By Jocelyn Yost

‘Tis the season…for a fast-paced thriller. Avoid your to-do list with one of these suspenseful reads, all set in this holiday season.

 

The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld

Three years ago, Madison Culver disappeared when her family was choosing a Christmas tree in Oregon’s Skookum National Forest. She would be eight-years-old now—if she has survived. Desperate to find their beloved daughter, certain someone took her, the Culvers turn to Naomi, a private investigator with an uncanny talent for locating the lost and missing. Known to the police and a select group of parents as “the Child Finder,” Naomi is their last hope.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney

Amber wakes up in a hospital the day after Christmas. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it’s the truth?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little Comfort by Edwin Hill

Harvard librarian Hester Thursby knows that even in the digital age, people still need help finding things. Using her research skills, Hester runs a side business tracking down the lost. Her new case is finding the handsome and charismatic Sam Blaine, whose latest con is set among the glittering holiday parties of Boston’s elite. But Sam has no desire to be found and when Hester discovers the brutal – and deadly - truth about him, her own safety is in jeopardy.

 

 

 

 

 

The Fire Child  by S.K. Tremayne

When Rachel marries dark, handsome David, everything seems to fall into place. Swept from single life in London to the beautiful Carnhallow House in Cornwall, she gains wealth, love, and an affectionate stepson, Jamie. But then she begins to see drastic changes in the behavior of her stepson and becomes suspicious of the circumstances surrounding the death of her husband’s first wife. Rachel starts to fear there might be truth in Jamie’s words: “You will be dead by Christmas.”

 

 

 

 

 

Acts of Vanishing by Fredrik T. Olsson

One winter evening just before Christmas, Stockholm is plunged into a sudden, citywide blackout. Radio, internet, phone service  all cut out simultaneously, cloaking the city in darkness and silence. A young woman carries a message for her estranged father that could be the key to reversing the blackout and preventing further attacks, while her father, a cyber-security expert, code expert and disgraced hero, tries to find her and save the country from disaster.