7 To-Reads: Romance, Espionage & Thrillers

BEFORE THE FALL (Grand Central) by Noah Hawley

A corporate jet carrying 11 crashes into the ocean just minutes into a nighttime flight from Martha’s Vineyard to New York, killing everyone aboard except for a 40-something artist and a young boy. The book, from the Emmy Award-winning creator of the TV show Fargo, interweaves the aftermath of the crash and the backstory of the passengers. Was it merely by chance that so many influential people perished? Or was something more sinister at work? Be forewarned, though: you’ll want to devour this book in one sitting.

In the sequel to The Scent of Secrets, the half-Jewish British actress Clara Vine moves through the upper echelons of Nazi high society, leveraging her film studio contacts and close friendship with Magda Goebbels to spy on the private lives of the Third Reich for British Intelligence. The novel weaves historical details into the story, including a cast of real Nazis and some of their British admirers such as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the Mitford sisters.

In the latest installment of the Women’s Murder Club series, Detective Lindsay Boxer investigates a brutal murder at a luxury hotel and finds clues that point uncomfortably close to home – in particular, to her husband. And even as bombs go off on the domestic front, an explosive tragedy hits San Francisco, plunging the city into chaos.

Of course there’s no age limit to romantic ruses and betrayals. Just ask Petra, a single British woman in her sixties who finally falls in love – with her best friend Bev’s husband. Or Lorrie, in Texas, who is about to embark on the biggest deception of her life, even as another woman in China questions her husband’s loyalty. From the author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, it’s a story of four women, the secrets they keep and the lengths they’ll go to keep them.

Detective extraordinaire Amos Decker from Baldacci’s bestselling Memory Man returns in this story about Melvin Mars, a convicted murderer on death row who is granted an unexpected last minute reprieve after another man confesses to the crime. Decker – a man who literally forgets nothing – becomes interested in the case after discovering some striking similarities to his own life. But in so doing, he suspects the confession is untrue and something far more sinister is at play.

Enter a world of pirate ships, treasure maps, exploits on the high seas – and Yiddish jokes. The year is 1492 and Moishe, a Bar Mitzvah boy, leaves his home in Spain to join a ship’s crew, where he falls in love, meets a polyglot parrot who becomes his constant companion, and of course, seeks the New World’s ultimate booty: the Fountain of Youth.

In the latest of the popular sci-fi series, Gideon Crew is recruited to use his engineering expertise and knowledge of nuclear weapons to destroy an organism from outer space that has implanted itself at the bottom of the ocean. The stakes couldn’t be higher: failure would mean the end of humankind on earth. The book is a sequel to The Ice Limit, but can be read as a stand-alone.