angela’s world upside down. Angela becomes the daughter who never lived up to her potential, living with her parents until they pass away—and only then accepting an ill-omened invitation to live with Hamish and Saskia. And that’s just the backstory—the book opens with Saskia missing, the police convinced she’s dead, and Angela in an interrogation room, confessing everything to the police—but is it all part of a larger scheme?

All the Beautiful Lies, by Peter Swanson
Just as he’s about to graduate college, Harry Ackerson learns his father has committed suicide. Heading home to Maine, Harry finds his stepmother Alice alluring and seductive—and is suddenly convinced his dad was murdered, with no shortage of theories on the killer’s identity. Another beautiful woman from his father’s life, Grace, arrives from New York asking questions about Alice’s role in the death, and Harry finds himself caught between two women each hiding more than they reveal—and each clearly interested in him in ways a stepmother or a friend of the family shouldn’t be. Harry knows neither can be trusted, but he finds wrapped ever-tighter in their webs as he tries to discover the truth about his father’s death.