New Title Radar – Week of December 12

Among the few books that land next week, there’s a debut thriller by the creators of the TV show ER, Neal Baer and Jonathan Greene, plus new titles from Jo Nesbo and Tom Clancy, and a memoir by U.S. Marine Mike Dowling about his patrols on the streets of Iraq with his bomb-sniffing dog.

Watch List

Kill Switch by Neal Baer and Jonathan Greene (Kensington; Blackstone Audio) is a debut thriller by the Emmy Award-winning creators of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and ER. The protagonist is New York City forensic psychiatrist Claire Waters, who has always been drawn to “untreatable” patients seemingly without conscience or fear. Kirkus says, “The investigative narrative is workmanlike but tolerable, much like the rerun of a TV serial. It’s toward the end, as Claire confronts the killer who abducted her childhood friend and the primary plot becomes a Fugitive-style medical mystery, that this novel starts to lose its edge.”

Usual Suspects

The Leopard by Jo Nesbø (Knopf; Random House Large Print; Random House Audio) finds Inspector Harry Hole deeply traumatized by the Snowman investigation and lost in the squalor of Hong Kong’s opium dens. But when a series of women are murdered in a mountain hostel, he agrees to return to Oslo to investigate. Kirkus says, “Nesbø’s formula includes plenty of participation by Kaja, a very capable woman, and plenty of current geopolitical backdrop, making Nesbø a worthy mysterian-cum-social-critic in the Stieg Larsson tradition… taut, fast-paced thriller with wrenching twists and turns.”

Locked On by Tom Clancy and Mark Greaney (Putnam; Thorndike Press Large Print; Brilliance Audio) brings together Jack Ryan, his son, Jack Jr., John Clark Ding Chavez and the rest of the Campus team as Jack Sr. runs for President of the United States again. But he doesn’t anticipate the treachery of his opponent.

Nonfiction

Sergeant Rex: The Unbreakable Bond Between a Marine and His Military Working Dog by Mike Dowling (Atria Books) is the true story of a U.S. Marine and his German Shepherd Rex, a bomb-sniffing dog on the streets of Iraq’s most dangerous city. PW says, “Despite some tense moments and close calls, this deeply affecting tale of courage and devotion in the cauldron of war has a happy ending.”

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