This column was submitted by Evangeline Cessna, local history librarian at the Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library.

This week’s column features Suspense/Thriller titles in our New Adult Fiction collection.

J.D. Robb’s latest novel featuring Eve Dallas is titled Bonded in Death. Lieutenant Eve Dallas is frustrated with her latest case. Giovanni Rossi arrived from Rome and was almost immediately murdered, but his widow doesn’t know why he’d left Italy and come to New York. She eventually finds a connection to the Urban Wars of the 2020s and thinks the fiercely loyal and crotchety Summerset, who saved Eve’s husband from the Dublin streets, may know something from his stint as a medic in Europe back then. When Summerset finds out that Rossi has been murdered, he’s shocked. He eventually reveals to Eve that he and Rossi were part of a secret group known as The Twelve. Summerset agrees to not only help Eve in her investigation but get to the bottom of the cryptic message sent by the killer that boasts that others of The Twelve have also died.

Bestselling novelist, travel writer, and storyteller Paul Theroux has penned a collection of short stories called The Vanishing Point. Featuring stories both exotic and domestic, these stories are set on places from Hawaii to Africa and New England. Each one focuses on life’s vanishing points—those moments when seemingly all lines that run through one’s life converge. You can see no farther, but you are forced to deal with the implications presented to you. Most of the elderly characters reflect deeply on their lives and the lessons learned over time, where aging brings awareness of missed opportunities and life’s fleeting nature. These characters navigate personal desires and confront their attainable dreams and wishes, along with often experiencing profound loneliness and isolation.

The Crash is by Freida McFadden. Tegan is eight months pregnant, all alone, and is desperate to put her chaotic life behind her. She decides to hit the road and stay with her brother until she can figure out her next move. She doesn’t realize that she’s heading straight into a blizzard, and she’ll never arrive at her destination. Tegan becomes stranded in rural Maine with a dead car and a broken ankle. Fearing she’s made a terrible mistake, she’s relieved when a local couple offers her a room in their warm cabin until the storm clears. Tegan begins to feel something isn’t right and realizes she is in grave danger. Her safe haven isn’t what she thinks it is, and staying at the cabin may be a deadly mistake. Now, she must do whatever it takes to save herself and her unborn baby.

Joseph Finder delivers a tense and dizzying spy novel with his latest The Oligarch’s Daughter. Paul Brightman is on the run and living under an assumed name in a small town in New England. When someone breaches his security to collect the million-dollar bounty, Paul flees into the wilderness of New Hampshire to avoid the Russian operatives who seem to be one step ahead. Six years prior, Paul was a rising star on Wall Street who fell in love with a beautiful photographer named Tatyana. Unfortunately, Paul is unaware that Tatyana’s father is a Russian oligarch who’s the subject of much interest from several U.S. intelligence agencies. To save his life, Paul will have to unravel a decades-old conspiracy that involves the highest members of government.

Midnight Black is the latest Gray Man novel from Mark Greaney. The Gray Man will stop at nothing to free his lover, Zoya Zakharova, who has been imprisoned in a Siberian gulag. The winter sunrise over the great plains of Russia sees temperatures barely above zero and the guards at Penal Colony IK22 are more than willing to take out their own misery on the prisoners. Zoya was once a master spy for Russian foreign intelligence before she met and fell in love with the Gray Man. She has information that the Kremlin wants, and they are happy to let Zoya suffer until she divulges her secrets. Unfortunately for Russian agents, the Gray Man is not deterred by thousands of miles of frozen wasteland nor is he intimidated by their police state. He’s coming and there’s nothing they can do about it.

The latest thriller featuring Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis by Jonathan Kellerman is titled Open Season. The body of an aspiring actress has been found. She’d been drugged and the main suspect is a stunt double with a giant ego and few brains. He’s known to have few boundaries when it comes to women, but he too is murdered before Milo and Alex can get to him. The rifle that killed him turns out to have been used in two prior cases and then it’s fired again and again, taking more victims. Milo and Alex begin to think that someone is avenging the victims of men without boundaries. Is this a slick, efficient assassin with a corrupt code of justice or is it an errant knight who doesn’t want to be seen, but still wants to be known? Investigators find themselves embroiled in a complicated and twisted case with no shortage of suspects or victims and they’ll be dragged through the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles.