Poor Alex is stuck in a hospital bed, able to hear and feel all that’s going on around him while everyone believes he is in a persistent vegetative state. No one really tells him what’s going on but he learns he has fallen from a great height while rock climbing and is not expected to […]
Thriller
The Liar’s Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard
Maybe a more appropriate title would be The Serial Killer’s Girl, as that’s what Alison’s former boyfriend is. Presumably. Ten years ago her boyfriend Will was sentenced to a very long prison sentence for the death of five young women attacked near a Dublin canal and left to drown. Alison was told Will confessed and […]
It’s Always the Husband by Michele Campbell
Top points for the title, but is it always the husband? When the murder victim is as irritating and self absorbed as Kate, it could be practically anyone. Her best friends from college, Aubrey and Jenny, each have powerful motives for murder, as do their respective husbands. The characters are mildly two dimensional and the writer […]
The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy
The Perfect Mother is a step up from your average thriller, just begging to be made into a movie. A six week old baby with the unfortunate name of Midas goes missing while his mother is having a rare night out with her mother’s group. Molloy portrays the subsequent media storm perfectly, complete with scathing […]
Cast Iron by Peter May
If you come to Cast Iron without having read the previous five novels with Enzo Macleod as protagonist, you may feel a little confounded, like I did. How and why does a man in his mid fifties, with a ponytail, appeal to so many women, some of them much younger than he is? He has […]
Cross Her Heart by Sarah Pinborough
This one somehow never quite convinces. The writing is good, the characters decent enough but us hardened thriller readers have been here before and it just fails to zing. I do however like how Pinborough confounds our expectations. We assume the main character Lisa is in hiding from an abusive ex-partner but actually it’s much […]
This Is How It Ends by Eva Dolan
A really intelligent read, and no less of a thriller because of it. Ella is a bright twenty something protest organiser trying to assist the last few tenants holding out in almost derelict low income housing. The building is about to be razed to make way for shiny new apartments worth gazillions. And oh, Ella […]
Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell
Published in 2017, Then She Was Gone is my favourite so far of Lisa Jewell’s novels. Fifteen year old golden girl Ellie goes missing and her family slowly splinter apart. Ten years later Ellie’s mother meets Poppy, a child who bears a shocking resemblance to Ellie. How is this possible? So many secrets. So much sadness […]