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While keeping watch over her sick daughter, Lieutenant Lucie Hennebelle receives a quite shocking call: her ex has been struck suddenly and inexplicably blind. And while it was somewhat coincidental that Lucie’s was the number he dialed, she is both willing and able to help.

Ludovic Sénéchal was the first to arrive at the estate sale. This meant he had first pick of ad’s promised 800+ historic film reels. His most exciting purchase, though, is a reel found hidden away on a top shelf. The unlabeled movie is the first thing Ludovic loads onto his projector as soon as he gets home. And it’s the last thing he sees.

Miles away, five horribly disfigured bodies have been discovered at a work site in northern France and Chief Inspector Franck Sharko has been assigned to lend his profiling expertise. While at first the two incidents are seemingly unrelated, an anonymous call indicates otherwise, leaving Hennebelle and Sharko forced to pool resources in order to unravel a bizarre and twisted crime.

Syndrome E is fantastic. The plot is perfectly executed – with just the right amount of tension and twists – and the characters are wonderfully realized. Both Hennebelle and Sharko have great stories, though Sharko and all of his idiosyncrasies make him my own favorite of the two. They’re perfect for driving a series, which is fortunate considering they’ll both return this month in Syndrome E’s follow up, Bred to Kill.

2/15 Becky LeJeune

SYNDROME E by Franck Thilliez. Penguin Books; Reprint edition (April 29, 2014). ISBN: 978-0147509710. 384p.

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Grippando, a south Florida resident, presents a stand alone novel involving an indictment of the sugar growing companies harvesting cane in the mid section of Florida. These companies, collectively known as “Big Sugar,” have been there for many years and have the reputation of being laws unto themselves.

1/15 Paul Lane

CANE AND ABE by James Grippando . Harper (January 20, 2015). ISBN: 978-0062295392. 368p.

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The country’s newest sub is stranded in the Arctic under unforeseen circumstances and Joe Rush finds himself called in to head the rescue mission. The sub reported a fire on board and that’s all the official story will reflect, but there’s much more to the distress call than that. A deadly and as yet unidentified virus has broken out amongst the crew, spreading swiftly and killing many who become infected. As a biowarfare expert, Rush is tasked not only with ensuring the sub itself remains out of enemy hands but in finding out what is infecting the crew. But when things start to go wrong on board the ship, Rush starts to suspect a saboteur amongst the crew.

White Plague kicks off a new series featuring bioweapons expert Joe Rush. The combination military and medical thriller is chock full of action, suspense, and exclamation points. (Seriously, there are lots of them.) Rush is a great lead and the idea of basing a series around a character with a job like his is definitely one I’m on board with 100%.

1/15 Becky LeJeune

WHITE PLAGUE by James Abel. Berkley Hardcover (January 6, 2015). ISBN 978-0425276327. 336p.

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Austrian detective Beatrice Kaspary lands an unusual case of grisly geocaching in this combination police procedural and fast paced thriller.

A woman’s body is found with geographic coordinates tattooed on the soles of her feet, leading Kaspary and her partner Florin on an unusual chase. Following the GPS leads them to a box containing a body part and a puzzle, which they must solve to find the next cache.

Luckily, one of their coworkers is familiar with geocaching and is able to explain it all, so readers unfamiliar with the usually tame hobby will understand it too.

There are red herrings galore while the body count keeps climbing in this deadly treasure hunt, causing the overworked detectives to feel even more pressure to solve it fast.

The stereotypical police detective Kaspary is divorced and married to the job, and has to deal with a difficult and demanding ex and the constant juggling of her kids and her job. Her relationship with Florin hints at a possible romance down the road and adds another level of interest to the story. Sure to appeal to Stieg Larsson fans.

Copyright ©2014 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

12/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

Five by Ursula Archer. Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (December 9, 2014). ISBN 978-1250037411. 336p.

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Natty spends a lot of time juggling her various responsibilities. With two teenage daughters and a busy hotel to run, it’s a lot for anyone to handle. But Natty has the help of her husband, Sean, and together they make it work. Then their eldest has to be rushed into surgery while on a trip to France. Natty wants to be by her side but worries about how her family and work will handle her being gone.

Fortunately, her longtime friend, Eve, arrives in the nick of time.

Eve offers to stay and help out at home while Natty travels to France. But Natty’s relief is short lived when she returns to discover that Eve and Sean have begun a serious affair. It seems in spite if their friendship, Eve is set to take Natty’s place. But Natty isn’t going to go down without a fight.

Keep Your Friends Close is a really twisted thriller. We’re talking Fatal Attraction meets The Hand That Rocks the Cradle craziness. And it’s completely awesome.

Daly quite disturbingly offers readers a glimpse into Eve’s mind throughout the story. Let me tell you, Eve is one scary and manipulative monster of a character. There’s no question about siding with Natty, but there’s also Sean to consider in the matter. I love how Daly builds the story, leaving the reader not quite sure how to feel about Sean’s actions. It makes Keep Your Friends Close both an intense thriller and an emotional psychological suspense.

11/14 Becky LeJeune

KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE by Paula Daly. Grove Press (August 19, 2014). ISBN: 978-0802123206. 320p.

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Will Robie Book 3

Baldacci has the gift of making all of his works fascinating, spellbinding, and captivating. The Target is certainly one of these novels capturing the reader’s interest from the get go. The Target is the second book about Jessica Reel and Will Robie, two of the CIA’s most talented assassins. In the first book about them they had both been assigned to kill the other. Jessica had discovered two traitors working at the CIA and determined that in spite of orders they must be killed. The ending of that book leaves both Will and Jessica under scrutiny by their supervisor, but close together and partners.

The Target opens with the pair being assigned to the “Burner”, a CIA training depot for retraining to perform an operation sanctioned by the president of the United States. It looks like they are actually there to be killed for their behavior in book one of the series. Events than cause the pair to witness a suicide of a top ranking North Korean General, Jessica to meet her father whom she hasn’t seen in years and than both be assigned to extract two people from a concentration camp in North Korea.

In the course of the novel Baldacci introduces a North Korean assassin named Chung Cha, a deadly woman that has lived her entire life in training to become a killer with no peers. His treatment of her thoughts and feelings , and her ability to perform her assigned tasks is,by itself a masterpiece. He brings his readers into the mind and reactions of a person so alien to the normal world that, by itself could be the centerpiece of the book.

The Target is certainly among David Baldacci’s top novels and guaranteed to keep his readers in awe of what they are reading. Superb book, and doing it’s part of maintaining the author’s place among the top authors of our generation.

10/14 Paul Lane

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THE TARGET by David Baldacci. Grand Central Publishing (September 16, 2014). ISBN 978-1455521180. 464p.

Unputdownable.

The President knows it’s a perilous, high-risk assignment. If he gives the order, he has the opportunity to take down a global menace, once and for all. If the mission fails, he would face certain impeachment, and the threats against the nation would multiply.

So the president turns to the one team that can pull off the impossible: Will Robie and his partner, Jessica Reel. Together, Robie and Reel’s talents as assassins are unmatched except there  are some in power who don’t trust the pair and want to see them fail.

In the middle of the mission Reel’s imprisoned father reaches out for her to see him one last time. There is more to this than it seems. Once Robie and Reel finish up the aftermath of the visit its back to the now modified mission.

However, Robie and Reel are stalked by a new adversary: an unknown and unlikely assassin, a woman who has trained her entire life to kill, and who has her own list of targets–a list that includes Will Robie and Jessica Reel.

8/14 Jack Quick

THE TARGET by David Baldacci. Grand Central Publishing; 1st Printing edition (April 22, 2014). ISBN 978-1455521203. 432p.

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The very prolific Ace Collins brings us a completely spellbinding novel, in all probability one of the best he has written.  It is divided into two parts; the first taking place in the mid 1960s and the second moving to the present time.  The theme is race relations in both instances.

Cooper Lindsay was born in the Mississippi town of Justice, went out of the area to get his law degree and returned home with both his degree and a wife.  He opens a practice after working away from the area for a few years in order to be able to help his cancer stricken mother  The action in the novel begins with the murder of a white girl: Rebecca Booth, and almost immediately a young black man. Calvin Ross is arrested and charged with the murder.

Calvin’s aunt Hattie who used to work as a maid in church calls on Coop, as he is popularly termed, and begs him to defend her nephew.  She says that she has no money to pay Calvin’s legal fees, Cooper is her only hope.  Coop realizes that taking the case will probably alienate him from the town’s white population since Jim Crow is alive and well in this period and ultimately force him to move away from Justice. The factor influencing him to go ahead with the defense are his memories of his father who preached at church and taught Coop the meaning of responsibility and right and wrong.

The first section of the book deals with the trial and the problems encountered with mounting a defense for Calvin in the light of the prejudice that exists in Justice causing the town to be divided between black and white.

Part two is set in 2014.  Coop’s grandson comes to Justice in order to investigate questions remaining from the trial and events in 1964.  He is named after his grandfather and also called Coop.  He finds himself immersed in another murder, but circumstances are very different.  Justice has been fully integrated with whites and blacks each holding responsible and important positions.  A black young man has been killed, and a white confesses to the crime.  Coop is asked to help the lawyers working with the white boy since all they seem to want to do is have him make a deal with the prosecution.  Coop goes ahead and a second and the definitive part of the novel takes place.

What has occurred in Justice influencing both periods and both trials is well thought out, and very well delineated. The book is guaranteed to keep the reader glued to it’s pages and fascinated by what is going on.  Excellent book written by an author at the top of his game.

10/14 Paul Lane

THE COLOR OF JUSTICE by Ace Collins. Abingdon Press (October 7, 2014). ISBN 978-1426770036. 320p.