Reading right now:

 

            “The Whites” by Harry Brandt. This debut novel by Harry Brandt (really Richard Price writing under a pen name) centers around disgraced NYPD detective Billy Graves who ends up on the after midnight crew who does little more than turn over crimes to the incoming daytime shifts. But when called in to investigate a brutal slashing of a man at Penn Station, Brandt recognizes that the victim was a suspect in an unsolved brutal killing of a 12-year-old boy years ago.  The case pushes Brandt into a situation that sends him back to a time that destroyed his career and in the present threatens his family.

           

On hold right now:

            “The House of Wolfe” by James Carlos Blake. In this third novel in the Wolfe family saga a wedding party of 10 is kidnapped in Mexico City. A Wolfe family cousin is one of the people kidnapped which forces the Wolfe clan to attempt a rescue. Trying to make his reputation, a small-time gangster named El Galan kidnaps the wedding party and asks for a five million dollar ransom. The Wolfe family fears that once the money is paid, the captives will be killed unless they get there first. Blake based this series on his own family and the first book follows the family’s violent history from Mexico to Texas while the next two show how the family thrives in Texas even while their outlaw ties draw them across the border.

Other Mysterious Things:

            “The Girl on the Train” by Paula Hawkins is holding its place as a much in demand and much requested thriller/mystery. Other popular items coming out this month include Harlan Coben’s “The Stranger,” J.A. Jance’s “Cold Betrayal,” James Patterson’s “NYPD Red 3,” “World Gone By” by Denise Lehane, and Joy Fielding’s “Someone is Watching.” “The Stolen Ones” is the new Owen Laukkanen novel and the fourth in his series about state investigator Kirk Stevens and his partner in the joint state and FBI task force Carla Windermere. This series opened with “The Professionals” in 2012 and the latest should be in demand. Personally I’m looking forward to reading two debut novels both of which sound like strange and unusual thrillers: Graeme Cameron’s “Normal” and “Girl Underwater” by Claire Kells.