I don’t often give a book 5 stars. That honor is reserved for the few books that truly have it all; the ones you can’t forget. A 5-star book transports you to another world, another place or time, and always leaves you craving more. Below are the five 5-star conspiracy thrillers I can’t stop thinking about.
The Girl Before: A Novel by J.P. Delaney
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In the tradition of The Girl on the Train, The Silent Wife, and Gone Girl comes an enthralling psychological thriller that spins one woman’s seemingly good fortune, and another woman’s mysterious fate, through a kaleidoscope of duplicity, death, and deception.
Please make a list of every possession you consider essential to your life.
The request seems odd, even intrusive—and for the two women who answer, the consequences are devastating.
EMMA
Reeling from a traumatic break-in, Emma wants a new place to live. But none of the apartments she sees are affordable or feel safe. Until One Folgate Street. The house is an architectural masterpiece: a minimalist design of pale stone, plate glass, and soaring ceilings. But there are rules. The enigmatic architect who designed the house retains full control: no books, no throw pillows, no photos or clutter or personal effects of any kind. The space is intended to transform its occupant—and it does.
JANE
After a personal tragedy, Jane needs a fresh start. When she finds One Folgate Street she is instantly drawn to the space—and to its aloof but seductive creator. Moving in, Jane soon learns about the untimely death of the home’s previous tenant, a woman similar to Jane in age and appearance. As Jane tries to untangle truth from lies, she unwittingly follows the same patterns, makes the same choices, crosses paths with the same people, and experiences the same terror, as the girl before.
“The Girl Before is deservedly anointed the ‘top girl’ of this season’s suspense novels.”—The Washington Post
CypherGhost by DS Kane
The seventh book in the gripping technothriller series, Spies Lie, perfect for fans who love Robert Ludlum, Lee Child, and Barry Eisler.
She is a CypherGhost: An untraceable hacker, someone who can be anywhere and do anything using a computer. Can an aircraft be hacked? Can a human being be hacked? Don't be so sure…
When Ann Silbey Sashakovich enters Stanford University to study computer forensics, she gets far more than she expected. During the Thanksgiving holiday of her freshman year, Ann finds that the aircraft she is a passenger on has been hacked. Its engines have stopped and everyone aboard is screaming.
When Charlette De Spain's boyfriend is falsely accused of stealing secrets from the FBI and dies in prison under mysterious circumstance, it changes her life. Once an Art History major, now a budding computer hacker, Charlette gathers the proof that her boyfriend was innocent. When no one pays attention, she decides to become jury and executioner for all those responsible.
However, the aircraft carrying one of Charlette’s primary targets also carries Ann.
In an America whose government is silently at war with its hackers, who prevails and who fails isn't limited to the two young battling women, but might also involve the fate of the entire nation.
“DS Kane, without a doubt, is a great storyteller… a highly recommended read for the lovers of popular thrillers”. —Mystery Tribune
Into The Water by Paula Hawkins
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER – An addictive new novel of psychological suspense from the author of #1 New York Times bestseller and global phenomenon The Girl on the Train.
A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its history, dredging up secrets long submerged.
Left behind is a lonely fifteen-year-old girl. Parentless and friendless, she now finds herself in the care of her mother's sister, a fearful stranger who has been dragged back to the place she deliberately ran from—a place to which she vowed she'd never return.
With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins delivers an urgent, twisting, deeply satisfying read that hinges on the deceptiveness of emotion and memory, as well as the devastating ways that the past can reach a long arm into the present.
Beware a calm surface—you never know what lies beneath.
“Hawkins is at the forefront of a group of female authors – think Gillian Flynn and Megan Abbott – who have reinvigorated the literary suspense novel by tapping a rich vein of psychological menace and social unease… there’s a certain solace to a dark escape, in the promise of submerged truths coming to light.” —Vogue
Beyond the Red Carpet by Debbra Lynn
A Masterful Hollywood Mystery that is sure to grip any reader and keep them thoroughly guessing until the end.
Sophia Donovan has it all: a beautiful home in the Hollywood Hills, a successful career at a high-profile celebrity magazine, amazing friends, and she is married to one of the hottest Hollywood Directors of the time. Things between her and her husband Marcus aren’t perfect, but after 11 years what marriage is? But, if the secrets that lay behind the walls of the Donovan home were ever exposed, life would never be the same for anyone.
When an unexpected visitor from Sophia’s past shows up, she is forced to come to terms with her suspicions. As Sophia unravels the truth about the people closest to her, it quickly becomes clear that fighting to save her marriage won’t be nearly as important as fighting to save her life.
“Beyond the Red Carpet is an action-packed, well-written Hollywood mystery, a modern story reminiscent of Harold Robbins’ and Jacqueline Susann’s classics.” —Book Addict
The Nuremberg Puzzle by Laurence O'Bryan
This well paced thriller has a mix of history dating back to the Hitler years in Nuremberg, suspense, and a shocking ending. If you like action, history, and a real sense of place and time, you will love this book!
Sean Ryan discovers a terrifying conspiracy to rid Germany of its refugees. After flying to Nuremberg, he sees blood on its streets, and anger boiling over.
An old friend in the city, Eleni Kibre, tells him about the anti-refugee groups spreading fast across Germany. An hour after he leaves her she is murdered. The police arrive at Sean’s hotel to question him. He was the last person to see her alive. Then Eleni’s partner goes missing.
Can Sean stop a new genocide, or will he too become a victim?
Hatred of foreigners has been buried for decades in Europe, but not deep enough. Long lost letters from Pope Pius XII to Adolf Hitler, which the Vatican is willing to do anything to retrieve, are the final pieces of this truly shocking puzzle, which Sean must solve before a modern genocide is released on the world.
“Another great book by a up and coming superstar — I have read all of the Laurence O’Bryan Puzzle” books…I love the way he weaves factual history into current fictional situations.” —Gloria Antypowich
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