According to a New York Times article, it took a citywide fund-raising effort for The Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts to raise the $68 million needed to keep a Thomas Eakins masterpiece - The Gross Clinic in the city. "The painting is widely considered to be among the greatest convases in American art".

Though Eakins' fame is "almost entirely posthumous and he was little known and admired in his native city" during his life time, but in Lawrence Goldstone's debut The Anatomy of Deception, Eakins is front and center in this highly readable, intriguing and historically well-researched forensic thriller. Also depicted are the real-life characters such as William Osler (the Father of Modern Medicine), famed surgeon William Stewart Halsted and the vibrant social scene of Philadelphia 1889.

Historical mystery readers, especially those of Caleb Carr and Matthew Pearl will find much to like here.

Literature professor (Louisville, Kentucky) Will Lavender’s debut novel Obedience is one tautly strung thriller!

Students at Winchester University’s Logic and Reasoning 204 are greeted on the first day of class with one startling assignment – find a hypothetical missing girl name Polly before the end of term or she will be murdered.

As the clues set forth by the creepy prof. point more toward something real and sinister rather than a logic exercise, three of the students find disturbing personal connections with Polly. What looks like an academic exercise at first could turn deadly.

Obedience hooks you fast and hard. Ride it out and brace for the shock.

"An absorbing study of sexual enthrallment, dogged policework and a harrowing twist or two" marks The Fourth Man, the American debut of Oslo police inspector Frank Frolich.

Soon after Frolich rescues Elisabeth in a robbery-homicide, he is drawn into a risky and sorted tangled web of "art theft, blackmail, torrid sex and double crosses". With his career and his life on the line, all the likely suspects turning up dead and Elisabeth missing, the identity of a possible 4th man becomes ever more crucial. Recommended for fans of Karin Fossum and Kjell Eriksson.

K.O Dahl is an award-winning author in his native Norway. Another new name to watch for nordic mystery fans.

L.A., gangs, turf war. Sound familiar? Well, Toby Barlow's debut Sharp Teeth* is anything but!

Written in free verse, this "highly addictive, enormously enjoyable, and unexpectedly moving", horror/thriller is about the fantastical world of werewolves. Caught in the middle of savage pack rivalry is Anthony, a kindhearted, down-and-out dogcatcher and the girl he loves who is in fact, a female werewolf.

This adrenaline-packed, fast-paced, darkly comic (card-playing dogs, crystal meth labs, surfing) debut by a Michigan author will surprise and entertain. Barlow is the Executive Creative Director of the giant ad agency JWT, whose clients include Ford, Shell and MTV. He lives in downtown Detroit.

* = Starred reviews

"Shades of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Caleb Carr's The Alienist, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, and Kim Newman's Dracula-inflected Victoriana"(Kirkus)... now, if that does not intrigue you, let me tell you this is by far one of the best thrillers I have come across in quite awhile.

A guaranteed page-turner, British(Oxford)scholar Jonathan Barnes' hectic, layered, odd and oddly affecting literary extravaganza The Somnambulist* features the shadowy magician/private detective Edward Moon and his sidekick - the 8' tall, bald, mute somnambulist.

"Barnes is up to something very special here. He's created a new genre, really, a graphic novel written in longhand, and it combines the subtle horror of Patricia Highsmith, the goofy gore of Christopher Moore, and the cartoon action of the TV series Heroes. Read for the sheer fun of it"~ Jen Baker for Booklist. Trust us on this one.

* = Starred Reviews

Go with Me* by Castle Freeman Jr. is an engaging “small masterpiece of black comedy and suspense”~Kirkus.

The plot is simple, really – but the execution (wink wink), is marvelous! In a small backwoods Vermont hamlet, young Lillian has nowhere to turn with the sheriff claiming that his hands are tied when it comes to her stalker – big bad bully Blackway, not even after he butchered her kitty cat. But Sheriff Wingate did point Lillian to Whizzer; a wheelchair-bound mill owner and his gang of beer-drinking loafers.

With beautiful characterization, measured pace, and wicked quiet humor, this loose rendering of a King Arthur tale will entertain and delight, even though the ending won't surprise. Still, more fun than you would expect from a fiction debut.

* = Starred Review

Oh, how I hate being late to the party! At the American Library Association Midwinter in Philly last week, the hot topic was nordic mystery and the most eagerly anticipated read was The Redbreast* (and I am still #13 on the waiting list!)

People-in-the-know are calling Norwegian Jo Nesbo's English debut "an epic new novel, brilliant in scope and design - a deep and fearless investigation of betrayal spanning two centures and three continents". It also introduces to North American readers Police Detective Harry Hole who finds himself sitting on top of an international conspiracy during a presidential visit to Oslo.

This winner of the Glass Key prize for the best Nordic crime novel, "fans of Henning Mankell and Karin Fossum will have a seriously difficult time putting down", writes Bruce Tierney of BookPage.

*= Starred Reviews (Jessica: Enjoyed yours in LJ)

In 1970s Harlem, Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) is a quiet, unassuming driver to one of NYC's most notorious drug lords. When his boss suddenly dies, Frank steps into the power vacuum to become an even bigger crime kingpin. Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is the hardnosed cop determined to bring Frank to justice. This is a gangster movie based on a true story. It focused on character rather than action and on the intricacies of people's backgrounds, strategies and motivations, a sprawling, fascinating look into the complicated mind and operations of the head of a crime syndicate. Watch (American Gangster) Trailer.

In recent years there have been oodles of Scandinavian mystery novels to lose your self in. I’ve become particularly engrossed with Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason and his best selling & award winning crime novels featuring detective Erlendur. (I’m not usually into mystery novels and I can’t seem to get enough of this series!)

Recently translated into English are Jar City, Silence of the Grave, Voices and most recently The Draining Lake. Voices begins with Erlendur as his usual somber and misanthropic self, thinking about his past and his troubled daughter. It’s Christmas time and there’s been a rather shocking and interesting murder at one of Reykjavik’s largest hotels. Erlendur and his usual cohorts are thrown into the case and are soon involved in figuring out the mystery of an abused child as well. Christmas is often a season for children, old and young, past and present, and that is surely true in this novel.

Interred With Their Bones*, a literary thriller by first time novelist Jennifer Lee Carrell was the big book at the 2005 Frankfurt Book Fair and was predicted to be most eagerly anticipated debut thriller of 2007.

At the heart of the richly imagined mystery that spans centuries and involves players from both the Old and the New World, is Shakespeare’s lost play Cardenio.

Kate Stanley, a Shakespeare scholar in London directing Hamlet at the Globe theatre is approached by her estranged mentor Roz Howard, bearing a mysterious gift and a cryptic message to “follow where it leads”. Where it leads is Roz’s murder and mounting body counts, a fascinating look at the history of English theatre, church politics, Renaissance literature and Shakespeare lore. More importantly for Kate, it is a race to find the lost play before the killer makes her the next victim.

The fast pace, intricate plot twists and plenty of red herrings will make this a pleasure for discriminating mystery fans. Shakespeare lovers will find a treasure trove of tantalizing trivia from a renowned Shakespeare expert. Well worth the hype.

* = Starred Reviews

Considered by people-in-the-know (Bill Ott @ Booklist) to be possibly “the thriller of the year” - HeartSick* by Chelsea Cain is a must read for fans of Thomas Harris and Ridley Pearson, and those who likes them "gritty, grim, and gory".~Publishers Weekly

Set in Portland, OR, this outstanding thriller pits Archie Sheridan, a police detective addicted to painkillers and pink-haired newspaper reporter Susan Ward, against a psychotic serial killer targeting high school girls. Added to the suspense is Archie’s ambiguous relationship with the imprisoned Gretchen Lowell, a sadistic serial killer who carved her trademark (a heart) on Archie two years ago. Archie now hopes Gretchen could help him catch the After School Strangler.

“Cain (Confessions of a Teen Sleuth: A Parody) never misses a beat here, turning the psychological screwdriver tighter for both Sheridan and Ward while drawing us deep into the nightmare that lives inside Gretchen Lowell's head”. Projected to be the first of a series, so don't let this one slip by.

* = Starred Reviews

The drama continues in the third book in the vampire/werewolf, love triangle series by Stephenie Meyer. Following the first two titles, Twilight and New Moon, Eclipse picks up where we left Bella, Edward and Jacob - with more drama, high romance and Bella still grappling with when to become one of the undead. The BIG NEWS is that the series has been optioned for a film and now has a director - the fabulous Catherine Hardwicke of Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown fame. It's nice to know that someone that really *gets* the material and can deliver an authentic story will be at the helm.

The Chicago Way*, is a debut thriller by Michael Harvey, a Chicago-based attorney and the co-producer of the A&E award winning documentary Cold Case Files : The Most Infamous Cases (1998), which inspired the likes of CSI and Cold Case.

Michael Kelly, “the latest incarnation of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe”, (Library Journal) is an ex-Chicago cop turned PI, “ with a taste for liquor, (and an) esoteric penchant for classical literature". When his former partner turned up dead after asking Michael for help on an 8 year-old rape case, and the local brass showed up at his door, Michael smelled cover-up, big time!
In this “… fast-paced thrill ride through Chicago's seedy underbelly” Harvey has created a tough, smart crime fighter (think Spenser and Sam Spade). What stand out in this first novel are not only Harvey's knowledge of forensics and his firm grip on criminal investigations, but also how Chicago is rendered in all its many moods and facets.

For another recent debut of note set in the Windy City, try Marcus Sakey's The Blade Itself

* = Starred Review

Looking for a fast-paced, adrenalin-fueled mystery/thriller? I recommend Lee Vance’s debut Restitution.

A graduate of the Harvard Business School and a retired partner of Goldman Sachs, Lee is no stranger to the rarified world of Wall Street’s rich and powerful, where we meet up with our protagonist Peter Tyler.

A high-power career, a beautiful wife and a dream home would not stop Peter from engaging in a one-night stand with a mystery colleague, and lands him squarely as the prime suspect in his wife’s murder. A cross between Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent and The Fugitive, this compelling read with a twisty plot pits Peter against an embittered ex-cop, the Russian mob, nasties in unexpected corners as he races across the globe to find his wife’s killer and to clear his name. A hell-of-a-ride. Nicely done.

Fans of novelist and memoirist Diana Abu-Jaber: The Language of Baklava (2005), Crescent (2003); and Arabian Jazz (1993), should not be surprised that critics are calling her first mystery The Origin* ...“poetic in tone and profound in its inquiry into the nature of memory and the self”, themes explored in her earlier works which centered mostly around the Arab-American communities close to her heart. (Author's website)

This time around, in The Origin, Lena Dawson, an emotional fragile fingerprint examiner for the Syracuse police is suffering from personal memory issues. Since her philandering husband’s departure, she lives for her work. When a rash of infant deaths afflict the area, she suspects that something (someone, more likely), other than crib death is at work. Added to the palpitating tension is her budding romance with a wounded detective, the nagging mystery of her own childhood, and a stalker dogging her every step.

A gripping contemporary thriller with a “flawed but appealing protagonist”. “Haunted, moving,” and highly recommended.

* = Starred Reviews