Ranking

Title

Wish

Jonathan Kellerman (2006) Gone.

In Kellerman's 20th Alex Delaware novel, the Los Angeles psychologist looks into the murder of Michaela Brand, an aspiring actress. Joining forces with LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, he investigates an unconventional acting school and the eccentric women who runs it. More people related to the school turn up missing and dead. The bizarre truth is more horrifying than anyone thought.

Yasmina Khadra (2005) Double Blank.

A dark tale about a leading Algerian intellectual, who has criticized the military regime. When the book seems to have triggered a series of murders, Inspector Llob investigates the trail of corpses that seems to lead to a gang of religious fundamentalists. But the story gets more complicated when gang members also turn up dead. A gory thriller by someone who knows contemporary Algerian politics first hand.

Yasmina Khadra (2007) The Attack.

A serious, shocking book set in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Amin Jaafari, a well-respected and hard-working surgeon at a busy Tel Aviv hospital gets between the fronts of this bitter conflict. His world falls appart when he begins to suspect that his wife is behind a suicide bombing that killed 19 people including children in Tel Aviv. Yasmina Khadra is the pen name of Mohammed Moulessehoul, an Algerian exile.

Stephen King (2006) Cell. A Novel.

In this technophobic horror thriller cell phones are used to turn millions of unsuspecting humans into zombie-like killing machines. The blood is drenching the pages in this goriest, most horrific novel. If you like end-of-civilized-society stories, this is for you.

Pavel Kohout (2000) The Widow Killer: A Novel.

In 1945, someone is murdering and mutilating the widows of war heroes in Prague, which is occupied by the German Nazi Regime. Pavel Kohout's novel tells the story of two cops: the young, idealistic Czech, Morava, and the Gestapo officer, Buback, who has a secret agenda. History lesson, packaged into suspenseful thriller.

Peter Lalor (2005) Blood Stain.

Kathy Knight, grandmother and slaughter house worker in Aberdeen, Australia sliced her partner John Price into pieces and cooked him for a meal. Peter Lalor covered the Knight case for the Daily Telegraph, a top newspaper in Australia. His book is one of the most gruesome true crime stories and not for the faint of heart.

Don Lee (2004) Country of Origin.

Lisa Countryman, a half-Japanese, half-black Berkeley graduate student goes to Japan for her dissertation research, but ends with a job as a hostess girl at a Tokyo men's club. When she disappears, Tom Hurley, lazy junior diplomat at the U.S. Embassy and police detective Kenzo Ota investigate the case, which leads them into the heart of Tokyo's nightlife.

John Lescroart (1995) The 13th Juror.

An abused San Francisco housewife is indicted for shooting both her seven-year-old son and her physician husband. Defense attorney Dismas Hardy tries to cut through the web of lies. While the plot is a little slow in the beginning, Lescroart's courtroom dialogs are excellent and eventually the book gains speed and thrill and ends in surprise.

David Lindsey (1994) A Cold Mind.

In this tense psychological thriller, a psychopath stalks expensive call girls in the urban sprawl of Houston, Texas. As he tries to hunt down the killer, homicide detective Stuart Haydon is sucked into a scary underworld of perverted lust and cold-blooded murder.

Robert Ludlum (2001) The Prometheus Deception.

The book is about an agent named Nick Bryson, alias Jonas Barett, alias Jonathan Coleridge, alias The Technician. He works for an ultra-clandestine agency known only as the Directorate. Bryson is thrown into a fight between an organization he knows as Prometheus and his former employers at the Directorate. Hair-raising episodes, latest spy gadgetry, and, of course, a brain-knotting plot.

Richard MacAndrew (2003) The Lahti File: Level 3.

Hundreds of dead fish, some unexplained deaths and a bird-less town - these newspaper reports from Finland attract interest from the British secret service. Ian Munro is sent to Lahti to investigate. But when his first contact is killed, Munro realizes that someone is trying to hide a secret. A most thrilling English course! (This is how teenagers would like to learn English!)

Ngaio Marsh (1999) Vintage Murder. (First published 1936)

This classical British murder mystery features Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard on vacation in New Zealand. Alleyn travels by train together with Carolyn Dacres, celebrated actress, and her theatrical company. When an after-performance celebration of the actors turns deadly the local small-town police is glad to have Inspector Alleyn at their help.

Alexander McCall Smith (2006) Blue Shoes and Happiness

The seventh entry in the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. Botswana detective Precious Ramotswe faces one of her toughest challenges: losing weight.

Alexander Mccall Smith (2004) The Kalahari Typing School for Men.

Everyday challenges of a female private detective in Gaborone, Botswana. Easy humor laces the pages, as McCall Smith throws in wry observations on Botswana's bureaucracy.

Keith McCarthy (2003) A Feast of Carrion.

Nikki Exner is found murdered in St. Benjamin's Museum of Anatomy and Pathology. The police arrests a young museum employee, who kills himself while in custody. John Eisenmenger performs a second autopsy on the victim, which yields surprising results. McCarthy, a pathologist himself, is telling a story of lust, perversion, incompetence and corruption in an UK department of pathology.

David McGowan (2004) Programmed to Kill: The Politics of Serial Murder.

The author denounces the image of serial killers as psychopathic loners to be a media fabrication. He suggests that many cases of child pornography, serial murder, and pedophilia are linked to secret organizations, which would shield the criminals from prosecution. The author also argues that Intelligence agencies (CIA) use these crimes to compromise prominent targets. Your typical conspiracy theories.

Claire McNab (2005) The Kookaburra Gambit: A Kylie Kendall Mystery.

Australian McNab, now living in California, is a prolific crime fiction writer. Her Kylie Kendall mystery series features brash private investigator Kylie, who newly moved from Down Under to L.A. In the Kookaburra Gambit exquisite Australian black opals are smuggled to America. To see Kylie adjust to her new world and solve the case is deadly funny.

Patricia Melo (1999) The Killer.

In this psychological thriller, Brazilian screenwriter Melo has created a social drama, featuring a used-car salesman in suburban Sao Paolo. After a laughable incident he has become a killer for hire. As he is cleaning up the crime-ridden neighborhood, he is gaining social respect. But then his lawless world is falling apart in a killing spree. This literary study of disintegrating social fabric gives a disturbing view into Brazilian society.

Patricia Melo (2003) Inferno.

This story of a kid growing up to become head of a drug trafficking gang is not only a thriller, but a portrait of a community that is increasingly loosing its social cohesion.

Lucy Monroe (2005) Ready.

Lise, a writer living alone in Seattle, is being stalked. Joshua Watt, a former Army Ranger, who has met Lise when she was still in Texas, will not allow some creep terrorize an innocent woman. As Joshua tries to protect Lise, they are powerfully attracted and drawn to each other.

Victoria Taylor Murray (2001) Thief of Hearts

What you like in a fine romance novel: The beautiful and rich, murder, humor, suspense, and betrayal. Thief Of Hearts is the first book in Murray's Lambert series of romantic crime novels, which also include Forbidden, Friendly Enemies, and Le Fin.

Barbara Nadel (2005) Deadly Web.

This unusual story from Turkey features a group of young Goths. Their seemingly romantic cult of Satanism turns dangerous, as some members are killed in what seems to be ritualistic rapes and murders. Police inspectors Cetin Ikmen and Mehmet Suleyman investigate and have to deal with ancient Hebrew practices and traditions of Kabbalah.

Michael Newton (2000) The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers.

This exhaustive overview of the most macabre and fascinating branch of crime may have some conceptual flaws (confusing definition of serial killings) and sometimes comes dangerously close to glorifying the hideous personalities of the criminals; but it is the most complete documentation on the market.

Leonardo Padura Fuentes (2005) Havana Red.

A young transvestite in a beautiful red dress is found strangled in a Havana park. Inspector Mario Conde, a Havana policeman, is investigating in Cuba's marginalized and persecuted homosexual community. Fascinating portrait of a crumbling post-revolution society - painted with a sharp eye for the repressions of a totalitarian regime. Rather explicit sexual details.

Leonardo Padura Fuentes (2006) Adios Hemingway.

Retired Inspector Mario Conde is obsessed with Hemingway. When a dead body is discovered on Hemingway's property (Finca Vigia) in Cuba, Conde is reluctantly taking the case. During his investigation he visits all the places that bring to life Hemingway's time in Cuba during the last days of the Batista era.

James Patterson / Andrew Gross (2006) Judge & Jury.

Fast paced.

James Patterson (2007) Double Cross. (Alex Cross Series) [Large Print]

Investigator-psychologist with family life and new girl friend is hunting two serial killers and his old arch enemy Kyle Craig. Not much depth, but lightning fast.

James Patterson (2007) Cross. (Alex Cross Series)

Patterson's trademark is pace. His horrendously violent crime fiction is so fast, that you have finished the book before you even realize that the serial killer, aka butcher of Sligo, is just a little too monstrous and the forensic psychologist Cross just a little too brave and competent.

James Patterson (2007) Double Cross. (Alex Cross Series)

Investigator-psychologist with family life and new girl friend is hunting two serial killers and his old arch enemy Kyle Craig. Not much depth, but lightning fast. Full of stereotypes.

Stef Penney (2008) The Tenderness of Wolves: A Novel.

Stef Penney's haunting debut casts the frigid isolation of Scottish immigrants living on the late 19th-century Canadian frontier. In this harsh, unforgiving environment a seventeen-year old boy disappears the same day his mother discovers the scalped body of his friend. The gripping story reveals a complex web of human desires, motivations, and relationships.

Arturo Perez-Reverte (2006) The Club Dumas.

This literary mystery is a puzzle featuring a book detective, Lucas Corso, who hunts down rare editions for wealthy clients. As one of his bibliophile customers is found hanged, Corso is swept into a swirling adventure that takes him from Madrid to Toledo and Paris, repeatedly threatened to be killed while apparently leaving a trail of dead bodies.

Sheila Pim (2001) A Hive of Suspects: An Irish Village Mystery.

In the village of Drumclash, Ireland, Pim develops a most excentric plot, in which amateur apiarist Edward Gildea uncovers the truth of niggard beekeeper Jason Prendergast's death. A weird story.

Edgar Allan Poe (2006) The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales.

Collection of classical detective novels by Edgar Allan Poe. Scheduled for publication: May 23, 2006

Douglas Preston (2008) The Monster of Florence.

Preston and Italian crime reporter Spezi seek to uncover the identity of the "Monster of Florence" - a serial killer who stalked lovers in the Italian countryside. In an incredible twist both authors are charged with obstruction of justice. Spezi becomes jailed on suspicion of being the Monster himself by an incompetent police force more concerned with saving face than solving the case.

Bill Pronzini (1999) A Wasteland of Strangers.

John Faith is an outsider in the northern California resort community of Pomo and he is going to feel it. Under the idyllic surface of the tidy little town dark desires are brooding, a bank robbery is in preparation, a rapist threatens a school teacher, an usually drunk reporter tries to manipulate public opinion and a good-looking widow sleeps around with half the men in town - in particular with the local police chief. When she is found murdered, Faith is in trouble.

Bill Pronzini (2006) Mourners: A Nameless Detective Novel.

Bronzini's hero, the legendary Nameless Detective, is considering retirement. He makes his assistant, Tamara, a partner in his detective agency and hires Jake for the day-to-day business, but remains involved in a mysterious case in which a wealthy businessmen is behaving highly erratically. Instead of comfortable retirement and family life the Nameless Detective finds himself surrounded by an ominous atmosphere of grief and mourning. Gradually his world is falling apart.

Zane Radcliffe (2005) The Killer's Guide to Iceland.

Callum Pope has fled his native Glasgow to make a fresh start in Iceland with Birna Sveinsdottir, a pretty glaciologist. As he moves in with Birna, her mother and Birna's eleven year-old daughter tensions begin to rise in the three-generation household of strong females.

Ian Rankin (1997) Hide and Seek (Inspector Rebus Series).

Edingurgh's Inspector Rebus, a tough no-nonsense cop, investigates a junkie's death that looks like a satanic ritual killing.

Derek Raymond (2008) How the Dead Live.

Cult writer Derek Raymond's third book in the Factory series is filled with explosive violence and reflections about dying and death. His nameless detective has left London to investigate the disappearance of a doctor's wife in the small village of Thornhill. The structure of the book follows "The Tibetan Book Of The Dead".

Kathy Reichs (2005) Monday Mourning. (A Tempe Brennan Novel)

It is not easy for forensic scientist Tempe Brennan to work with the chauvinist detectives Luc Claudel and Andrew Ryan, to whom she is sexually attracted. When the skeletons of three women are found in the basement of a pizzeria she suspects murder, while the detectives seem to be strangely indifferent. As a forensic anthropologist, Kathy Reichs knows what she is writing about.

Ruth Rendell (1988) From Doon With Death. (First published 1964)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (1987) Wolf to the Slaughter. (First published 1967)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (1986) A New Lease of Death / Sins of the Fathers. (First published 1967)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (2006) The Thief.

For young readers. Released: April 4, 2006.

Ruth Rendell (1987) The Best Man to Die. (First published 1969)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (1987) A Guilty Thing Surprised. (First published 1970)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (1999) No More Dying Then. (First published 1971)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (1999) Murder Being Once Done. (First published 1972)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (1999) Some Lie and Some Die. (First published 1973)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (2000) Shake Hands Forever. (First published 1975)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (2000) A Sleeping Life. (First published 1978)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (1981) Means of Evil - and Other Stories. (First published 1979)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (1986) Death Notes / Put On by Cunning. (First published 1981)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (1984) The Speaker of Mandarin. (First published 1983)

With a group of tourists, Chief Inspector Wexford is visiting ancient tombs and palaces in China. After their return to England, one of the tourists is found murdered. As Wexford's questions the other members of the group, he finds so many secrets of greed, treachery, theft, and adultery, that everyone seems to be guilty.

Ruth Rendell (1986) An Unkindness of Ravens. (First published 1985)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (1989) The Veiled One. (First published 1988)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (1993) Kissing the Gunner's Daughter. (First published 1992)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (1996) Simisola. (First published 1994)

In this subtile novel of social criticism, Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford has to deal with a small country town where racism has turns deadly.

Ruth Rendell (1998) Road Rage. (First published 1997)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (2000) Harm Done. (First published 1999)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (2004) The Babes in the Woods. (First published 2002)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (2005) End in Tears. (First published 2005)

Inspector Reginald Wexford Series.

Ruth Rendell (2005) Thirteen Steps Down.

Two creepy characters share the dilapidated St. Blaise House in London: The elderly spinster Chawcer and her younger tenant, Cellini. Celini is obsessed with a serial killer, who was hanged 50 years ago; and he is stalking supermodel Nerissa Nash. Increasingly homicidal, Cellini kills a young girl and stashes the corpse under the floorboards in his room. A chilling study of the human mind.

Ruth Rendell (1987) To Fear a Painted Devil. (First published 1965)

Ruth Rendell (1987) Vanity Dies Hard. (First published 1965)

Ruth Rendell (1987) The Secret House of Death. (First published 1968)

Ruth Rendell (2006) End in Tears. (Chief Inspector Wexford Mysteries)

Scheduled for publication: July 18, 2006

Ruth Rendell (2001) One Across, Two Down. (First published 1971)

Ruth Rendell (1975) The Face of Trespass. (First published 1974)

Ruth Rendell (2000) A Demon in My View. (First published 1976)

Ruth Rendell (2001) The Fallen Curtain - Short Stories. (First published 1976)

Ruth Rendell (1980) Make Death Love Me. (First published 1979)