Thrillers: Boston stars in Lisa Gardner s latest
By Jon Land
“Before She Disappeared” (Dutton, 336 pages, $27) is former Rhode Island resident Lisa Gardner’s first stand-alone thriller in years, and, boy, does it stand out as a masterpiece of post-modern noir in the vein of the great Dennis Lehane.
Gardner is also at home in Lehane’s backyard of the working-class Boston neighborhoods, Mattapan in this case. The book introduces us to Frankie Elkin, a woman with more than her share of skeletons in the closet who’s dedicated to finding lost souls literally in the form of often long-missing persons. The “disappeared” in this case is a high school student who’s been missing for a year when Frankie takes up the case. Speaking of skeletons, she’s going to rattle a whole bunch in peeling back the dark layers to reveal the terrifying truth buried in this particularly insular community.
FAIRFIELD-SUISUN, CALIFORNIA
‘Orphan X’ novelist Gregg Hurwitz talks ‘Prodigal Son,’ Shakespeare and the home life of assassins [The Orange County Register]
Jan. 19 Gregg Hurwitz was already a successful author of standalone thrillers and mysteries when he started to think about writing the kind of big, action-packed series he’d long loved as a reader.
“There’s so many characters I grew up with, and just love,” he says. “Whether it’s Jack Reacher, James Bond, Jason Bourne.”
But he couldn’t quite get his head around what would make his hero a character he thought of as Orphan X, a boy raised to be a secret government assassin different from such legends of thriller fiction, Hurwitz says.
Jack Read-er: What Hawke s Bay residents borrowed the most from libraries in 2020
14 Jan, 2021 07:32 PM
4 minutes to read
Tom Cruise has played private investigator Jack Reacher in two film adaptations to date. Photo / Supplied
Tom Cruise has played private investigator Jack Reacher in two film adaptations to date. Photo / Supplied
Hawke s Bay readers can t get enough of Jack Reacher if the number of loans from our public libraries in 2020 are anything to go by. Lee Child s 2019 addition to the thriller series Blue Moon was borrowed from the Napier and Taradale Libraries 175 times, more than any other book.
Blue Moon was also the most borrowed book from the Central Hawke s Bay District Libraries (Waipawa and Waipukurau) in 2020, and the second-equal most borrowed book from the Hastings District Libraries (Flaxmere, Hastings and Havelock North).
Southwest Florida Reading Festival goes fully virtual
Published: December 10, 2020 12:17 PM EST
Recommended
The 2021 Southwest Florida Reading Festival will be a virtual event.
Nearly 30 acclaimed and bestselling authors are scheduled to give virtual presentations and participate in live, interactive Meet & Greets on the event website from March 1 to 13. All of the virtual author presentations will be recorded for on-demand viewing throughout the month of March. The event website will be available the week of Feb. 22 to familiarize attendees with the new, online Event Hub platform.
In addition to engaging with the bestselling authors, this year’s attendees can enjoy activities for all ages, including an online reading challenge, grab-and-go crafts, and online S.T.E.A.M. contests challenging participants to create masterpieces with LEGO and art materials. As in previous years, the festival will provide each participating child and teen with a free book. This year, the free book