The RATS of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library are bringing you a special series of blogs presenting the 2009 ITW Thriller Award Nominations.
You can visit the International Thriller Writers Inc., website Official Website of International Thriller Writers, Inc. There you can see what new books the members are publishing, join the rank and file and even register to attend this years Thrillerfest.
Click the mouse on the book covers to order these books from the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library.
ITW Thriller Award for the Best First Novel
 Calumet City |
Calumet CityAuthor: Newton, Charlie |
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Nominated for the 2009 ITW Thriller Award for the Best First Novel Meet Patti Black, the most decorated cop in Chicago. On her ghetto beat, Patti Black redefines the word badass. But her steel-plated exterior — solitary, stoic, loveless — belies the wrenching legacy of her orphan childhood. Haunted by the horrifying abuse she suffered at the hands of her foster parents, Patti Black sublimates past torments into a meticulously maintained tough-gal persona. When a series of unrelated cases — a drug bust gone bad, a mayoral assassination attempt, the murder of a state attorney, the exhumation of a long-concealed body from a tenement basement wall — all point in Patti Black’s direction, she finds herself facing the dark truth: You can’t hide from your history, no matter how far into the fog you run. For Patti Black, that history didn’t die in the tenement wall; it’s alive — and riding her down. In researching this electrifying thriller, Charlie Newton rode in the squad car with real-life street cop Patti Black. The result is a powerful fiction debut that captures the precise emotional landscape of one cop’s hard-bitten life in the trenches. This first-time author joins that rare breed whose fiction is suffused with profound authenticity. |
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 Child 44 |
Child 44Author: Smith, Tom Rob |
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Nominated for the 2009 ITW Thriller Award for the Best First Novel A propulsive, relentless page-turner. A terrifying evocation of a paranoid world where no one can be trusted. A surprising, unexpected story of love and family, of hope and resilience. Child 44 is a thriller unlike any you have ever read. “There is no crime.” Stalin’s Soviet Union strives to be a paradise for its workers, providing for all of their needs. One of its fundamental pillars is that its citizens live free from the fear of ordinary crime and criminals. But in this society, millions do live in fear . . . of the State. Death is a whisper away. The mere suspicion of ideological disloyalty — owning a book from the decadent West, the wrong word at the wrong time — sends millions of innocents into the Gulags or to their executions. Defending the system from its citizens is the MGB, the State Security Force. And no MGB officer is more courageous, conscientious, or idealistic than Leo Demidov. A war hero with a beautiful wife, Leo lives in relative luxury in Moscow, even providing a decent apartment for his parents. His only ambition has been to serve his country. For this greater good, he has arrested and interrogated. Then the impossible happens. A different kind of criminal — a murderer — is on the loose, killing at will. At the same time, Leo finds himself demoted and denounced by his enemies, his world turned upside down, and every belief he’s ever held shattered. The only way to save his life and the lives of his family is to uncover this criminal. But in a society that is officially paradise, it’s a crime against the State to suggest that a murderer — much less a serial killer — is in their midst. Exiled from his home, with only his wife, Raisa, remaining at his side, Leo must confront the vast resources and reach of the MBG to find and stop a criminal that the State won’t admit even exists. |
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 Criminal Paradise |
Criminal ParadiseAuthor: Thomas, Steven |
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Nominated for the 2009 ITW Thriller Award for the Best First Novel The literature of larceny welcomes a newcomer with some serious chops, as Steven M. Thomas muscles his way to a place at the table — elbow-to-elbow with Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen — courtesy of a harrowing, hilarious, two-fisted, hard-boiled thriller that’s pure heaven for anyone who loves a hell of a crime novel. Robert Rivers is a crook. No excuses, no apologies. Breaking the law is his calling, crime is his rush, capers his reason for getting up in the morning and staying up late at night. But he’s a thief with honor, plotting and pulling off carefully choreographed heists where no shots are fired, no blood is spilled, and nobody gets hurt . . . except in the wallet. After a brief stint behind bars back in the day, he’s managed to carve out a comfortable existence, cheerfully plundering the sunny Southern California community whose streets he tools in the tweaked-out Cadillac DeVille that’s his pride and joy. But now Rob (whose name has become ironic) is pushing forty, and — like his trusty partner, Switch, who’s got a pregnant girlfriend and a hefty stash of loot — he’s thinking about quitting the game. But then he and Switch, pulling their latest Butch and Sundance, score a payday that could end up costing them plenty. Inside a strongbox packed with greenbacks rests a disturbing black-and-white photo of a beautiful young girl, eyes full of fear as naked as she is. It’s an image that Rob can’t shake, and a wake-up call: There are rules even he won’t break. It’s also his one-way ticket into the underbelly of the underworld — a lethal landscape of sex slaves, sadistic psychopaths, and sawed-off shotguns, where honor is for fools, and trust is for suckers, where very bad people do even worse things and nice guys don’t finish at all. They just get finished off. With its alluring setting, quirky characters, and restrained and subtle prose, Criminal Paradise has something for every thriller fan. And with sharp natural instincts and writing skills as serious as his humor is sly, Steven M. Thomas shows as much promise as any author on the suspense scene. |
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 Sacrifice |
SacrificeAuthor: Bolton, S. J. |
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Nominated for the 2009 ITW Thriller Award for the Best First Novel In this masterful debut that starts off as a mystery and becomes much more, Tora Hamilton is an outsider at her new home on the rocky, windswept Shetland Islands, a hundred miles from the northeastern tip of Scotland. Though her husband grew up here, it’s the first time he’s been back in twenty years. Digging in the peat on their new property, Tora unearths a human body, at first glance a centuries-old bog body, interesting but not uncommon. But realizing that the body is in fact much newer, that the woman’s heart has been cut out, and that she was killed within a few days of bearing a child, Tora, herself an obstetrician, becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her — even when the police, her colleagues, and eventually her husband warn her against getting involved. Sacrifice is a bone-chilling, spellbinding debut about secrets worth killing for that will grip readers from its beginning to its startling end. |
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 The Killer’s Wife |
The Killer’s Wife: A NovelAuthor: Floyd, Bill |
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Nominated for the 2009 ITW Thriller Award for the Best First Novel Six years after her courageous testimony helped put her husband on death row for a string of gruesome murders, Leigh Wren has almost succeeded in putting her past to rest. She has moved from the West Coast to North Carolina with her young son, adopting a new name and a new life. But the world that she has created for herself is shattered when the father of one of her ex-husband’s victims begins stalking her, then confronts her late one night. In the days that follow, he exposes Leigh, in newspapers and on television, to a startled North Carolina community. And just as her marriage to Randall Mosley, a man who became known to the world as a deviant serial killer, is brought back to light, a more deadly game of cat and mouse ensues. A new killer has emerged, one whose methods are frighteningly similar to those used by Mosley, who is awaiting execution thousands of miles away. Leigh and her son appear to be in the assailant’s scope, and it becomes clear that he is more than a copycat killer — his targets are all tied to Leigh’s former life. With the clock ticking down and the victims of a new killer mounting, Leigh is forced to probe the darkest corridors of her past to protect her life and her son’s. She must also confront her own feelings of responsibility: Leigh has always professed her ignorance, but how complicit was she in her husband’s horrific murder spree, as it was taking place? From a major new voice in suspense, The Killer’s Wife is a story driven by psychological insight and harrowing revelations, asking how well you can ever really know the person sleeping beside you. |
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The 2009 ITW Thriller Award Nominations Series:
Part 1 — Best Thriller of the Year
Part 2 — Best First Novel
Part 3 — Best Short Story and Other Awards
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