Kompromat by Stanley Johnson

Picked by Evan - December 12th 2017 Meeting

Stanley Johnson’s Kompromat is a brilliant satirical thriller that tells the story of 2016’s seismic and unexpected political events on both sides of the Atlantic.
The UK referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU was a political showdown the British PM, Jeremy Hartley, thought he couldn’t lose. But the next morning both he and the whole of the rest of the country woke in a state of shock.
America meanwhile has its own unlikely Presidential candidate, the brash showman Ronald Craig, a man that nobody thought could possibly gain office. Throw into the mix the cunning Russian President Igor Popov, with his plans to destabilize the west, and you have a brilliant alternative account of the events that end with Britain’s new PM attempting to seek her own mandate to deal with the Brexit related crisis and America welcoming its own new leader.
Now in development for a major new TV series, Kompromat is a fast-paced thriller from a true political insider, and who knows, it just might all be true!

Redemption Road by John Hart

Picked by Penny - November 7th 2017 Meeting

The winner of history's only consecutive Edgar Awards for Best Novel John Hart delivers his most powerful story yet.
Imagine:
A boy with a gun waits for the man who killed his mother.
A troubled detective confronts her past in the aftermath of a brutal shooting.
After thirteen years in prison, a good cop walks free as deep in the forest, on the altar of an abandoned church, a body cools in pale linen…
This is a town on the brink.
This is Redemption Road.
Brimming with tension, secrets, and betrayal, Redemption Road proves again that John Hart is a master of the literary thriller.

Camino Island by John Grisham

Picked by Dick - September 19th 2017 Meeting

A gang of thieves stage a daring heist from a secure vault deep below Princeton University’s Firestone Library. Their loot is priceless, but Princeton has insured it for twenty-five million dollars.
     Bruce Cable owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in the black market of stolen books and manuscripts.
     Mercer Mann is a young novelist with a severe case of writer’s block who has recently been laid off from her teaching position. She is approached by an elegant, mysterious woman working for an even more mysterious company. A generous offer of money convinces Mercer to go undercover and infiltrate Bruce Cable’s circle of literary friends, ideally getting close enough to him to learn his secrets.
     But eventually Mercer learns far too much, and there’s trouble in paradise as only John Grisham can deliver it.

Blame by Jeff Abott

Picked by Kris - August 22nd Meeting

The crash that killed him…
Two years ago, Jane Norton crashed her car on a lonely road, killing her friend David and leaving her with amnesia. At first, everyone was sympathetic. Then they found Jane’s note: “I wish we were dead together.”
A girl to blame. . .
From that day, the town turned against her. But even now Jane is filled with questions: Why were they on that road? Why was she with David? Did she really want to die?
The secrets she should forget…
Most of all, she must find out who has just written her an anonymous message: “I know what really happened. I know what you don’t remember…”

The Secret Wife by Gill Paul

Picked by Melissa - July 18th Meeting

A Russian grand duchess and an English journalist. Linked by one of the world’s greatest mysteries.
1914...
Russia is on the brink of collapse, and the Romanov family faces a terrifyingly uncertain future. Grand Duchess Tatiana has fallen in love with cavalry officer Dmitri, but events take a catastrophic turn, placing their lives in danger . 
2016...
Kitty Fisher escapes to her great-grandfather’s remote cabin in America, after a devastating revelation makes her flee London. There, on the shores of Lake Akanabee, she discovers the spectacular jewelled pendant that will lead her to a long-buried family secret .

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whithead

Picked by Barb - June 20th 2017 Meeting

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, the #1 New York Times bestseller from Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

Watchtower by Elizabeth A. Lynn

Picked by Brenda - May 23rd 2017 Meeting

Elizabeth A. Lynn won the World Fantasy Award for Watchtower, volume one in a breathtaking trilogy that would establish her as one of speculative fiction's most exciting voices. Tornor Keep is the legendary tower that guards the winter end of a summer land. But when Tornor is overrun by raiders, a young prince is the tower's last hope in an enchanting story of a time far removed from ours and of a land alive with warriors, lovers, war, and honor. Watchtower is frequently included on lists of feminist and gay SFF. It does deal with an underlying homoerotic tension between the prince and his soldier, and the other two main characters are of ambiguous gender.

The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain

Picked by Evan - April 18th 2017 Meeting

Frank Chambers, a drifter, is dropped from the back of a truck at a rundown rural diner. When he spots Cora, the owner's wife, he instantly decides to stay. The sexy young woman, married to Nick, a violent and thuggish boor, is equally attracted to the younger man and sees him as her way out of her hopeless, boring life. They begin a clandestine affair and plot to kill Nick, beginning their own journey toward destruction.

First published in 1934 and banned in Boston for its explosive mixture of violence and eroticism, The Postman Always Rings Twice is a classic of the roman noir. It established James M. Cain as a major novelist with an unsparing vision of America's bleak underside, and was acknowledged by Albert Camus as the model for The Stranger.

My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni

Picked by Penny - March 22nd 2017 Meeting

 Tracy Crosswhite has spent twenty years questioning the facts surrounding her sister Sarah’s disappearance and the murder trial that followed. She doesn’t believe that Edmund House—a convicted rapist and the man condemned for Sarah’s murder—is the guilty party. Motivated by the opportunity to obtain real justice, Tracy became a homicide detective with the Seattle PD and dedicated her life to tracking down killers.
When Sarah’s remains are finally discovered near their hometown in the northern Cascade mountains of Washington State, Tracy is determined to get the answers she’s been seeking. As she searches for the real killer, she unearths dark, long-kept secrets that will forever change her relationship to her past—and open the door to deadly danger.

Native Tongue by Carl Hiaasen

Picked by Dick - February 21st 2017 Meeting

When the precious clue-tongued mango voles at the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills on North Key Largo are stolen by heartless, ruthless thugs, Joe Winder wants to uncover why, and find the voles. Joe is lately a PR man for the Amazing Kingdom theme park, but now that the voles are gone, Winder is dragged along in their wake through a series of weird and lethal events that begin with the sleazy real-estate agent/villain Francis X. Kingsbury and can end only one way....

Behind Closed Doors by B. A. Paris

Picked by Kris - January 17th 2017 Meeting

Everyone knows a couple like Jack and Grace. He has looks and wealth; she has charm and elegance. He’s a dedicated attorney who has never lost a case; she is a flawless homemaker, a masterful gardener and cook, and dotes on her disabled younger sister. Though they are still newlyweds, they seem to have it all. You might not want to like them, but you do. You’re hopelessly charmed by the ease and comfort of their home, by the graciousness of the dinner parties they throw. You’d like to get to know Grace better.

But it’s difficult, because you realize Jack and Grace are inseparable.

Some might call this true love. Others might wonder why Grace never answers the phone. Or why she can never meet for coffee, even though she doesn’t work. How she can cook such elaborate meals but remain so slim. Or why she never seems to take anything with her when she leaves the house, not even a pen. Or why there are such high-security metal shutters on all the downstairs windows.

Some might wonder what’s really going on once the dinner party is over, and the front door has closed.