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| Suspense Central Selections for 2017 *2017 selections for Suspense Central are listed below by month. If you have difficulty seeing a title and/or author, all selections are listed on our Yahoo site and our meetup site. |
| Recaps, comments |
| The Clown Service by Guy Adams Monday, August 14, 2017 - 8p Panera, 770 Rt. 17 North, Paramus, NJ This group meets on the second Monday of each month to discuss a specific mystery, suspense or intrigue novel. Join Moderator Aurelia Long as we discuss the month's featured selection. *The full 2017 line-up of titles can be found below, after the recaps/comments. Toby Greene has been reassigned. The Department: Section 37 Station Office, Wood Green. The Boss: August Shining, an ex-Cambridge, Cold War-era spy. The Mission: Charged with protecting Great Britain and its interests from paranormal terrorism. The Threat: An old enemy has returned, and with him Operation Black Earth, a Soviet plan to create the ultimate insurgents by re-animating the dead. Guy Adams' novel is like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy crossed with Fringe in the style of Jasper Fforde. |
| August |
| Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield and Death Match by Lincoln Child 6/12/17 recap Chris H May's Suspense Central was postponed so June was a double-discussion. We talked about both May's selection of Bellman & Black and June's selection, Death Match by Lincoln Child. May: Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield Main character, William Bellman, kills a rook by accident and pays dearly for the rest of the book. The story begins with a young William playing with his friends. They are an energetic group of 10-year-old boys. William boasts he can kill the rook sitting in the tree. He is well aware the bird it too far away and it is an impossible shot with his slingshot. When the bird is killed, William is devastated and saddened. Life goes on, but fate has something in store for William. As he becomes an adult, one by one, the people he cares for, die. Everyone felt the novel was well written and atmospheric, but had no satisfying conclusion. June: Death Match by Lincoln Child Premise: Richard Silver creates a computer named Liza for a computer dating company called Eden. Liza has been created to "match" perfect couples on a computer dating site. Liza puts together what is known as super couples. The happy couples meet the person of their dreams. Two of the six matches commit suicide. How could this happen? What went wrong? The firm, Eden, hires Christopher Lash to find out what is going on. The novel is quite interesting providing many twists and turns. The discussion about how to look for the perfect spot to bury a body (Aurelia) and how that dry cleaner plastic bag just wouldn't have done the job (Liz) was too funny. We laughed until closing. Fun talk. Grades for the two books are a 'C' for May and a 'B' for June. |
| Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist 7/10/17 recap Chris H Our selection was Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist. The story is about dead people returning from the dead in a certain section of Sweden. Not a typical zombie book, the returning in the story are not feral flesh eating "zombies". The book stressed the impact these undead had on the living. Some are happy, some fearful, some repulsed. The human emotions in the book are varied and lend a certain authenticity. The problem was that the author failed to explain a lot of what was going on. The reader never learns the why of many important details. Some stroylines are begun and dropped without explanation. One of our previous selections, "Bellman & BlacK' garnered a C rating. This one rated an even lower C-. |