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It’s rather hard to believe that this is the 19th book in the Jack Reacher series, which doesn’t even count the Kindle shorts (short stories) that Child’s put out. And somehow, this series doesn’t grow stale, doesn’t get tiresome, and the predictability is always enjoyable.

The book opens with Reacher wandering, toothbrush in pocket, riding a bus. He finds an issue of the Army Times, and takes a look at the personals. He’s a bit surprised to find an ad with his name, but since he realizes it’s from a General that he owes a favor to, he follows it up and finds himself flying on a private jet to the Pentagon.

One of America’s best military snipers had killed a man, and Reacher was the military cop who proved it. John Kott served 15 years in prison, and a year after his release was suspected of attempting to assassinate the President of France. Since Reacher caught him before, he’s asked to try again. Except they are not 100% sure it’s Kott – it could also be a Russian or British sniper.

Reacher is off to Paris and London, with the usual double crosses, near misses, and plenty of action. He is teamed up with a young, inexperienced woman, who brings back memories of another young woman that was killed. Reacher still feels guilt about her death, so he’s extra cautious with his new partner, who appears to deal with stress via pharmaceuticals.

I loved the bad guy, Little Joey, who towers over Reacher and lives in a giant’s house. Child created some really vivid scenes between these two; what he didn’t create was any Reacher romance. Maybe next time.

It would be simple to say that this is just another chapter in the Reacher series. Personal is exciting as expected, and I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough, but that is no easy feat to pull off. If you read any series, you know how difficult it is to create nineteen books that are really all terrific.

If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll love it. If you haven’t read any, this is a fine place to start.

9/14 Stacy Alesi

PERSONAL by Lee Child. Delacorte Press (September 2, 2014). ISBN 978-0804178747. 368p.

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Daniel Trent and his fiancee are partners in the unusual business of guiding families of kidnapped victims when dealing with the kidnappers. They have the expertise to help the families understand what the kidnappers really want, and what amount of money they will accept to return the victim unharmed.

The action of this very fast and taut novel is set in Marseille France.

Aimee, Daniel’s fiancée,  has just advised him that she is pregnant when she mysteriously disappears. Daniel knows that she has been in contact with Jerome Moreau to sell him a policy to protect him and pay a certain amount if he is kidnapped. Daniel proceeds to follow Jerome to find out where his fiancee is when he witnesses to Jerome being kidnapped as he is driving to his home with his wife.

Daniel contacts the wife indicating that he knows about the kidnap policy and is obligated to help them recover Jerome. Events move rapidly as clue after clue to Jerome’s location surface with no success.

Ewan is a master at keeping the reader up all night biting his or her nails while devouring the book. The ending may allow the situation to allow a followup book to appear, and if so I would expect anyone reading this to grab it and get into it immediately.

8/14 Paul Lane

DEAD LINE by Chris Ewan. Minotaur Books (August 5, 2014). ISBN 978-1250047076. 352p.

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Overall, a fairly routine serial killer novel, only this time the murderer uses fire to cover his crimes.

Unfortunately for him, one of his victims is the sister of Emmy Dockery. an FBI researcher. Now all she has are the newspaper clippings that wallpaper her bedroom, and her recurring nightmares of an all-consuming fire.

Not even Emmy’s ex-boyfriend, field agent Harrison “Books” Bookman, will believe her that hundreds of kidnappings, rapes, and murders are all connected. That is, until Emmy finds a piece of evidence he can’t afford to ignore.

More murders are reported by the day–and they’re all inexplicable. No motives, no murder weapons, no suspects. Could one person really be responsible for these unthinkable crimes?

I found the interplay of chapters “written” by the killer and the search for him to be off-putting. Not a good Patterson.

8/14 Jack Quick

INVISIBLE by James Patterson & David Ellis. Little, Brown and Company (June 23, 2014). ISBN 978-0316405348. 432p.

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Commandant Servaz is a top-notch investigator for the city of Toulouse, France, at the foot of the Pyrenees, who relies more on his gut than on science. Servaz is annoyed when he is called away from an investigation to a new crime scene at the hydroelectric plant of Arruns, so high above sea level that the only way to reach it is by cable car.

A body is hung on the upper deck, stripped and beheaded. However, it is not a human body, but rather a thoroughbred horse hung high above the Pyrenees. This disturbing scene only gets more disturbing when the DNA of an inmate at Institute Wargnier, the nearby psychiatric prison, is found on the horse.

This case gets priority as the horse belonged to Eric Lombard, CEO of a multinational company and member of a very influential family with strong political ties to the area.

In a parallel story, Diane Berg, a new psychologist, has arrived at the Institute Wargnier and is not entirely welcome, especially as she finds many inconsistencies and flagrant mistreatment of the prisoners.

The pervasiveness of evil makes for very compelling reading, with the suspense bordering on horror. It is a very tense and disturbing story coupled with interesting and well developed characters, and is a true page turner. Translated from the French. Should appeal to readers who enjoyed Pierre Lemaitre’s Alex or like Scandinavian thrillers.

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

8/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier. Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (August 12, 2014). ISBN 978-1250045539. 496p.

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This latest in Mo Hayder’s Jack Caffery series kicks off with a stray dog. A little girl’s frantic parents finally find her after she’s wandered off to follow a dog in the woods. The dog was wearing a note, one the girl couldn’t read on her own, but after the response to her straying she doesn’t raise the issue with her parents. She’d left the dog in the hands of a man who promised to find its owner and that was fine with her.

That is the man Jack knows as the Walking Man. The note reads “Help Us.” In exchange for Jack’s help in finding the people who own the dog, the Walking Man promises to finally share key information on the disappearance of Jack’s brother. For Jack, it could mean closure to something that has haunted him for so long. But the case with the dog turns out to be more complicated than he could ever imagine. As Jack searches for clues that will lead to the identity of the hand behind the message, one family is facing down a nightmare that could end in all of their deaths.

I have truly enjoyed every chilling new book from Mo Hayder. The Jack Caffery series is one of my all time favorites and one I highly recommend to anyone looking for intricate and tightly plotted thrillers and isn’t afraid of the darkest of dark details.

Wolf is no exception in any of those regards. I did mourn the absence of Flea in this outing but I have to admit that the final scene between Jack and the Walking Man – one that’s been coming for a few books now – makes Wolf truly outstanding. A warning to anyone who may not be current with the series, I don’t suggest reading Wolf until you’ve caught up. The ending here is definitely not going to be as effective if you haven’t read the books in order.

7/14 Becky Lejeune

WOLF by Mo Hayder. Atlantic Monthly Press; First Edition edition (May 6, 2014). ISBN 978-0802122506. 352p.

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Bob Lee Swagger’s war was Vietnam and now the former sniper has been out of the game a long time, and, sadly, nothing has ever replaced what he’s appalled to call the killing fever.

Then his friend Kathy Reilly, Moscow correspondent for the Washington Post, sends Bob an e-mail asking for his help in researching a story about legendary WWII Russian sniper Ludmilla Milli Petrova, whose name mysteriously disappeared from the historical record around 1945. Why was she expunged from both German and Russian records? Will Swagger help Reilly track the story?

As Swagger and Reilly slowly unravel Milli’s past they discover that, even 70 years after the fact, there are still people who don’t want the story told.

Perhaps most memorable of all, though, is Hunter’s vivid re-creation of the carnage on the Eastern Front, where, as Milli notes, the Russians’ only advantage over the Germans was numbers: If they kill us five to one, we bring six to one . . . we shall prevail because, all things being equal, we can outbleed them. May be Hunter’s best ever.

8/14 Jack Quick

SNIPER’S HONOR by Stephen Hunter. Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (May 20, 2014). ISBN 978-1451640212. 432p.

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Former celebrity Janie Jenkins gets out of jail on a technicality after serving ten years for killing her society mother. She doesn’t remember doing it, and she didn’t like her mother very much, but once out, she’s determined to find out what really happened.

Janie’s smart but she also has a smart mouth, which tends to put people off. She has her attorney Noah on her side, but she has a hard time telling him – or anyone else – the truth. Meanwhile tabloid reporter Trace is after her, convinced she’s guilty and willing to put his money where his mouth is, offering a large reward for her whereabouts.

Jenkins starts digging into her mother’s past, which leads her to Ardelle, South Dakota, a small town filled with small town secrets and a cast of quirky, sketchy characters, including a suspicious police chief, but Janie keeps them all guessing. It seems that the more she finds out, the more she needs to find out as the mystery deepens with every passing page.

Janie is an unusual protagonist but readers who favor strong, smart women will be intrigued.

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

7/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

DEAR DAUGHTER by Elizabeth Little. Viking Adult (July 31, 2014). ISBN 978-0670016389. 384p.

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Nick Fennimore nearly lost his mind when his wife and daughter went missing, and allowing him to overstep his bounds earned DCI Kate Simms a demotion. She fought her way back and when heroin overdoses start multiplying in a seedy part of town, no one really cares until a pop star joins their ranks.

The case is dumped on Simms, who quietly enlists Fennimore’s help. Then another prostitute turns up dead, brutally beaten, tortured and raped, and Fennimore really needs to put his skills to the test. Misogynistic bosses and lying witnesses are thwarting Simms in her investigation, but she soldiers on, until her family is threatened, and then things really come to a head.

Working around the clock puts her family life in shambles, and there is some definite tension between Fennimore and Simms, but their back story is tantalizingly glossed over, adding more intrigue to these characters.

This is not your cozy British mystery but rather a gritty urban thriller like those of Jeffery Deaver, Ken Bruen or George Pelecanos.

A.D. Garrett is a pseudonym for author Margaret Murphy and forensics Professor Dave Barclay.

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

7/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

EVERYONE LIES by A.D. Garrett. Minotaur Books (July 15, 2014). ISBN 978-1250045720. 432p.

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In this sequel to The Doll, Vanessa Michael Munroe is utilizing her gift for learning languages, living in Djibouti as Michael, a man, working as an interpreter for a private maritime security company. Her boss, Leo, forces her into working on a ship, which she quickly discovers is running guns.

The ship is attacked by pirates off the Somali coast, but Munroe escapes, taking the captain with her. Turns out the captain is really what the pirates were after, and she hides him in a small private hospital while she tries to figure out her next move. She contacts Leo’s wife, who is desperate to get her husband back and Munroe agrees to help. They figure out that they are going to have to hijack the ship back, and those negotiations are complicated and deadly.

This action adventure thriller moves along at breakneck speed with the requisite violence peppering most pages. Munroe is a smart, fiercely strong yet damaged woman in the vein of Lisbeth Salander, who could hold her own with Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne or Barry Eisler’s Rain.

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

7/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

THE CATCH by Taylor Stevens. Crown (July 15, 2014). ISBN 978-0385348935. 352p.