Sometimes People Die by Simon Stephenson

 Slow burner of a medical thriller and mystery that asks some tough questions.

An unnamed Scottish doctor finds work at St. Luke's Hospital in east London. He's having a rough go as he is on probation after being suspended for his opioid addiction and theft of drugs. His daily efforts as a hospitalist are largely unrewarded as the sick get sicker and there's never enough money to help everyone. His small group of colleagues is made aware that something more sinister may actually be going on -- someone seems to be murdering the patients.

As much as I really wanted to like this novel, I found it hard to connect with the narrator because, not only was he unnamed, he was a drug addict unwilling to do the work to overcome his situation and largely not paying attention to most of what was going on around him. At times the story line seemed to skip and jump and go off on tangents that really slowed down the forward momentum of the doctor's search for the truth of what happened at St. Luke's. It was interesting, but also the fact that it was set in the 1999 kind of lessened my interest as well as that was a very long time ago. I found this sad and frustrating for the most part and the conclusion was very unsatisfying.

I love a good medical thriller and a complex plot with multidimensional characters and lots of interesting facts and details. This one fell a little short of being all that for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hanover Square Press for this e-book ARC to read and review. 

This is a standalone and is not part of a series.

Genre - medical mystery and thriller

Fatal Rounds by Carrie Rubin

 A drama with a medical setting that uses a boxing metaphor.

Liz Larkin is determined to prove that a respected trauma surgeon is intent on doing her harm. She selects the hospital he works at to do her internship and immediately begins her campaign to find out what he's done. Her backstory of a history of mental health issues makes her a very unreliable narrator. I hoped, however, that this was going to make the story unique.

As everyone around her is convinced that Liz is losing it and having some kind of delusional break from reality with her accusations and suspicions, she continues on her mission. When everything ends up exactly as I worried it would, I was extremely disappointed and let down. I didn't like Liz and the whole plot required more suspension of disbelief than I can manage. I was looking for a medical thriller and this was not it. The most interesting aspects of the narrative were the actual details about pathology and disease. I can't recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Indigo Dot Press for this e-book ARC to read and review.

This may be the first in a new series that I won't be continuing.

Genre - drama

Long Gone (Detective Annalisa Vega #2) by Joanna Schaffhausen

 Complicated police procedural and crime thriller featuring Chicago detective Annalisa Vega in the followup to GONE FOR GOOD.

Even more messed up than her personal life, Annalisa's job is also fraught with problems. Nobody on the force likes or trusts her since she turned in her own father, an ex-cop. Now she runs the risk of alienating everyone even further when she's assigned to investigate the murder of a another Chicago detective, Leo Hammond. Apparently Leo Hammond wasn't the great cop that everyone thought he was -- nor were his best buddies.  In addition, Annalisa is looking into a cold case that might also be linked to some malfeasance on Hammond's watch. As always, she goes looking for trouble and it always gets found.

This is a convoluted set of cases where there are multiple suspects with lots of secrets and lies that have gone unexposed for years. The truth is eventually revealed after Annalisa attacks both situations with her usual dogged enthusiasm. The words of her current boss describe Annalisa's character: "...blatant insubordination, legal violations, questionable judgments, and dangerous pursuits." Instead of admiration, Annalisa mostly elicited annoyance. It just seems such a trope that she constantly goes off on her own and puts herself and others in peril. Regardless, the complex investigation yields results and Annalisa doesn't get fired.

Although I did not like this as much as I'd hoped, it provided a couple of hours of entertainment. I am not sure if I will read further installments in this series.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for this e-book ARC to read and review.

This is the second in a series so works best if you have read the first one.

Genre - police procedural, crime thriller

The Final Equinox (Theo Cray and Jessica Blackwood #2) by Andrew Mayne

 A thrilling technomystery that focuses on the possibility of contact from another universe.

Theo Cray is a brilliant computational biologist who is invited by a billionaire to spend some time out in the desert at a super secret research facility. It seems that the highly regarded scientists there claim to have received some sort of signal from outer space. Is an intelligent species trying to contact and  communicate with Earth? Theo shares some of his concerns about the transmissions to his girlfriend, FBI Agent Jessica Blackwood, and she ends up joining him on his adventures as he tries to analyze and investigate the source.

This was quite interesting, but I confess that the theories, science, and math were way over my head even though the author does his best to try to make it relatable on a scale I could understand. I enjoy the duo of Theo and Cray working together and they certainly have the smarts to outwit any adversary. I probably would have liked this a lot more, as I did the first in the series, if it had been a plot that I found a bit more interesting. I admit, I was sort of hoping that there would be aliens and spaceships. In any event, the book was entertaining and I read it over a couple of hours. I would definitely give another installment a chance as enjoy the main characters. I like the author's writing style and I've definitely enjoyed the Underwater Investigation Unit series.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for this e-book ARC to read and review. 

This is the second in a series featuring the two working together though there are separate series featuring each individually.

Genre - technothriller, mystery, science fiction

Fallout by Carrie Stuart Parks

 A mystery with a heavy Christian theme.

Samantha Williams is living a quiet life when everything is upended after a car crashes into the school where she is working. When her identification disappears along with her purse and all those other important pieces of documentation, she’s left with no where to go until she is offered a place to stay at Clan Firinn along with a woman she met at the accident site. There she meets a hunky PhD, Dustin “Dutch” Van Seters and there is an instant mutual attraction. Before she can focus on romance, however, Samantha needs to figure out if the target is really her and why.

I just was not able to really get into this book and nearly put it aside. The characters seemed banal and insipid and I never felt that the actions of Samantha were believable. The plot was a bit thin and all the connections so hard to find convincing. I should have passed as it just didn’t have what I was looking for in a suspense thriller.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas Nelson for this e-book ARC to read and review. I see that others liked it a lot more than I did. 

This is a standalone and is not part of any series.

Genre - Christian mystery and romance

The Chestnut Man by Soren Sveistrup

 Tense and dark, this suspense thriller will give you chills!

Set in Copenhagen where a serial killer is leaving behind a grisly scene that includes an odd doll made of chestnuts and matchsticks. They are calling him the Chestnut Man. The oddest part facing the police is that there is a fingerprint on the dolls that belongs to a young girl who had gone mussing in the prior year and was presumed dead.

Detectives Thulin and Hess are tasked with the investigation of the brutally murdered at the latest crime sites and the perpetrator has left no clues behind. This complex police procedural will lead them to an old mass homicide that started it all.

I really enjoyed this and it got me out of a slump as I could not bear to put this down. I loved the writing style and the complicated inquiries that the two main characters were involved in. The plot was intricate and the revelations were dangled slowly with all finally coming together in a very satisfying conclusion. The setting helped create the noir atmosphere and I definitely would like to learn more about Thulin and Hess because not much detail about either is related. There are plenty of red herrings to keep the reader guessing and I was pleasantly surprised throughout. I would definitely like to read more books by this author! Highly recommend.

Now I'm ready to see the series on television...

This is, right now, a standalone though I could see the potential of future installments with these characters.

Genre - nordic noir, suspense, police procedural, crime thriller

Back to the Garden by Laurie R. King

 Slow burning mystery thriller that might be the start of a new series.

Inspector Raquel Laing faces a complicated case with a sort of timer countdown. The police have a dying man in custody, The Highwayman, who may give them answers and names for a series of murders dating back 50 years. The intensity and pressure increase when a set of remains is found under the base of a huge statue that is being restored on the Gardener Estate. Could this be another of his victims?

The Gardener Estate, a vast property with a huge mansion and extensive formal gardens, has a long history in California. In the family for generations, it was briefly the site of a commune in the 70s when Rob Gardener inherited but had no interest in claiming material possessions for himself. Now, the  Estate has been lovingly restored to its former glory by a trust and managed by a board that includes one of Rob's cousins. The hippies have been long gone, but the bones indicate that it was one of them.

Told in a then and now format, the narrative introduces many interesting characters. Raquel learns a lot from the archivist on site and the historical records and photographs from the commune era and tries to find any of those who were there in the 70s to get answers. Although it was slow moving, things really start to pick up in the last fourth of the book and all is revealed in a satisfying conclusion. I found it quite interesting and think that there is much to learn about Raquel so wonder if there will be more novels featuring this character. This wasn't an intense, gripping suspense thriller but more a police procedural mystery.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bantam Books for this e-book ARC to read and review.

This is a standalone and not, as yet, part of any series.

Genre - police procedural, mystery thriller

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

 An estranged family gathers for a birthday celebration in this gothic inspired locked room thriller.

The Darkers have not seen much of one another for years, but all agree to come to the remote family mansion, Seaglass, to celebrate Nana's 80th birthday. Sitting on a tidal island that is inaccessible except when the tide is out, the house has been in the family for centuries. All of them have spent a lot of time on this island, and most of that harboring secrets, telling lies, and carrying on in the most hideous ways. All is about to be revealed as the family is trapped during a storm. When they start dying, one by one, the truth is finally revealed.

I rate this 2.5 stars, rounding to 3 for the isolated setting and the gothic ambience. The story was a little bit harder to get behind as it moved slowly with arbitrary time shifts within the narration. I found all of the characters completely unlikable and I was able to suss out the upcoming twists fairly early on. I'm not particular fond of the devices or tricks used by the author and didn't enjoy this book as much as anticipated from reading other reviews.

Thank you to Netgalley and Flatiron Books for this e-book ARC to read and review.

This is a standalone and not part of any series.

Genre - gothic mystery thriller

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

 Fast and funny thriller with a twist of feminine rage.

Four women in their 60s have spent their lives as assassins under the umbrella of an organization that seeks to rid the world of the evil on the planet. Now, they are retiring and on a celebratory luxury cruise when they find out that they've been targeted for elimination. They are not going down without a fight and they intend to show their handlers just what women of a certain age can do.

The characters were a mix of personalities and motivations but their years of working together have cemented their friendship and protectiveness. It was really fun to read a book where all of the main characters were in their golden years and show they still had so much left from their experiences and skill sets. I liked their interactions and the teamwork they used to meet their end goal. I've read and loved several books by this author and, though they are historical fiction, this was a great departure from the usual with this thriller. I like her writing style and her sense of humor making this witty and quite entertaining.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for this e-book ARC to read and review. 

This is a standalone and is not part of any series.

Genre - mystery thriller