Category Archives: Mysteries & Thrillers

The Savage Garden

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Title: The Savage Garden

Author: Mark Mills

Summary: The Savage Garden, written by Mark Mills, is the story of two murders, committed 400 years apart, and the attempt to solve the mystery of both crimes.

It’s 1958 and Adam Strickland, Cambridge undergraduate, has just been dumped by his girlfriend. When he is offered the opportunity to study a Tuscan Renaissance garden for his art history thesis, he accepts the offer. The garden was built in 1577 as a memorial to the villa owner’s wife Flora, who died at a very young age. During his research, Adam begins to see the garden’s statues and inscriptions as clues to Flora’s murder, not as a memorial to her death.

As Adam deciphers the clues in the garden, he begins to suspect that the more recent murder-that of the current villa owner’s son, may not be as clear cut as everyone thinks. Signora Docci’s son, Emilio, was shot and killed by Nazi officers on the third floor of the villa and the area has been sealed off ever since. Though everyone is excited about the revelation of Flora’s murder, Adam finds himself in danger when he begins to question the events surrounding Emilio’s death.

Recommended by: Sue, Circulation Coordinator

Chat

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Title: Chat

Author: Archer Mayor

Summary: Chat brings you the 18th book of a series that features Joe Gunther, a member of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation. This series is strong in the local settings and is a delight in its small town characterization. The author brings his experience as an investigator for the chief medical examiner’s office, a deputy, and an EMT to create a believable crime procedural novel.

Joe Gunther’s mother and brother are involved in a suspicious automobile accident. He investigates this accident and then becomes involved in the investigation of two seemingly unrelated deaths that draw him into chat rooms and online predators.

Who will like this book?: Anyone who has ever traveled to Vermont would love the descriptions of the Green Mountain state wrapped in a well-written mystery.

If you like this, try this: We have 17 other mysteries in the series that started with the Open Season in 1988!

Recommended by: Sandy, Technical Services

The Venetian Betrayal

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Title: Venetian Betrayal

Author:  Steve Berry

Summary: The third entry in the Cotton Malone series brings us Cotton who has retired from a clandestine U.S. government agency. He is operating a rare book shop in Denmark where he is drawn into a geopolitical game that takes him across Europe and Asia. Cotton narrowly escapes death in a fire that envelopes a Danish museum. His friend, Cassiopoeia Vitt informs him that museums across Europe are being set ablaze to mask the theft of Alexander the Great medallions. These medallions hold clues that reveal the final resting place of Alexander the Great and more importantly the secret of the powerful “draught” that can possibly cure AIDS.

Cotton and company has to beat the bad guys which include the leader of a new nation that has arisen from the ashes of the USSR and an international organization of power brokers that has amassed a secret cache of biological weapons. The first to unlock and possess the secret will control the fate of the world.

Who will like this book?: Fans who like suspenseful thrillers based on historical facts; fans of books like the DaVinci Code. 

If you like this, try this: Read the first two entries in the Cotton Malone series. Templar Legacy is about a lost treasure and the secrets of the Order. Alexandria Link revolves around the Lost Library of Alexandria.

Recommended by: Sandy, Technical Services

Blasphemy

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Title:  Blasphemy

Author:  Douglas Preston

Summary:  Nobel-prizing scientist and merry gang of whiz colleagues go off the deep end, experiment with the world’s largest supercollider computer housed on sacred native land, encounter operational difficulties, and the race to the “end” involves life and death issues.

This book kept me reading as I got caught up in the unfolding drama as computer scientists try to get the super computer to reveal what happened at the moment of creation. Scientist Hazelius and his twelve colleagues force the computer to operate at extreme levels resulting in a remarkable discovery. Or is it? Meanwhile evangelicals get wind of this “dangerous” experiment and build a protest movement against this government-funded project.   Throw in a romance rekindled and you have a nice fast-paced read that grabs and holds the reader’s  interest to the end.

Who will like this book?:  Readers looking for a fast read with some intrigue and an appetite for kirky characters and interesting questions about the beginning of life.

Recommended by: Karen, Administration

The Arsonist’s Guide to Writer’s Homes in New England

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Title: The Arsonist’s Guide to Writer’s Homes in New England

Author: Brock Clarke

Summary: Take one part fictional memoir, one part mystery and add as self-confessed bumbler with a sprinkle of literary landmarks and you have this delightful book.

Sam Pulsifer, the narrator, accidentally torches the Emily Dickinson house and kills two people. After serving 10 years in prison, he returns to Amherst to begin his life anew with college, marriage, and fatherhood. His idyllic life goes up in flames as an arsonist begins to torch more writers homes, leaving him as the unlucky suspect. Our bumbler only wishes he had read more mysteries as a guide to help him in his quest for the arsonist instead of literary works of art.

Who will like this book?: Mystery readers who like humor in their books, and readers who wish to take an irreverent literary tour through New England

Recommended by: Sandy, Technical Services

The Darkest Evening of the Year

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Title:The Darkest Evening of the Year

Author: Dean Koontz

Summary:Dean Koontz makes a frequent use of canines in some of his previous bestsellers such as Seize the Night, Fear Nothing, and Midnight. Here Koontz brings us Nickie, a golden retriever, who has all the attributes of Koontz’s beloved dog, Trixie, who passed away since the publication of this New York Times Best-seller.

Amy Redding, who has established a dog rescue service in California devoted solely to golden retrievers has a secret past. Along with her boyfriend Brian McCarthy, an architect, she rescues a family and their dog, Nickie from an abusive alcoholic. Nickie with some mysterious qualities becomes the alpha dog in Amy’s household. Amy begins to realize that someone is shadowing her movements and Brian begins to receive e-mails from his past. Soon their pasts converge.

This is a fast read and brings an awareness of dog rescue and puppy mills to the reader. Although it doesn’t grab you as fast as other Koontz’ novels, it is still worth a night or two while it tugs at your heart strings following the plight of abused dogs.

Who will like this book? Readers who like thrillers and dog lovers.

If you like this, try this: Marley and Me, for the ultimate “dog fix” and any of Koontz’s previous novels, especially Velocity.

Recommended by: Sandy, Technical Services