BunzelGram June 10, 2024 Issue #181 This Week's Thoughts on Mysteries, Thrillers, and All Things Crime |
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Last weekend at ThrillerFest in New York, the International Thriller Writers introduced 28 “debut authors” who published their first novel sometime over the last 12 months. To recognize this milestone, this week [and next] BunzelGram will be highlighting these dedicated, committed souls and their works—ranging from psychological thrillers to whodunnits to political espionage to the supernatural. It’s tough enough to get published these days, let alone drive respectable sales, so I invite you to take a chance on at least one of these fine writers and order his/her book. I guarantee, you will not regret it. — Reed Bunzel |
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J.M. Adams, Second Term A lame duck president’s desperate power grab threatens democracy in the United States. Can single mother and former defense operative Cora Walker prevent catastrophe as the commander in chief suspends habeas corpus and begins arresting members of Congress? | | |
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L.K. Bowen, For Worse Ellie, a vision-impaired woman, is trapped in her marriage to a husband who uses her disability to sabotage her, She thinks she’s found a way out when she finds a women’s chat room on the dark web, where women have a solution for navigating a “bad marriage." | | |
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A.J. Chambers, The Vicar Terry Nolan is an off-the-books MI5 operative who runs a number of agents [aka parishioners], who are compromised and begin to disappear as he is attacked by two IRA terrorists. Can Nolan save his country and his agent, or must he make the ultimate sacrifice? | | |
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Caroline Cleveland, When Cicadas Cry In this modern-day cousin to A Time to Kill and To Kill a Mockingbird, a white woman is bludgeoned with an altar cross in a small rural church in Walterboro, SC. The young Black man kneeling over her, covered in blood, swears he is innocent… | | |
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Mailan Doquang, Blood Rubies A half-American, half-Thai jewel thief, Rune Sarasin, has the worst week of her life when a daring heist goes sideways and her boyfriend’s sister vanishes into a dangerous slum…. | | |
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Peter Malone Elliott, Blue Ridge What would you do if you were planning to kill your brother—but someone beat you to it? After Cillian Clarke is framed for the murder of his identical twin, a rising-star Virginian politician, Cillian is forced to go on the lam…. | | |
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Christina Estes, Off The Air Jolene Garcia is a local TV reporter in Phoenix trying to cover real issues in a society that seems more interested in clicks and reels, so when a controversial radio talk show host dies on-air, her managers are ecstatic because she conducted his last interview…. | | |
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Kerrie Faye, Dead Girl Dying has its perks…mostly. Bullied teen, Ember O’Neill, goes from the weird girl to the tyrant of her school when she is resurrected from a deadly prank and dethrones the school drama queen and snags the hot new guy. | | |
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Abbott Kahler, Where You End An unusual form of amnesia upends the lives of identical twins, forcing them to face the indelible, dangerous shadow from the past. When 22-year-old Kat wakes up from a coma, she remembers nothing...but her sister Jade sees an opportunity to totally recreate their history... | | |
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Elise Hart Kipness, Lights Out Former Olympic soccer star turned TV reporter Kate Green rushes to a shocking murder scene in her quiet hometown of Greenwich, CT to find that the victim is NBA superstar Kurt Robbins, a player she’s covered for years. | | |
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Jon Lindstrom, Hollywood Hustle The daughter of fallen film star, Winston Greene, has been kidnapped by a murderous gang who want all his “movie money” for her safe return. What they don’t know is, that all that money is long gone. | | |
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Megaera C. Lorenz, The Shabti It’s 1934. Former medium Dashiel Quicke travels the country debunking false mediumship while struggling to stay ahead of the ex-partner and lover who is stalking him…. | | |
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Meredith Lyons, Ghost Tamer Aspiring comedian Raely is the sole survivor of a disastrous train wreck. Already dealing with the intense grief of losing her best friend, now she can see ghosts—including the one who claims to have been with her all her life, and another hell-bent on destroying her. | | |
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Lisa Malice, Lest She Forget Following a watery car crash, Kay Smith wakes from a brief coma with amnesia, a battered face, and no one to vouch for her identity. Horrific flashbacks leave her terrified of the forgotten tragedy that forced her subconscious to lock away her memories…. | | |
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Now Available! Beyond All Doubt [Reed Bunzel writing as Hilton Reed] “Beyond All Doubt is an edge-of-your-seat fast-moving thrill-ride, kicked off by the reappearance of a dead man and propelling the reader along to the final bullet—and beyond.”— S.J. Rozan, best-selling author of The Mayors of New York “Beyond All Doubt is a taut, smart, and emotionally rich thriller. Reed has a sharp eye for character and a screenwriter's feel for action. This tale is sleek as a mink and fast as a bullet.”— T. Jefferson Parker, author of The Rescue “Beyond All Doubt is not a 'who done it,' but a twisty, compelling 'who did what.' Cameron Kane is a sympathetic, yet unrelenting bulldog in his pursuit of the truth about his wife's death. Intriguing and intense, Beyond All Doubt is a winner!”—Matt Coyle, bestselling author of the Rick Cahill crime novels “In this action-packed and engrossing thriller, Reed masterfully balances between a husband’s drive to uncover the truth about his wife’s death and a father’s instinct to protect his family at all costs. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down!”— Matthew Farrell, bestselling author of The Woman at Number 6 “Beyond All Doubt has plenty of thrills—deadly snipers, false identities, shocking deaths—but at its heart, this book is about a grieving single father whose desperation propels the plot like a speeding car with its brake lines cut.”— Cayce Osborne, author of I Know What You Did | | |
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