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-   -   MobileRead May 2013 Book Club Nominations (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=211160)

WT Sharpe 04-20-2013 09:39 AM
May 2013 Book Club Nominations
 
MobileRead Book Club
May 2013 Nominations

Help us select the next book that the MobileRead Book Club will read for May, 2013.

The nominations will run through midnight EST April 30 or until 10 books have made the list. The poll will then be posted and will remain open for five days.

Book selection category for May is:

Mystery/Thriller

In order for a book to be included in the poll it needs THREE NOMINATIONS (original nomination, a second and a third).

How Does This Work?
The Mobile Read Book Club (MRBC) is an informal club that requires nothing of you. Each month a book is selected by polling. On the last week of that month a discussion thread is started for the book. If you want to participate feel free. There is no need to "join" or sign up. All are welcome.

How Does a Book Get Selected?
Each book that is nominated will be listed in a poll at the end of the nomination period. The book that polls the most votes will be the official selection.

How Many Nominations Can I Make?
Each participant has 3 nominations. You can nominate a new book for consideration or nominate (second, third) one that has already been nominated by another person.

How Do I Nominate a Book?
Please just post a message with your nomination. If you are the FIRST to nominate a book, please try to provide an abstract to the book so others may consider their level of interest.

How Do I Know What Has Been Nominated?
Just follow the thread. This message will be updated with the status of the nominations as often as I can. If one is missed, please just post a message with a multi-quote of the 3 nominations and it will be added to the list ASAP.

When is the Poll?
The poll thread will open at the end of the nomination period, or once there have been 10 books with 3 nominations each. At that time a link to the initial poll thread will be posted here and this thread will be closed.

The floor is open to nominations. Please comment if you discover a nomination is not available as an ebook in your area.


Official choices with three nominations each:

(1) The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
Amazon (US)
Spoiler:
Josephine Tey re-creates one of history's most famous -- and vicious -- crimes in her classic bestselling novel, a must read for connoisseurs of fiction, now with a new introduction by Robert Barnard

Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history. Could such a sensitive, noble face actually belong to one of the world's most heinous villains -- a venomous hunchback who may have killed his brother's children to make his crown secure? Or could Richard have been the victim, turned into a monster by the usurpers of England's throne? Grant determines to find out once and for all, with the help of the British Museum and an American scholar, what kind of man Richard Plantagenet really was and who killed the Little Princes in the Tower.

The Daughter of Time is an ingeniously plotted, beautifully written, and suspenseful tale, a supreme achievement from one of mystery writing's most gifted masters.


(2) The Dinner by Herman Koch
Amazon (US)
Spoiler:
A good unreliable narrator is one of the most satisfying characters a novelist can dream up--and Herman Koch takes us on a hell of a ride through the mind of Paul Lohman, the deliciously sinister host of The Dinner. Paul's 15-year-old son, Michel, has committed an unspeakable crime; his brother, on the cusp of becoming the Netherlands' next prime minister, has a delicate wife and two teenagers who share Michel’s secret; Paul's wife, Claire, will do anything to protect their boy. As the two couples inch through an excruciating meal at a chic restaurant--their children's whereabouts uncertain--Paul peels back the layers of their situation, weaving to and fro through time and truth. Koch's finely structured story gives away just enough on each page to keep us riveted, feeling like private investigators on the verge of discovery, until the shock of an ending. It's no small feat for the author that the less we trust Paul, the more we want to hear what he has to say


(3) The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Patricia Clark Memorial Library
Spoiler:
Private investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by General Sternwood to help resolve the gambling debts of his wild young daughter, Carmen. Sternwood's older daughter, Vivian, provides assistance when she implies that the situation is more complex, and also involves a casino owner and a recently disappeared family friend. As people linked to the Sternwoods start being murdered, Marlowe finds himself getting ever deeper into the case.


(4) A Suspension of Mercy by Patricia Highsmith
Amazon (US)
Spoiler:
Sydney Bartleby has killed his wife, Alicia—at least he has thought about it, compulsively, over and over again, plotting schemes, designing escapes, forging alibis. Of course he has; he's a mystery-script writer. But when Alicia takes a long, unannounced vacation, Sydney seizes the opportunity to perfect his artistic method.

With her characteristic precision and unrivaled sensitivity to the inner tremblings of human character, Patricia Highsmith shockingly portrays Sydney's descent into the treacherous world of his own fictions. Once again Highsmith proves herself to be a master at depicting the unsettling forces that boil beneath the surface of everyday life


(5) The Flower Net by Lisa See
No Links Provided
Spoiler:
“Lisa See begins to do for Beijing what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did for turn-of-the-century London or Dashiell Hammett did for 1920s San Francisco: She discerns the hidden city lurking beneath the public facade.”
(The Washington Post Book World)

The time frame for Flower Net is January 10, 1997-March 14, 1997. The main narrative ends February 13, 1997—just before the death of Deng Xiaoping on February 19. Much of the story involves flashbacks to the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and its traumatic impact on the lives of a great number of people. The novel's key characters are Liu Hulan, inspector in the Ministry of Public Security and a Red Princess, and David Stark, Assistant U.S. Attorney, who loves her. Gary Krist writes that "Hulan is a provocative mixture of vulnerability, bitterness and hardheaded practicality," a survivor of the Cultural Revolution who has learned that survival means hiding her emotions from the outside world.(from google.books)


(6) The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
No Links Provided
Spoiler:
Originally Posted by from Amazon
A delightfully dark English mystery, featuring precocious young sleuth Flavia de Luce and her eccentric family.

The summer of 1950 hasn’t offered up anything out of the ordinary for eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce: bicycle explorations around the village, keeping tabs on her neighbours, relentless battles with her older sisters, Ophelia and Daphne, and brewing up poisonous concoctions while plotting revenge in their home’s abandoned Victorian chemistry lab, which Flavia has claimed for her own.

But then a series of mysterious events gets Flavia’s attention: A dead bird is found on the doormat, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. A mysterious late-night visitor argues with her aloof father, Colonel de Luce, behind closed doors. And in the early morning Flavia finds a red-headed stranger lying in the cucumber patch and watches him take his dying breath. For Flavia, the summer begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw: “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.” [...]


(7) A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine
Amazon (US) / B&N (US)
Spoiler:
In the Edgar Award–winning classic, a niece investigates the shocking secrets that condemned her once proud family

Faith Severn has never understood why the willful matriarch of her high-society family, aunt Vera Hillyard, snapped and murdered her own beloved sister. But long after Vera is condemned to hang, a journalist’s startling discoveries allow Faith to perceive her family’s story in a new light.

Set in post–World War II Britain, A Dark-Adapted Eye is both a gripping mystery and a harrowing psychological portrait of a complex woman at the head of a troubled family.


(8) The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø
No links provided.
Spoiler:
From Amazon:

No disrespect meant to Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson, but Jo Nesbø, the New York Times bestselling author of The Snowman, is the most exciting Scandinavian thriller writer in the crime fiction business. The Redbreast is a fabulous introduction to Nesbø’s tough-as-nails series protagonist, Oslo police detective Harry Hole. A brilliant and epic novel, breathtaking in its scope and design—winner of The Glass Key for best Nordic crime novel and selected as the best Norwegian crime novel ever written by members of Norway’s book clubs—The Redbreast is a chilling tale of murder and betrayal that ranges from the battlefields of World War Two to the streets of modern-day Oslo. Follow Hole as he races to stop a killer and disarm a ticking time-bomb from his nation’s shadowy past. Vogue magazine says that “nobody can delve into the dark, twisted mind of a murderer better than a Scandinavian thriller writer”…and nobody does it better than Jo Nesbø! James Patterson fans should also take note.


(9) In Pale Battalions by Robert Goddard
Amazon UK / Amazon USA / Overdrive
Spoiler:
Six months after the sudden death of her husband, Leonora Galloway sets out on a trip to France with her daughter Penelope. At last the time has come when secrets can be shared and explanations begin... Leonora takes her daughter to the battlefields of WW1, where her father is commemorated on the Thiepval Monument. But the date of his death is surprising, and reveals that Captain John Hallows cannot possibly have been Leonora's real father.

This is only the start of a series of revelations that span three generations of a distinguished aristocratic family who are not what they seem. Penelope must piece together a tale of war, of loss, of greed, deception and vice - and the perpetrator of a murder left unsolved for more than half a century...


(10) Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton
Amazon (US) / B&N (US) / Sony / Kobo / Overdrive
Spoiler:
A murder mystery set on Earth and the distant, tropical planet of St Libra

In Newcastle-upon-Tyne, AD 2142, Detective Sidney Hurst attends a brutal murder scene. The victim is one of the wealthy North family clones–but none have been reported missing. And the crime’s most disturbing aspect is how the victim was killed. Twenty years ago, a North clone billionaire and his household were horrifically murdered in exactly the same manner, on the tropical planet of St Libra. But if the murderer is still at large, was Angela Tramelo wrongly convicted? Tough and confident, she never waivered under interrogation–claiming she alone survived an alien attack. But there is no animal life on St Libra. Investigating this alien threat becomes the Human Defence Agency’s top priority. The bio-fuel flowing from St Libra is the lifeblood of Earth’s economy and must be secured. So a vast expedition is mounted via the Newcastle gateway, and teams of engineers, support personnel and xenobiologists are dispatched to the planet. Along with their technical advisor, grudgingly released from prison, Angela Tramelo. But the expedition is cut off, deep within St Libra’s rainforests. Then the murders begin. Someone or something is picking off the team one by one. Angela insists it’s the alien, but her new colleagues aren’t so sure. Maybe she did see an alien, or maybe she has other reasons for being on St Libra...


The nominations are now closed.

Nyssa 04-20-2013 10:02 AM
Wondering if a particular book is available in your country? The following spoiler contains a list of bookstores outside the United States you can search. If you don't see a bookstore on this list for your country, find one that is, send me the link via PM, and I'll add it to the list. In addition, if members let me know that an ebook is unavailable in a particular geographic location, I'll note it in this post, right beside the Inkmesh search for that particular book.

Spoiler:
Australian
Angus Robertson
Booktopia
Borders
Dymocks
Fishpond
Google

Canada
Amazon. Make sure you are logged out. Then go to the Kindle Store. Search for a book. After the search results come up, in the upper right corner of the screen, change the country to Canada and search away.
Google
Sony eBookstore (Upper right corner switch to/from US/CA)

UK
BooksOnBoard (In the upper right corner is a way to switch to the UK store)
Amazon
Foyle's
Google
Penguin
Random House
Waterstones
WH Smith



Nominations

*** The Dinner by Herman Koch [issybird, sun surfer, Bookpossum]
Amazon (US)
Spoiler:
A good unreliable narrator is one of the most satisfying characters a novelist can dream up--and Herman Koch takes us on a hell of a ride through the mind of Paul Lohman, the deliciously sinister host of The Dinner. Paul's 15-year-old son, Michel, has committed an unspeakable crime; his brother, on the cusp of becoming the Netherlands' next prime minister, has a delicate wife and two teenagers who share Michel’s secret; Paul's wife, Claire, will do anything to protect their boy. As the two couples inch through an excruciating meal at a chic restaurant--their children's whereabouts uncertain--Paul peels back the layers of their situation, weaving to and fro through time and truth. Koch's finely structured story gives away just enough on each page to keep us riveted, feeling like private investigators on the verge of discovery, until the shock of an ending. It's no small feat for the author that the less we trust Paul, the more we want to hear what he has to say


*** A Suspension of Mercy by Patricia Highsmith [issybird, Bookpossum, fantasyfan]
Amazon (US)
Spoiler:
Sydney Bartleby has killed his wife, Alicia—at least he has thought about it, compulsively, over and over again, plotting schemes, designing escapes, forging alibis. Of course he has; he's a mystery-script writer. But when Alicia takes a long, unannounced vacation, Sydney seizes the opportunity to perfect his artistic method.

With her characteristic precision and unrivaled sensitivity to the inner tremblings of human character, Patricia Highsmith shockingly portrays Sydney's descent into the treacherous world of his own fictions. Once again Highsmith proves herself to be a master at depicting the unsettling forces that boil beneath the surface of everyday life


*** A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine [caleb72, BelleZora, sun surfer]
Amazon (US) / B&N (US)
Spoiler:
In the Edgar Award–winning classic, a niece investigates the shocking secrets that condemned her once proud family

Faith Severn has never understood why the willful matriarch of her high-society family, aunt Vera Hillyard, snapped and murdered her own beloved sister. But long after Vera is condemned to hang, a journalist’s startling discoveries allow Faith to perceive her family’s story in a new light.

Set in post–World War II Britain, A Dark-Adapted Eye is both a gripping mystery and a harrowing psychological portrait of a complex woman at the head of a troubled family.


*** Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton [JSWolf, fantasyfan, Hamlet53]
Amazon (US) / B&N (US) / Sony / Kobo / Overdrive
Spoiler:
A murder mystery set on Earth and the distant, tropical planet of St Libra

In Newcastle-upon-Tyne, AD 2142, Detective Sidney Hurst attends a brutal murder scene. The victim is one of the wealthy North family clones–but none have been reported missing. And the crime’s most disturbing aspect is how the victim was killed. Twenty years ago, a North clone billionaire and his household were horrifically murdered in exactly the same manner, on the tropical planet of St Libra. But if the murderer is still at large, was Angela Tramelo wrongly convicted? Tough and confident, she never waivered under interrogation–claiming she alone survived an alien attack. But there is no animal life on St Libra. Investigating this alien threat becomes the Human Defence Agency’s top priority. The bio-fuel flowing from St Libra is the lifeblood of Earth’s economy and must be secured. So a vast expedition is mounted via the Newcastle gateway, and teams of engineers, support personnel and xenobiologists are dispatched to the planet. Along with their technical advisor, grudgingly released from prison, Angela Tramelo. But the expedition is cut off, deep within St Libra’s rainforests. Then the murders begin. Someone or something is picking off the team one by one. Angela insists it’s the alien, but her new colleagues aren’t so sure. Maybe she did see an alien, or maybe she has other reasons for being on St Libra...


*** The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler [crich70, VioletVal, Bookpossum]
Patricia Clark Memorial Library
Spoiler:
Private investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by General Sternwood to help resolve the gambling debts of his wild young daughter, Carmen. Sternwood's older daughter, Vivian, provides assistance when she implies that the situation is more complex, and also involves a casino owner and a recently disappeared family friend. As people linked to the Sternwoods start being murdered, Marlowe finds himself getting ever deeper into the case.


*** The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley [Synamon, fantasyfan, GeckoFriend]
No Links Provided
Spoiler:
Originally Posted by from Amazon
A delightfully dark English mystery, featuring precocious young sleuth Flavia de Luce and her eccentric family.

The summer of 1950 hasn’t offered up anything out of the ordinary for eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce: bicycle explorations around the village, keeping tabs on her neighbours, relentless battles with her older sisters, Ophelia and Daphne, and brewing up poisonous concoctions while plotting revenge in their home’s abandoned Victorian chemistry lab, which Flavia has claimed for her own.

But then a series of mysterious events gets Flavia’s attention: A dead bird is found on the doormat, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. A mysterious late-night visitor argues with her aloof father, Colonel de Luce, behind closed doors. And in the early morning Flavia finds a red-headed stranger lying in the cucumber patch and watches him take his dying breath. For Flavia, the summer begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw: “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.” [...]


* Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn [VioletVal]
No Links Provided
Spoiler:
"Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave."

These ominous words, slashed from the pages of a book of Psalms, are the last threat that the darling of London society, Sir Edward Grey, receives from his killer. Before he can show them to Nicholas Brisbane, the private inquiry agent he has retained for his protection, Sir Edward collapses and dies at his London home, in the presence of his wife, Julia, and a roomful of dinner guests. Prepared to accept that Edward's death was due to a longstanding physical infirmity, Julia is outraged when Brisbane visits and suggests that Sir Edward has been murdered. It is a reaction she comes to regret when she discovers the damning paper for herself, and realizes the truth. Determined to bring her husband's murderer to justice, Julia engages the enigmatic Brisbane to help her investigate Edward's demise. Dismissing his warnings that the investigation will be difficult, if not impossible, Julia presses forward, following a trail of clues that lead her to even more unpleasant truths, and ever closer to a killer who waits expectantly for her arrival.


*** The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey [AnemicOak, Synamon, Hamlet53]
Amazon (US)
Spoiler:
Josephine Tey re-creates one of history's most famous -- and vicious -- crimes in her classic bestselling novel, a must read for connoisseurs of fiction, now with a new introduction by Robert Barnard

Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history. Could such a sensitive, noble face actually belong to one of the world's most heinous villains -- a venomous hunchback who may have killed his brother's children to make his crown secure? Or could Richard have been the victim, turned into a monster by the usurpers of England's throne? Grant determines to find out once and for all, with the help of the British Museum and an American scholar, what kind of man Richard Plantagenet really was and who killed the Little Princes in the Tower.

The Daughter of Time is an ingeniously plotted, beautifully written, and suspenseful tale, a supreme achievement from one of mystery writing's most gifted masters.


* The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth [AnemicOak]
Amazon (US)
Spoiler:
He is known only as “The Jackal”—a cold, calculating assassin without emotion, or loyalty, or equal. He’s just received a contract from an enigmatic employer to eliminate one of the most heavily guarded men in the world—Charles De Gaulle, president of France.

It is only a twist of fate that allows the authorities to discover the plot. They know next to nothing—only that the assassin is on the move. To track him, they dispatch their finest detective, Claude Lebel, on a manhunt that will push him to his limit, in a race to stop an assassin’s bullet from reaching its target.


*** The Flower Net by Lisa See [desertblues, caleb72, sun surfer]
No Links Provided
Spoiler:
“Lisa See begins to do for Beijing what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did for turn-of-the-century London or Dashiell Hammett did for 1920s San Francisco: She discerns the hidden city lurking beneath the public facade.”
(The Washington Post Book World)

The time frame for Flower Net is January 10, 1997-March 14, 1997. The main narrative ends February 13, 1997—just before the death of Deng Xiaoping on February 19. Much of the story involves flashbacks to the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and its traumatic impact on the lives of a great number of people. The novel's key characters are Liu Hulan, inspector in the Ministry of Public Security and a Red Princess, and David Stark, Assistant U.S. Attorney, who loves her. Gary Krist writes that "Hulan is a provocative mixture of vulnerability, bitterness and hardheaded practicality," a survivor of the Cultural Revolution who has learned that survival means hiding her emotions from the outside world.(from google.books)


* Rules of Prey by John Sandford [John F]
No Links Provided
Spoiler:
The haunting, unforgettable, ice-blooded thriller that introduced Lucas Davenport is so chilling that you're almost afraid to turn the pages and so mesmerizing you cannot stop.


* The Perfect Husband by Lisa Gardner[John F]
No Links Provided
Spoiler:
What would you do if the man of your dreams hides the soul of a killer?

Jim Beckett was everything she'd ever dreamed of...But two years after Tess married the decorated cop and bore his child, she helped put him behind bars for savagely murdering ten women. Even locked up in a maximum security prison, he vowed he would come after her and make her pay. Now the cunning killer has escaped—and the most dangerous game of all begins....

After a lifetime of fear, Tess will do something she's never done before. She's going to learn to protect her daughter and fight back, with the help of a burned-out ex-marine. As the largest manhunt four states have ever seen mobilizes to catch Beckett, the clock winds down to the terrifying reunion between husband and wife. And Tess knows that this time, her only choices are to kill—or be killed.


*** The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø [BelleZora, desertblues, Asawi]
No links provided.
Spoiler:
From Amazon:

No disrespect meant to Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson, but Jo Nesbø, the New York Times bestselling author of The Snowman, is the most exciting Scandinavian thriller writer in the crime fiction business. The Redbreast is a fabulous introduction to Nesbø’s tough-as-nails series protagonist, Oslo police detective Harry Hole. A brilliant and epic novel, breathtaking in its scope and design—winner of The Glass Key for best Nordic crime novel and selected as the best Norwegian crime novel ever written by members of Norway’s book clubs—The Redbreast is a chilling tale of murder and betrayal that ranges from the battlefields of World War Two to the streets of modern-day Oslo. Follow Hole as he races to stop a killer and disarm a ticking time-bomb from his nation’s shadowy past. Vogue magazine says that “nobody can delve into the dark, twisted mind of a murderer better than a Scandinavian thriller writer”…and nobody does it better than Jo Nesbø! James Patterson fans should also take note.


*** In Pale Battalions by Robert Goddard [Robert Goddard, desertblues, issybird]
Amazon UK / Amazon USA / Overdrive
Spoiler:
Six months after the sudden death of her husband, Leonora Galloway sets out on a trip to France with her daughter Penelope. At last the time has come when secrets can be shared and explanations begin... Leonora takes her daughter to the battlefields of WW1, where her father is commemorated on the Thiepval Monument. But the date of his death is surprising, and reveals that Captain John Hallows cannot possibly have been Leonora's real father.

This is only the start of a series of revelations that span three generations of a distinguished aristocratic family who are not what they seem. Penelope must piece together a tale of war, of loss, of greed, deception and vice - and the perpetrator of a murder left unsolved for more than half a century...


The nominations are now closed.

issybird 04-20-2013 12:30 PM
I'd like to nominate The Dinner by Herman Koch.

From Amazon:

Quote:
A good unreliable narrator is one of the most satisfying characters a novelist can dream up--and Herman Koch takes us on a hell of a ride through the mind of Paul Lohman, the deliciously sinister host of The Dinner. Paul's 15-year-old son, Michel, has committed an unspeakable crime; his brother, on the cusp of becoming the Netherlands' next prime minister, has a delicate wife and two teenagers who share Michel’s secret; Paul's wife, Claire, will do anything to protect their boy. As the two couples inch through an excruciating meal at a chic restaurant--their children's whereabouts uncertain--Paul peels back the layers of their situation, weaving to and fro through time and truth. Koch's finely structured story gives away just enough on each page to keep us riveted, feeling like private investigators on the verge of discovery, until the shock of an ending. It's no small feat for the author that the less we trust Paul, the more we want to hear what he has to say
Availabe at the usual venues and at Overdrive as well.

issybird 04-20-2013 12:57 PM
I'd also like to nominate A Suspension of Mercy by Patricia Highsmith.

From Goodreads:

Quote:
Sydney Bartleby has killed his wife, Alicia—at least he has thought about it, compulsively, over and over again, plotting schemes, designing escapes, forging alibis. Of course he has; he's a mystery-script writer. But when Alicia takes a long, unannounced vacation, Sydney seizes the opportunity to perfect his artistic method.

With her characteristic precision and unrivaled sensitivity to the inner tremblings of human character, Patricia Highsmith shockingly portrays Sydney's descent into the treacherous world of his own fictions. Once again Highsmith proves herself to be a master at depicting the unsettling forces that boil beneath the surface of everyday life
.

Available all over and couponable (Kobo has several active coupons right now, and Sony has a coupon this weekend).

caleb72 04-20-2013 01:36 PM
I can't let the opportunity go by without nominating one of my favourite authors: Barbara Vine - A Dark-Adapted Eye.

Quote:
In the Edgar Award–winning classic, a niece investigates the shocking secrets that condemned her once proud family

Faith Severn has never understood why the willful matriarch of her high-society family, aunt Vera Hillyard, snapped and murdered her own beloved sister. But long after Vera is condemned to hang, a journalist’s startling discoveries allow Faith to perceive her family’s story in a new light.

Set in post–World War II Britain, A Dark-Adapted Eye is both a gripping mystery and a harrowing psychological portrait of a complex woman at the head of a troubled family.
Amazon (US): LINK
B&N (US): LINK

It's also available in Australia and UK.

Additionally, it's available all over the place in Overdrive so hopefully you can find a copy somewhere.

JSWolf 04-20-2013 02:26 PM
I'd like to nominate Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton.


Quote:
A murder mystery set on Earth and the distant, tropical planet of St Libra

In Newcastle-upon-Tyne, AD 2142, Detective Sidney Hurst attends a brutal murder scene. The victim is one of the wealthy North family clones–but none have been reported missing. And the crime’s most disturbing aspect is how the victim was killed. Twenty years ago, a North clone billionaire and his household were horrifically murdered in exactly the same manner, on the tropical planet of St Libra. But if the murderer is still at large, was Angela Tramelo wrongly convicted? Tough and confident, she never waivered under interrogation–claiming she alone survived an alien attack. But there is no animal life on St Libra. Investigating this alien threat becomes the Human Defence Agency’s top priority. The bio-fuel flowing from St Libra is the lifeblood of Earth’s economy and must be secured. So a vast expedition is mounted via the Newcastle gateway, and teams of engineers, support personnel and xenobiologists are dispatched to the planet. Along with their technical advisor, grudgingly released from prison, Angela Tramelo. But the expedition is cut off, deep within St Libra’s rainforests. Then the murders begin. Someone or something is picking off the team one by one. Angela insists it’s the alien, but her new colleagues aren’t so sure. Maybe she did see an alien, or maybe she has other reasons for being on St Libra...
Overdrive: http://search.overdrive.com/SearchRe...howVideo=False
Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Great...FsOyShbNyA&r=3
Sony: https://ebookstore.sony.com/ebook/pe...00000000901320
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/grea...=9780345526687
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Great-North-Ro...eat+north+road

crich70 04-20-2013 02:38 PM
I'd like to nominate The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Not sure where all it is available for purchase though it is here at MR. The Big Sleep
Spoiler:
Private investigator Philip Marlowe is hired by General Sternwood to help resolve the gambling debts of his wild young daughter, Carmen. Sternwood's older daughter, Vivian, provides assistance when she implies that the situation is more complex, and also involves a casino owner and a recently disappeared family friend. As people linked to the Sternwoods start being murdered, Marlowe finds himself getting ever deeper into the case.

JSWolf 04-20-2013 02:43 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyssa (Post 2488319)
Nominations
Quote:
The Dinner by Herman Koch [issybird]
Overdrive: http://search.overdrive.com/SearchRe...howVideo=False

Quote:
A Suspension of Mercy by Patricia Highsmith [issybird]
Overdrive: Not available

Quote:
A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine [caleb72]
Overdrive: http://search.overdrive.com/SearchRe...howVideo=False

Quote:
Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton [JSWolf]
Overdrive: http://search.overdrive.com/SearchRe...howVideo=False

Quote:
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler [crich70]
Overdrive: http://search.overdrive.com/SearchRe...howVideo=False

Quote:
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley [Synamon]
Overdrive: http://search.overdrive.com/SearchRe...howVideo=False

Quote:
Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn [VioletVal]
Overdrive: http://search.overdrive.com/SearchRe...showVideo=True

Quote:
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey [AnemicOak]
Overdrive: http://search.overdrive.com/SearchRe...howVideo=False

Quote:
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth [AnemicOak]
Overdrive: http://search.overdrive.com/SearchRe...howVideo=False

Quote:
The Flower Net by Lisa See [desertblues]
Overdrive: http://search.overdrive.com/SearchRe...howVideo=False

Quote:
Rules of Prey by John Sandford [John F]
Overdrive: http://search.overdrive.com/SearchRe...howVideo=False

Quote:
Perfect Husband by Lisa Gardner [John F]
Overdrive: http://search.overdrive.com/SearchRe...howVideo=False

Synamon 04-20-2013 03:08 PM
I'd like to nominate one I've read good things about and have on my to-be-read list: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. It's available at all the usual ebook stores and at libraries via Overdrive.

Quote:
Originally Posted by from Amazon
A delightfully dark English mystery, featuring precocious young sleuth Flavia de Luce and her eccentric family.

The summer of 1950 hasn’t offered up anything out of the ordinary for eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce: bicycle explorations around the village, keeping tabs on her neighbours, relentless battles with her older sisters, Ophelia and Daphne, and brewing up poisonous concoctions while plotting revenge in their home’s abandoned Victorian chemistry lab, which Flavia has claimed for her own.

But then a series of mysterious events gets Flavia’s attention: A dead bird is found on the doormat, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. A mysterious late-night visitor argues with her aloof father, Colonel de Luce, behind closed doors. And in the early morning Flavia finds a red-headed stranger lying in the cucumber patch and watches him take his dying breath. For Flavia, the summer begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw: “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.” [...]

sun surfer 04-20-2013 04:28 PM
I second The Dinner.

VioletVal 04-20-2013 06:46 PM
I second The Big Sleep.

VioletVal 04-20-2013 06:50 PM
I nominate Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn

From Amazon:

Quote:

"Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave."

These ominous words, slashed from the pages of a book of Psalms, are the last threat that the darling of London society, Sir Edward Grey, receives from his killer. Before he can show them to Nicholas Brisbane, the private inquiry agent he has retained for his protection, Sir Edward collapses and dies at his London home, in the presence of his wife, Julia, and a roomful of dinner guests. Prepared to accept that Edward's death was due to a longstanding physical infirmity, Julia is outraged when Brisbane visits and suggests that Sir Edward has been murdered. It is a reaction she comes to regret when she discovers the damning paper for herself, and realizes the truth. Determined to bring her husband's murderer to justice, Julia engages the enigmatic Brisbane to help her investigate Edward's demise. Dismissing his warnings that the investigation will be difficult, if not impossible, Julia presses forward, following a trail of clues that lead her to even more unpleasant truths, and ever closer to a killer who waits expectantly for her arrival.

AnemicOak 04-20-2013 07:09 PM
I nominate The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
Quote:
Josephine Tey re-creates one of history's most famous -- and vicious -- crimes in her classic bestselling novel, a must read for connoisseurs of fiction, now with a new introduction by Robert Barnard

Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history. Could such a sensitive, noble face actually belong to one of the world's most heinous villains -- a venomous hunchback who may have killed his brother's children to make his crown secure? Or could Richard have been the victim, turned into a monster by the usurpers of England's throne? Grant determines to find out once and for all, with the help of the British Museum and an American scholar, what kind of man Richard Plantagenet really was and who killed the Little Princes in the Tower.

The Daughter of Time is an ingeniously plotted, beautifully written, and suspenseful tale, a supreme achievement from one of mystery writing's most gifted masters.

and


The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
Quote:
He is known only as “The Jackal”—a cold, calculating assassin without emotion, or loyalty, or equal. He’s just received a contract from an enigmatic employer to eliminate one of the most heavily guarded men in the world—Charles De Gaulle, president of France.

It is only a twist of fate that allows the authorities to discover the plot. They know next to nothing—only that the assassin is on the move. To track him, they dispatch their finest detective, Claude Lebel, on a manhunt that will push him to his limit, in a race to stop an assassin’s bullet from reaching its target.

Synamon 04-20-2013 07:49 PM
Second The Daughter of Time. One of my favourites and I would enjoy a discussion of it.

Hamlet53 04-20-2013 08:21 PM
Not my category at all. But I just have to third The Daughter of Time because:
1) it was in the news recently that the remains of Richard III have been found
2) I just reread the play on Friday the 12 (Shakespeare of course) in preparation for a screening of a film adaption starring Ian McKellen .


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