Barker, Patterson team up on FBI thriller

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This article was published 05/02/2022 (1654 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

J.D. Barker, author of the terrific 4MK trilogy, teams up with the prolific James Patterson for The Coast-to-Coast Murders (Grand Central, 576 pages, $23).

It begins with a dead woman in a bathtub, and a long-haul trucker who seems to have killed her. The trucker says it’s a frame-up, but the FBI thinks he could be a serial killer with nearly 20 murders on his resumé.

Although Patterson is credited first on the book’s cover, in many ways this sounds like a J.D. Barker novel: a story full of unpredictable twists, very realistic characters and dialogue, and a conclusion that makes you want to read the book again, just to see exactly how the authors manipulated you.

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The Howells, a nice California family (wife, husband, two kids), have come to New York City for a year. Their rental house is a comfortable place, but it’s got an uncomfortable history: years ago, three people were murdered here.

One of Nora’s kids, the true-crime fan, seems to be getting obsessed with the story, but Nora is finding the house increasingly hard to live in. When she discovers someone has been spying on her family, Nora wonders: is the past really in the past?

The Other Family (HarperCollins, 384 pages, $21), by Wendi Corsi Staub, is a darkly suspenseful psychological thriller. We experience the story through the eyes of Nora Howell; everything that happens is filtered through her perceptions. And, now and then, we have to wonder: is Nora seeing things the way they actually are? Out in paperback Tuesday.

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James Rollins’ main claim to literary fame is his Sigma Force adventure-thrillers — contemporary stories whose plots involve historical mysteries.

The Starless Crown (Tor, 560 pages, $25) is something new for him — a full-on fantasy novel. Nix, a young woman with a seemingly limitless curiosity about the world around her, finds herself on the run from powerful people determined to make sure her radical ideas are suppressed — no matter what it takes.

Rollins packs the novel with mysteries. What has Nix discovered that causes powerful people to feel so threatened? Where and when is the book set? On an alternate Earth? On this one, in the far future? Somewhere else entirely

This is the first in a new series, so Rollins has plenty of time to answer these questions. Don’t expect things to be wrapped up neatly at the end of the book, but definitely do enjoy the adventure.

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Patricia Cornwell’s Autopsy (HarperCollins, 416 pages, $25) is the first Kay Scarpetta novel since 2016. It’s been a while, but the wait was worth it.

Scarpetta is back where she started, as Virginia’s chief medical examiner. A lot has changed over the years, and Kay is faced with a department in serious need of cleaning up. That’ll have to wait, though: a woman has been murdered, and if there’s one thing Kay can’t ignore, it’s murder.

Subplot? Of course there’s a subplot. And it’s a doozy: there’s been a double murder on a top-secret space station and Scarpetta leads the investigation. Cornwell doesn’t send Kay into space — that would be too much — but she does push the story right up against the edge of credibility.

That’s not a criticism: it’s nice to see Cornwell taking a big risk, even nicer to see it pay off.

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Halifax freelancer David Pitt’s column appears the first weekend of every month. You can follow him on Twitter at @bookfella.