Holiday post #3, great holiday thrillers for readers on your list!

Multiple award-winning journalist and documentarian Michael Harvey lends his talents for place and people for a second time with Pulse. 1970s Boston springs off the page with all the grit and suspense South Boston can hold.

The Fitzsimmons brothers have relied on each other when their mother drowned years ago. Older brother Harry, star of Harvard’s football team, has kept watch over younger brother, Daniel, now 16. When an opportunity arises for Daniel to move out of his cramped quarters on the floor of Harry’s room, his new landlord has a different perspective he shares.

The former Harvard physics professor, working with an early generation laptop, shares his theories of harnessing the energy of the human mind. Daniel masters this and soon calls it into action when Harry is murdered in an alley.

Bark Jones and Tommy Dillon are the detectives working Harry’s murder. They have their own history and working the case leads to surprising and heartbreaking secrets and decisions on both sides. Can’t talk about more of the plot of this twisted and compelling plot without giving a lot away. Just be assured that if your reader loves a twisted plot, this is the book to find.


Camiila Way’s The Lies We Told brings a domestic suspense thriller to readers. While Beth knows her daughter, Hannah, has an issue with being unable to express emotion, she becomes wary of her child who seems capable of hurting others.

When perfect Luke disappears, it’s his girlfriend Clara’s digging into his past that will uncover his perfect family she thought he was from includes a long-lost sister. The secrets and lies she uncovers illustrate an elaborate almost maze-like twist in history of several of the characters and the cover lives that have been created for some.

A twisted and manipulative plot means even when you think it’s over, it’s not.


Thriller writer Brian Gruley brings a stand-alone with a terrific plot in Bleak Harbor.

Set during the Dragonfly Festival in Bleak Harbor, Michigan, a mother will do anything she can to save her kidnapped son. Heiress Carey Bleak Peters has just threatened her boss with extortion for money she would use to take her son, Danny, and herself away from Bleak Harbor and start a new life away from her family and her alcoholic husband, whose own business has turned to the illegal side.

With the kidnappers demanding $5 million in ransom, Carey and Pete go against their demand and involve the police. Enter the engaging Katya Malone, recovering from a tragic family loss, who will uncover family secrets that may have led to Danny’s kidnapping.

Set as a race against time counting down, the suspense couldn’t be higher in this thriller Gillina Flynn calls “An electric bolt of suspense.”

If you have a reader on your list who enjoys political thrillers, look no farther than Goldie Taylor’s Paper Gods. Bringing money and race to the forefront, a series of assassinations being investigated could jump off the pages of today’s news.

People attached to Atlanta Mayor Victora Overstreet are being killed, with paper gods being left at the scenes. Reporter Hampton Bridges, sidelined, lost, and wheelchair-bound, should be her nemesis with their shared history. But the two soon become involved in their own investigations into who is behind these killings. Each has their own demons to handle; each cares deeply about their city in their own way.

With a strong cast of secondary characters, not to mention Bridges faithful dog, Inman, the city of Atlanta becomes another character with its history and its present well described. Taut and fast-paced.

Lisa Gabriele retells du Maurier’s classic Rebecca by bringing it across the pond to the Hamptons of Long Island in The Winters.

The story follows the same thread of the naive bride, unnamed, quickly married to the wealthy Max Winter, in this outing a state senator. Left alone as he travels, adjusting to Asherley on Long Island after her Cayman Islands home, the reminders in her new home are filled with references to Max’s first wife, Rebekah.

This time instead of a jealous servant, we have Dani Winters, Max’s teen daughter, who is the disruptive influence. But Dani is successful in causing the new bride to question how well she really knows her new husband. And that’s when this new book deliciously diverts from the former and takes on a life of its own.