Check It Out Category: Mysteries/Thrillers/Suspense

Winter Reading Suggestions: Winter Thrillers

Posted January 20, 2022 by Allison

Winter Reading: Reading is Sweet! Adults and Teens (Grades 6 through 12): January 1 through February 28

Winter Reading is in full swing for adults and teens! Anything you read, including books, graphic novels, or even audiobooks can be logged from January 1 – February 28 via Beanstack. Visit mppl.org/winterreading to sign up or to log your books today.

Looking for a snowy, cold setting perfect for thrills and chills? Below we’ve put together some of our favorite winter thrillers. Click for a full list of options to keep you on the edge of your seat until the last page. You’ll earn a prize ticket for Winter Reading in no time!

These Toxic Things by Rachel Howzell Hall

Mickie Lambert creates “digital scrapbooks” for clients, ensuring that precious souvenirs aren’t forgotten or lost. When her latest client, Nadia Denham, dies from an apparent suicide, Mickie honors the old woman’s last wish and begins curating her peculiar objets d’art. Mickie has been receiving threatening messages to leave Nadia’s past alone. Discovering the truth means crossing paths with a long-dormant serial killer and navigating the secrets of a sinister past.

Surprise-filled / Clever plot / Lively dialogue

The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse

Accompanying family members to an isolated Swiss Alps hotel to recuperate from a traumatizing case, a woman detective uncovers the fates of long-ago tuberculosis patients who went missing from the property years earlier when it operated as a sanatorium.

Vivid setting / Chilling / Grisly

One by One by Ruth Ware

When an offsite company retreat is upended by an avalanche that strands them in a remote mountain chalet, eight coworkers are forced to set aside their corporate rankings and mutual distrust in order to survive.

Adrenaline-fueled / Suspenseful / Intensifying

No Exit by Taylor Adams

Trapped at a Colorado rest stop with four strangers during a snowstorm, Darby Thomas must figure out which of them kidnapped the girl locked in a crate in the van parked next to Darby’s car.

Page-turner / Relatable heroine / Suspenseful action

The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal

Contacted by the desperate adoptive parents of the child she gave up 15 years earlier, Nora teams up with her mutt companion and embarks on a search through the streets of Vancouver only become enmeshed in a puzzling conspiracy.

Dryly witty / Violent / Thought-provoking

For Fans of Psychological Suspense

Posted August 2, 2021 by Cathleen

The dark underbelly of suburbia. Secrets kept from spouses, siblings, coworkers. Longtime friendships betrayed. And perhaps the most disturbing of all: the terrible thing someone just like you might do under just the right (or wrong) circumstances. These are some of the hallmarks of psychological suspense, in which no one – sometimes not even the hero or heroine – can be trusted, but readers of tense, twisty, moody stories tell us they can’t get enough. If this means you, please join us for a virtual conversation with summer sensations Megan Miranda and Shari Lapena on Thursday, August 12. While you are waiting to sample their newest releases, keep yourself distracted with these other stories of not-so-perfect neighbors.

The Other Woman’s House by Sophie Hannah

A murder seems to have been committed in a house about which a woman named Connie is obsessing. Once Connie discovers the house has been put up for sale, she visits it constantly on the real estate website. During one view, she sees a body and the bloody evidence of a murder in the house, but the police cannot find any sign in the house that a murder took place there.

The Wrong Family by Tarryn Fisher

Before moving in with the Crouch family, Juno thought Winnie and her husband, Nigel, had the perfect marriage, the perfect son – the perfect life. Only now that she’s living in their beautiful house, she sees the cracks in the crumbling facade are too deep to ignore. Still, she isn’t one to judge. After her grim diagnosis, the retired therapist simply wants a place to live out the rest of her days in peace. But that peace is shattered the day Juno overhears a chilling conversation between Winnie and Nigel…

Those People by Louise Candlish

An idyllic suburban neighborhood is thrown into chaos by the arrival of new neighbors who disrupt the community with rude behavior, loud music and unsightly renovations, until a shattering murder exposes a network of secrets.

What She Knew by Gilly Macmillan

Rachel Jenner is walking in a Bristol park with her eight-year-old son Ben when he asks if he can run ahead. It’s an ordinary request on an ordinary Sunday afternoon, and Rachel has no reason to worry–until Ben vanishes. Police are called, search parties go out, and Rachel, already insecure after her recent divorce, feels herself coming undone. As hours and then days pass without a sign of Ben, everyone who knew him is called into question, from Rachel’s newly married ex-husband to her mother-of-the-year sister.

The Other Mrs. by Mary Kubica

Unnerved by her husband’s inheritance of a decrepit coastal property and the presence of a disturbed relative, community newcomer Sadie uncovers harrowing facts about her family’s possible role in a neighbor’s murder.

Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris

The friends of a seemingly perfect socialite couple begin to see cracks in the facade when they realize that the husband and wife are never apart and that there are bars on one of their upstairs windows.

What Mount Prospect Is Reading

Posted May 23, 2020 by Cathleen

Mount Prospect, you’ve been reading, and we’ve been talking! Every week we have been extending an open invitation for readers to gather and share the books keeping them company in these odd times. We’ve chatted romance, dark fantasy, nonfiction, mysteries, feel-good, horror, and elegant prose. Check out the titles brought by our attendees, and please consider joining us for this week’s conversation: Let’s Talk Books!