Books with Buzz: Suspense, Thrillers & Mysteries

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
In this debut novel, Australian-born author M.L. Stedman tells the tale of Tom Sherbourne and his family. Weary from four years on the Western Front, Tom takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on an isolated island off the Australian coast.  Joined by his young wife, Isabel, they attempt to start a family. Several years — and two miscarriages and one still birth later –a boat washes ashore carrying a dead man and a very much living baby. Tom and Isabel decide to keep the child, claiming her as their own. It’s a decision that sets in motion a heart-wrenching moral dilemma that plays out two years later when they return to the mainland. (Read an excerpt.)

Gone Girl: A Novel by Gillian Flynn
The latest release from New York Times bestseller Gillian Flynn has been generating buzz all summer and promises to do so for months to come. This dark, whodunit looks at a marriage gone terribly wrong. The story opens on the fifth wedding anniversary of Nick and Amy Dunne, who are living in small town Missouri on the Mississippi River. As anniversary celebrations are underway, Amy suddenly disappears from her home, leaving behind signs of a struggle. Nick is oddly detached and far from honest with the cops — but he is really a killer as the police, and eventually Amy’s parents, begin to believe? And if Nick didn’t do it, where is his beautiful, smart, ultra-perfectionist wife? Be forewarned: the fast-paced and ingeniously plotted thriller will keep you up reading until the wee hours. (Read an excerpt.)

Winter of the World: Book Two of the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett
With this latest installment of his historic epic, The Century Trilogy, Ken Follett’s Winter of the World takes on World War II and the dawn of the atomic age. Picking up where the first book in the series Fall of Giants left off, five interrelated families face the enormous social, political, and economic turmoil of the rise of Nazi Germany through the Spanish Civil War and up to the explosions of the American and Soviet atomic bombs. (Watch the book trailer.)

The Paris Directive by Gerald Jay
Fans of Poirot, Maigret and Brunetti will want to meet Gerald Jay’s Inspector Mazarelle, the gimlet-eyed, pipe-smoking, world-weary detective, formerly of Paris, who at the twilight of his career has relocated to the French countryside. Following the gruesome quadruple homicide of American tourists in the Dordogne village of Taziac, Mazarelle is charged with bringing his long experience to bear on solving the case. Little does he realize that the murders are not what they seem, but have global implications involving the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
It’s a debut novel that since its release in June has created an international frenzy. Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age of Miracles is about a young girl growing up in extraordinary times: One day the world discovers that the Earth’s rotation has suddenly begun to slow. A graceful coming of age story, set against the threat to life as we know it, will leave you yearning for more. (And if you are, you may want to check out The Blondes, a quirky social satire about a ‘killer virus’ attacking blonde-haired women.)