Tag Archives: Thriller

350X: Sensory-Enhanced Man’s Girlfriend Not What She Seems (Solved!)

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The novel is about a man who works at an agency for people with advanced senses who use them to foil art thieves and bank robberies, and throughout the course of the story the protagonist becomes more and more paranoid as he is continuously foiled by a cat burglar who knows which poisons he is weak against. He believes his girlfriend is cheating on him, and gave away his secret, but it turns out she Is the cat burglar. The infidelity is a lie planted by his best friend, who is secretly a mobster trying to get revenge for a robbery he foiled.
I distinctly remember one specific scene, where he hits a man in the face with a large dildo.

348W: Who Kidnapped Toddler?

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British psychological thriller, probably 2019. Small child disappears from yard while young mother carelessly supervises her playtime.  Meanwhile, a married woman is in  a relationship which begins to reveal itself as rather strange and secretive. Her evasive husband becomes a suspect when coworker points finger in his direction, but his alibi is that his delivery route is far from the kidnapping site. Clues and suspicions build until his wife can no longer avoid suspecting his cagey behavior and question his guilt.

344G: Backstabbing (Literally?) Females At Dream Beach House (Solved!)

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The book was a paperback fiction.  I read it probably 10 or 15 years ago.  I do not remember the title or the author.  I believe the female author had a common first name but spelled slightly different (example – Lynda instead of Linda – but that wasn’t the name)
There were four female characters- collegemates- and a male college student that was dating one of the girls.  Two of the girls were best friends but hung out with two others.  The male college student was an architect and dreamed of building the perfect house in the perfect spot (on a beach)  One of the friends was a flashy blond who was rich and ended up stealing and marrying the man from her classmate because she could give him the property to build that perfect house.  The other classmate was a strange person who eavesdropped on the other three girls and often heard them making fun of her (she never forgot that)
I am not sure how many years later the rich blond invited everyone to her big beautiful home her husband had built on the beach for a reunion.  The one classmate had married and had children (average kind of boring life) and her best friend had married a cop who was paralyzed in the line of duty (living sad life) (if I recall correctly)  They didn’t really want to go to the reunion but ended up going.
In the meantime over the years the fourth member of their group was the butt of their jokes.  She wasn’t pretty.  Short and chubby.  I think she had red frizzy hair etc.  She had blossomed.  Lost weight and had become a famous writer/author.  She was well off and she apparently held a grudge all those years – and was out to get revenge.
My memory is pretty blurry about the time they spent on the beach.  The blond had become an alcoholic, not pretty any more.  Her husband said he had always loved the first girlfriend and was making a play for her at his beach house.  The climax in the story was when the author lady tried to kill one or more of them during a big storm that blew in.
I enjoyed the story and was hoping to find the author’s name to see if she had written any other books.  I have been looking for years with no luck.  This is the last I will try.  I hope you can finally solve my mystery.

340L: The Woman Who Can See Killers In Photographs (Solved!)

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This is the plot of the book.  In the story a woman has to go to her brother’s town because he is murdered.  She finds out that she has a special gift in that when she looks at photographs she can see a killer.  She can also see how the killer will kill someone.  Her brother had this gift and was killed because of it.  She meets a woman (can’t remember if this woman was a police officer or some kind of specialist) who believes in her gift.  Later this woman who helps her is killed along with the rest of her family.  Later a man who I think is some kind of specialist who knows about this gift meets her and helps her.  He is trying to find other people who have this gift.  He asks her to look at a photograph and she sees a killer and is able to tell him that this killer will I think plant a bomb somewhere.  At the end it seems like this man is killed but he survives and is rushed back to his home which I think is in another country.  The woman is not told that this man has survived.

I cannot remember the title or author of this book.  I want to read any sequels that are written.

I hope you are able to help me.

328F: Terrorist plot foiled by mismatched federal agents

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I listened to an audiobook from a library a couple years ago and have been searching for several years for it, but have been unable to find it. The library has torn itself apart trying to find it and I have physically gone through every audiobook but still can’t find it.

Here is what I remember:
The book starts out in Washington.  A terrorist plot is discovered by a female agent, FBI?, and is brought to the appropriate gov agency. The director knows that this is an extremist op and calls in a recently retired/parted CIA or some other black ops agent.  He has had his fill and is reluctant to take the mission but makes a deal that  this really will be his last mission.  He grudgingly accepts the mission and they are sent undercover to Europe/England to track down and kill the terrorist quietly. I think it was sanctioned by the President. He is an “off the books” guy and is not tied down by following the law while the female agent is by the books. She slowly learns what it takes to accomplish their mission and slowly warms to the guy. They have to use fake names, fake credits, and stay off the grid while tracking the terrorist, as I think the terrorists found out about it and began tracking them. I remember they try to buy some guns from some Eastern European gangsters and get into a shootout in a London garage when the deal goes bad. He has to use his contacts to get around and to track terrorists. I know they rented a seedy hotel room and he went out to get food and a burner phone and someone came to attack them while she was alone. They had to deal with the underworld trying to get info on the terrorist. I think the book ends when they catch-up with the terrorist attack around the London eye(ferris wheel?). The terrorist may have been a suicide bomber with a dirty bomb, but can’t remember for sure..
For some reason I thought it was written by a female author but I have searched every female action/suspense writer and have not found it.  All I listen to is spy/action novels and the title must have popped out when scanning the titles but it wasn’t obvious.

325F: Disappearing Girlfriend’s Sister Turns Out To Be The Missing Woman

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I recently read a book, it was a “psychological thriller”.  Basically there was a guy from Ireland (calling him Shane) who had moved to England and stayed with a male friend. Shane got a girlfriend who was lost in London and he took her under his wing. They eventually went away together and on the way back, they stopped at a rest stop and he told the police she went missing while he was in the rest stop bathroom.

Shane was initially questioned as she was never found but never charged with her murder.  The London flatmate eventually suggests that they put a bench out in honor of the missing girl. The girls sister shows at this event.  Eventually Shane and the missing girl’s sister connect and become engaged.  Once it becomes announced in the paper, odd things start to happen, including the leaving of the small inside of a Russian nesting doll all over the place for Shane and fiancee to find.

Eventually, we find that the fiancee is actually the missing girl and that her sister had actually died years ago by her abusive dad in some small, hard to get to island town.

Any idea what this book is?

307N: Expat parents killed in Africa

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Published pre 2006, probably UK author.

In the prologue, a UK expat family is somewhere in Africa, and the parents are suddenly killed, I think in a helicopter crash that turns out not to be an accident.  The children sounded interesting, but they aren’t very relevant to the rest of the story.

The rest of the story focuses on a single male protagonist, in his 30s or 40s, probably the brother of the woman who was killed.  He is drawn into some international conspiracy, is at some physical peril, and solves things.

I thought it was by Sam Llewellyn but I can’t find it on his website.  It has that kind of feel – like Sam Llewellyn or Dick Francis or the Canadian Jon Evans, a likeable but lonely amateur accidentally falling into a crime network.

In the mass market paperback edition I read in Canada in the late 1990s or early 2000s, the cover might have had a silhouette of a tree on a yellowish sky, and the title might have been Under the (some variety of exotic) Tree.