Patch Reads: 3 Suspenseful Novels

Book reviews from librarians Jennifer Niederhausen, Dona Stein and Heather Timko
, Adult Services Division, 
:

This week we bring to you three suspenseful novels that are sure to please readers looking for a good page-turner. 

We hope you will enjoy them. Happy reading!

Alif the Unseen By G. Willow Wilson, July 2012, 433 pages. 

Forced underground when his ex-lover's new fiancé breaches his computer, putting him and his clients in jeopardy, young Arab-Indian hacker and shielder Alif discovers the secret book of the jinn and uses its insights to enable life-threatening developments in information technology. This new novel is by the creator of the acclaimed comics Air and Vixen. Fans of Neil Gaiman should enjoy this edgy and page turning new book that is part cyber adventure and part Middle Eastern mythology.

The Dog Stars: a Novel By Peter Heller, August 2012, 272 pages.

Hig survived the flu that killed everyone he knows. His wife is gone, his friends are dead, and he lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his dog.  In his 1956 Cessna, Hig flies the perimeter of the airfield or sneaks off to the mountains to fish and to pretend that things are the way they used to be. But when a random transmission somehow beams through his radio, the voice compels him to risk his life to seek out other survivors. Readers who enjoy post apocalyptic novels like The Hunger Games will enjoy this powerful and riveting new novel.

Some Kind of Fairy Tale: a Novel By Graham Joyce, July 2012, 310 pages.

For 20 years after Tara Martin disappeared from her small English town, her parents and her brother, Peter, have lived in denial of the grim fact that she was gone for good. And then suddenly, on Christmas Day, the doorbell rings at her parents' home and there, disheveled and slightly peculiar looking, Tara stands. It's a miracle, but alarm bells are ringing for Peter. Tara's story just does not add up. And, incredibly, she barely looks a day older than when she vanished. Fans of novels featuring dark stories will be absolutely delighted by this hypnotizing mystery. Be prepared to suspend belief as you read this novel.