Book Club – Three edge-of-your-seat thrillers

Told from alternating perspectives, an evocative and riveting novel about the lifelong bond between two women, one Black and one white, whose friendship is indelibly altered by a tragic event, We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza is described as a powerful and poignant exploration of race in America today, and its devastating impact on ordinary lives.

It’s the story oif Jen and Riley, who’ve been best friends since kindergarten. As adults, they remain as close as sisters, though their lives have taken different directions. Jen married young, and after years of trying, is finally pregnant.

Riley pursued her childhood dream of becoming a television journalist and is poised to become one of the first Black female anchors of the top news channel in their hometown of Philadelphia. But the deep bond they share is severely tested when Jen’s husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. Six months pregnant,

Jen is in freefall as her future, her husband’s freedom, and her friendship with Riley are thrown into uncertainty. Covering this career-making story, Riley wrestles with the implications of this tragic incident for her Black community, her ambitions, and her relationship with her lifelong friend. Simon and Schuster.

Deon Meyer’s The Dark Flood sees us in Stellenbosch, where, after almost being fired for insubordination, detectives Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido find themselves, working a missing persons report.

Demoted and exiled from the elite Hawks unit, this is not the level of work they are used to, but investigating the whereabouts of student Callie de Bruin is all they get. But the story soon turns interesting.

While beautiful, Stellenbosch’s economy has been ruined by one man. Jasper Boonstra and his gigantic corporate fraud have crashed the local property market, just when estate agent Sandra Steenberg desperately needs a big sale.

Bringing up twins and supporting her academic husband, she is facing disaster. Then she gets a call from Jasper Boonstra, fraudster, sexual predator and owner of a superb property worth millions. For Sandra, the stakes are high and about to get way higher. And for Detective Griessel, clinging to sobriety and the relationship that saved his life, the truth about Callie is about to lead to more trouble.

Fabulous local thriller to kick off the new year.  Hodder and Stoughton

If you’ve read Ann Cleeves’ The Long Call (and if you haven’t, you should), you’ll be delighted that the second in this Two Rivers crime series has just hit the book shelves.

The Heron’s Cry features Detective Matthew Venn,  who’s is called out to a crime season in rural North Devon. Arriving at the home of a group of artists, he finds is an elaborately staged murder.

Dr Nigel Yeo has been fatally stabbed. His daughter Eve is a glassblower. And the murder weapon is a shard of one of her broken vases.

Dr Yeo seems an unlikely murder victim. He’s a good man, a public servant, beloved by his daughter, a woman who Matthew discovers is a close friend of Jonathan, his husband. When a second body is found, killed in a similar way, Matthew finds himself treading carefully through the lies that fester at the heart of his community, and a case that is dangerously close to home. Pan Macmillan.

These, and other great reads, available from exclusivebooks.co.za