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Suspense

Definition of Suspense = Page 116 of Genreflecting 5th Edition states that suspense is the catchall term applied to such a variety of books that it makes it difficult to decide just what fits into the suspense category. It further states that "even though detection is common in novels of suspense, the emphasis is not so much on 'who done it' but on why it was done. The psychology of the perpetrator of the crime is of importance. Although in novels of detection the series sleuth has become the norm, in suspense the series is the exception rather than the rule. Often in novels of suspense, the reader knows the identity of the perpetrator early on but must keep reading to find out what happens next. The reader often feels a sense of impending doom. Many of the books listed under 'legal thriller' are also novels of suspense." Does this explanation make everything as clear as mud?

Allegretto, Michael. The Suitor. Simon & Schuster, 1993. In this chilling psychological thriller the Shamus Award-winning author, Michael Allegretto, offers a tale in which an act of kindness leads to a fatal attraction. Valerie Rowe is an artist in her mid-thirties, who has settled in Denver with her eight-year-old son Matthew, to start a new life after a divorce. Just as she feels her life coming back together (new boyfriend, art show in a local gallery) she experiences a seemingly innocuous encounter that will ultimately place her and those she loves in peril. While walking down the street her purse is snatched. Her terror soon turns to relief as she sees the thief stumble into an obese bystander. The thief loses his grasp on the purse and runs away without it. The obese bystander, Leonard Tully, returns the purse to Valerie and she rewards him by treating him to lunch. Tully turns out to be quite an unusual character. He is middle-aged, yet still lives at home with his crippled religious fanatic mother. He falls in love with Valerie and begins to complicate her life when his love for her remains unrequited. Allegretto creates three-dimensional characters that illicit sympathy from the reader. He is so adept in his writing that the reader feels he is watching a movie rather than reading a book. The level of suspense is truly frightening; it is an understatement to describe this book as a page-turner. This book gives new meaning to the expression; "No good deed goes unpunished.

Child, Lee. Echo Burning. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2001. Jack Reacher is an ex-military cop who finds himself hitchhiking through the west Texas desert and getting desperate for a ride. Given the intense heat and sore, aching feet, the last thing he expects to worry about is who picks him up. Her name is Carmen Greer. She has a beautiful little girl and a Texas sized fear of her abusive husband Sloop, who is due to be released from prison for tax evasion. She has married into the wrong family, a miserly and bitter clan who has produced her monster of a husband. Worse, he knows that she is the one who blew the whistle on him. She needs protection, and she needs it now. Jack agrees to go home with her to protect her and the child while posing as a ranch hand. Within days of his release from prison, Sloop is killed and Carmen arrested. She refuses to defend herself even though Jack believes she’s innocent. With the help of a newly minted lawyer, Jack and Carmen weave their way through the mystery of deceit, violence and murder that surrounds the Greer family and the evil in which they live.

Clark, Mary Higgins. Where Are The Children? Simon & Schuster, 1975. Mary Higgins Clark, who has often been referred to as the "Queen of Suspense" by many readers, began her suspense career with the publication of Where Are the Children? in 1975. Nancy Harmon fled California due to the heartbreak of her failed marriage and the disappearance and eventual discovery of her two children's bodies. She was accused of drowning her children and only the disappearance of the key eyewitness saved her from conviction. She settled in peaceful Cape Cod, married again, had two more children, and had finally begun to heal emotionally. Then one morning she looked in the backyard for her little boy and girl and found only one red mitten. Nancy found herself facing another nightmare. Clark takes the reader on a spell-binding tale of suspense that doesn't let up until the very surprising end. Also highly recommended: Last Man Standing, Wish You Well, Saving Faith, The Simple Truth, The Winner, Total Control, and Absolute Power by David Baldacci and Chiefs, Grass Roots, The Run, White Cargo, Palindome, Heat, Dirt, Choke, Dead Eyes, L.A. Times, Santa Fe Rules and Under the Lake by Stuart Woods.

Dunning, John. Booked to Die. Homicide detective Cliff Janeway is interested in collecting, buying and selling rare books. As a detective, he must find the killer of a book- scout. In the process, the detective loses his badge and opens his own store dealing in rare books. He continues searching for the killer, another person is killed and finally the case is solved. The world of rare books and the people who deal in them is new to me and very interesting. And the ending is a surprise, too! (Beth)

Dunning, John. The Bookman’s Wake. Scribner’s, 1995. Like old books? Like rummaging in used book stores? Dream to find a perfect jacketed first edition? Like great murder mysteries? Then this is the book for you! John Dunning is an authority on rare books, and so is his hero, Cliff Janeway. This book is filled with esoterica on collecting, as well as being a superbly crafted suspense. A priceless copy of Poe's The Raven, and the small press that printed it, are at the heart of the tale. an engrossing, inventive plot about rare books and the people who print, collect, and sell them--sometimes at a murderously high price. Former Denver cop Janeway is intrigued by his newest case: he's supposed to find a young woman named Eleanor Rigby, who appears to have stolen a valuable collector's edition of The Raven. The book was printed by the Grayson Press, a highly respected Seattle publisher run by two maverick brothers in the fifties and sixties. The liberal sprinkling of rare-book facts throughout the narrative may not fascinate everyone, but the action-packed story, mounting suspense, and riveting plot twists are certain to draw readers. An outstanding novel in a terrific new series, this is the sequel to Booked to Die.

Dunning, John. Deadline. Recorded Book, 2000. (c1989) If you like Dunning's later works, you will enjoy this one. It was like reading Grisham's first piece A Time to Kill after some of his later ones...a bit rough, but clearly the author we have grown to love. The story begins in a dusty newsroom, but spins out into the dark world of conspiracy and murder. When a circus tent fire results in the death of a young girl, whose body goes unidentified and unclaimed, reporter Dalton Walker searches for leads. What he uncovers is that the child’s mother is part of a sixties terrorist group that has been in hiding for years. The FBI wants the woman, who wants to turn herself in but fears for her life. A routine assignment demands a deadline that could prove fatal for Walker.

Fowles, John. The Collector. Little Brown, 1963. A man wins the lottery, buys a house in the country and does what he’s wanted to do for a long time: kidnap a woman. What’s different - and chilling - about this tale is that he doesn’t in his mind kidnap her. He just wants to get to be her mate, and knows he never could under ordinary circumstances because he’s not her class (this is England, readers) and maybe not her type. He’s the collector to which the title refers. But perhaps after awhile you may start to see her as a collector, too. Everything here, from characters to dialogue to description, is fully realized, compelling and chilling. And because it’s a comment on the deep divisions we put between ourselves and our fellow humans, it cuts right to the bone. This will utterly captivate you; it’s a hard one to shake off.

Higgins, Jack. The President's Daughter. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1997.The President's Daughter is another of Higgins' signature suspense tales. This time, the illegitimate daughter of the President of the United States has been kidnapped and will be killed if the President does not comply with the demands of the group that has taken her. Knowing that she will also be killed if it appears that he is trying to find his daughter and the group that has taken her, the President turns to two men - former IRA enforcer Sean Dillon and Blake Johnson, a decorated Marine and FBI officer who heads a secret group known as "The Basement" in hopes that they will be able to find her and the kidnappers. A thrilling story, The President's Daughter is action packed and full of twists and surprises.

Iles, Greg. 24 HOURS. Putnam, 2000. 24 Hours begins with a young family with a strong bond of love. Will has a thriving medical practice, Karen designs homes and they both love their little girl more than anything. That love is about to be tested in a way neither of them ever imagined. John Hickey, a genius whose specialty is kidnapping, has targeted them. He takes kidnapping beyond imagination using technology and terror to weave a plan of horror with which he has already been successful five times. In twenty-four hours, he has been able to squeeze the very fiber of a family, extract a ransom and disappear unscathed. The victim is left alive but the family is so shattered that they can’t even call the police. This time, however, is different. Hickey wants someone to pay for his own family tragedy—to avenge it in his own horrible way. He has an exacting and devious plan and has considered all factors save one: Will, Karen and five-year-old Abby share a bond of love only the closest of families know. That bond of love will bring them through the next twenty-four hours succeeding where others have failed. Twenty-four hours to untangle the vicious web. Twenty-four hours to live or die. Twenty-four hours….

Jance, J.A. Birds of Prey. William Morrow, 2001. Retired homicide detective J.P.Beaumont decided to take a cruise to Alaska just to relax. While on board he inadvertently becomes involved in several seemingly unrelated "situations". A woman is pushed overboard, later a man is pushed off a train and there are FBI agents aboard looking into another case. Needless to say, Mr. Beaumont is called on by everyone to help solve whatever is going on. I really enjoyed this book and will certainly read more of this author.

Kerr, Philip. The Shot. Recorded Books, 2001. After demonstrating in the opening scenes his skills as a hired gun by knocking off a fugitive Nazi, assassin "Tom Jefferson," who masquerades under presidents' names, receives a contract for Fidel Castro's head. This is 1960, and Kerr gives detailed descriptions of the places Jefferson cases for his missions: Las Vegas, Havana, Miami, New York. The itinerary indicates his sponsors: mobsters Sam Giancana and Johnny Rosselli. Kerr fills out the get-Fidel team roster with CIA-types and crooked FBI agents, and the plot percolates until one of the mobsters cheerfully entertains Jefferson with a tape of JFK making merry with, not Marilyn Monroe as Jefferson expects, but Jefferson's wife. When his wife is found dead, Jefferson immediately absconds with his advance on the Fidel contract. An incensed Sam Giancana orders his minions to find Jefferson. Meanwhile, author Kerr flips the plot 180 degrees, disclosing outright that Jefferson, assumedly an aggrieved husband redirecting his assassin's ire from Fidel to JFK, is really in the pay of the Fidelistas. The last laps of Kerr's tale run off automatically as Jefferson sets up his sniper's nest in Harvard Yard, patiently waiting for his well-guarded target to amble through the crosshairs . . . but Kerr reserves a final plot twist that is quite unexpected. Fidel-JFK conspiracies may be shopworn topics, but Kerr reworks the material with sufficient surprises to make this fascinating reading. Highly recommended!

Koontz, Dean R. Hideaway. Putnam, 1992 (Book). The Reader's Chair, p1992 (Audio Book). 9 sound cassettes (14 hrs., 02 min. Unabridged) Hatch Harrison has died en route to the hospital after a terrible accident. However, a brilliant physician successfully resuscitates him. Hatch and his wife Lindsey now have a second chance at life. Each day is approached as a new beginning with a new appreciation for the beauty of life—until a series of mysterious and frightening events begin to unravel. Although he has no recollection of glimpsing the Afterlife when his heart stops, Hatch begins to believe and fear that he has brought a terrible 'presence' back with him from beyond the dead. People who have wronged the Harrisons begin to die violently and Hatch begins to doubt his own innocence—fearing that this life is only a prelude to another, darker place. Now he and Lindsey are forced to fight for their very survival as well as that of Regina, their adopted disabled child who has given them a new purpose to life. Their desperation leads them through a twisted trail of terror that eventually leads them to an abandoned amusement park—and a confrontation with purest evil.

Patterson, James. Cat & Mouse. Little, Brown, 1997. Archly improbable multiple psycho killer tale featuring Patterson's dignified Washington, D.C., detective, Alex Cross. Gary Soneji, the hyperactive bad boy who escaped from prison at the end of Along Came a Spider (1993), has AIDS. Before he dies, he wants to avenge himself on Cross, who helped capture him. After creeping into the Cross family cellar and ominously rifling the laundry, Soneji, who (we learn) developed a psychotic fixation with trains when he was denied a Lionel set as a child, departs on a series of cinematic massacres along Amtrak Metroliner stops, leaving drops of Cross's blood as clues. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, another psycho killer, calling himself Mr. Smith, is literally cutting a swath through Paris and London, pursued by the fanatically methodical, pony-tailed FBI profiler, Thomas Pierce. Cross-doggedly pursues Soneji to New York, pausing between crime scene visits to romance recently widowed school principal Christine Johnson at the Rainbow Room. Patterson's breathlessly plotted exercise in bait-and-switch manipulation reaches the first of many false climaxes beneath Grand Central terminal, where Cross apparently kills Soneji. A few pages later, the widower Cross and his family are nearly murdered by a masked man claiming to be Soneji. Enter twitchy Thomas Pierce, to try and solve the Cross family bludgeoning before revealing that he and Mr. Smith might be the same man.

Preston, Douglas and Lincoln Child. The Ice Limit. Warner Books, 2000. When a huge meteorite, millions of years old, is discovered off the coast of Chile, billionaire Palmer Lloyd decides that he must have it as an exhibit for his museum and decides to steal it. Moving it, however, is another matter. What begins as an expedition to ship the meteorite to New York turns into a more and more perilous and suspenseful adventure off the frozen Antarctic rim, until the shocking true nature of the meteorite is revealed. Preston and Child have fun with this story, holding off the final twist until the very last line of the novel. Thisone's a chiller, and not just because of the Antarctic ice.

Preston, Douglas and Lincoln Child. Thunderhead. Warner Books, 1999. Nora Kelly is an archaeologist who is fascinated by the Anasazi Indians and the legends of their lost City of Gold, Quivira. A series of disturbing incidents lead her to believe that her father, who disappeared sixteen years ago, actually found the lost city and she undertakes an expedition to locate Quivira herself, hoping that her father might still be alive. Kelly and her team do locate the City of Gold--but the gold is very different from what they and the reader expect. Preston and Child are in excellent form here, with gripping plot twists and absorbing depictions of an ancient civilization.

Robb, J.D. The In Death Series. Would I ever be caught reading a romance novel by Nora Roberts? I doubt it, but, in the futuristic romance/suspense genre, I must confess I enjoyed reading each and every one of J.D. Robb’s "… In Death" series offerings. Each novel gives any reader who enjoys a good murder mystery a story with a serial killer as the culprit. In each case the serial killer is from a different mold and cut from a different cloth.

Naked in Death (199?) introduces the reader to Eve Dallas, a tough, streetwise detective who is a ten-year veteran on the force and Roarke, her soon-to-be love interest, who also happens to be a self-made Irish millionaire plus the prime suspect in the case Eve is investigating. A high-ranking senator’s granddaughter is the first of the brutally murdered victims—but she was a prostitute so there is a list of possibilities for the killer’s identity. Keep in mind that this book, as well as each that follows, is set about fifty years in the future, sometimes on-planet, sometimes off-planet, just to add color and interest to the story.

Glory In Death The victims in Glory in Death are always well known, in-the-public-eye individuals and the primary suspect is none other than Eve’s lover Roarke. Her goal is to solve the murders before there is another victim. Does she do it? Read it and see.

Immortal In Death Lust for eternal youth and beauty is the driving force behind murder in Immortal in Death. Eve finds herself defending her best friend Mavis Freestone who is the most colorful of the "regular" characters portrayed in Robb’s novels.

Rapture In Death Rapture in Death takes the reader on a voyage through virtual reality where the mind can be the instrument of destruction. Ceremony in Death immerses you in the practice of satanic rituals, devil worship and victims who are offered as sacrifices.

Vengeance In Death In Vengeance in Death, Eve races against the clock to stop a madman who believes that he is doing the work of the Lord—unfortunately, people are dying as a result of his "work".

Holiday In Death After reading Holiday in Death, you will never view Santa Claus in the same light again—you certainly would not open your front door and let him in!

Conspiracy In Death There are surgeons out there who play God and, in Conspiracy in Death, push the limits of humanity by removing organs, after murdering the victim, from society’s unwanted population (street people, prostitutes, etc.) and using those organs for their own "worthy" research.

Loyalty In Death Loyalty in Death offers the reader a terrifying glance into domestic terrorism and the race against time to save many, many lives.

Witness In Death Just as you think that Eve and her now husband Roarke can spend a mundane evening seeing an Agatha Christie play, true murder rears its ugly head when an actor is killed by a real knife instead of the prop knife that should have been used. Eve is transformed from theatergoer to cop as the plot unfolds in Witness in Death.

Judgment In Death Judgment in Death takes the reader on a trip to through the underworld in a club called Purgatory. One of the victims is a cop—what was he doing there anyway and why is it her husband’s "less than legal dealings from the past" are coming back to haunt him and her?

Betrayal In Death Betrayal in Death takes you to a different sort of underworld, that of rape and brutal murder, all performed without emotion since the killer is a professional hit man .

Seduction In Death Careful whom you court in cyberspace! That’s the message of Seduction in Death. The killer did not intend to murder, but he did administer the date-rape drug, set the scene and kill the girl in the end—and he’ll do it again!

Reunion In Death The latest publication in the series, Reunion in Death illustrates the power of revenge. A prisoner has waited a long time to be released and kill again for the sole purpose of leading Eve Dallas by the nose to try and prove that Eve is neither clever enough or fast enough to stop the murders.

Had enough?? If you find strong street language, brutal murders, and steamy sex offensive, then none of the books in this series is recommended. If you do find the psychology of a serial killer interesting and you do enjoy the growth process in the Eve Dallas/Roarke relationship, then these books will not disappoint. The introduction of regular characters such as Nadine Furst, reporter, Feeney, McNab, and Peabody, the good cops, Summerset, the irascible butler, Mavis Freestone, the outlandish singer, and her love interest, Leonardo, add ingredients to the soup to make it a truly hearty mixture.

Rollins, James. Amazonia. Morrow, 2002. When a U.S. Special Forces agent, missing and presumed dead, is discovered in the Amazon jungle, the U.S. government is quite understandably interested--the more so because this man was on record as having only one arm, but the body has two arms. How was the missing arm re-grown? Does the jungle hold the secret of rejuvenation and even the possibility of eternal life? Join the expedition headed by anthropologist Nate Rand and find out, as he and his compatriots are pursued through the jungle by a murderous counter expedition and encounter such perils as swarms of locusts, piranha that can move on land as well as water, and giant jaguars. For those who like their suspense and adventure on a grand scale, Rollins delivers.

Wood, Bari. Light Source. New American Library, 1984. It is the late 1980’s and Emily Brand, a brilliant physicist has created a workable plan for a fusion reactor that will replace the world’s need for oil. She must reach the President of the United States with it before the oil barons and their henchmen can kill her. Driving her Volvo across the northeast with a gun in the glove compartment, she strives to outwit and out run some of the most powerful men in government and industry who have sent their savagely trained killers to stop her. Her dilemma is made even more dramatic by the duel of emotion and intellect between David Lucci and herself. David is a handsome, bright and ambitious heir apparent to the nation’s supreme oil baron. This page-turner is a masterful, breathtaking chase thriller. This story is excellent, interesting reading.

April 3, 2002