Book Review - The 13th Hour by Richard Doetsch

Looking for a thriller with a twist? Look no further than Richard Doetsch's remarkable novel that will leave you guessing.... to the beginning.

The book starts with Nick, our hero, under arrest for the murder of his beloved wife, Julia. Nick, having been set-up, is being interrogated by a duo of good cop/bad cop cousins when a stranger comes in and offers Nick a chance to save his wife. He hands Nick a letter and timepiece, and promptly disappears. Nick is catapulted back in time one hour at a time and he must stop the killer before he reaches the thirteenth hour.

Book Review - "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova

Castle ruins, Eastern European folklore, and a sinister evil await you in Kostova's debut novel. The story begins in 1972 Amsterdam, when a teenage girl discovers an ancient book in her father's study that contains only a woodcut of a large dragon within its blank pages. Also hidden within the pages are a series of yellowing letters, all addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor." When the girl questions her father, Paul, about these findings, he reluctantly tells her of a time twenty years ago when his mentor and friend, Professor Rossi, disappeared suddenly after confiding of his belief that Dracula was still alive. After Paul shares this information with his daughter, he too disappears, leaving only a note behind.

"The Historian" spans across four decades and consists of three story lines - one from the 1930s, when Bartholomew Rossi begins his treacherous search for Dracula, the next from the 1950s, when his student Paul takes up the search after Rossi's disappearance, and then the main narrative from 1972. Travels take each of the searchers deep into Eastern Europe, the home of Vlad the Impaler, also known as Dracula.

Book Review - "Life Expectancy" by Dean Koontz

Jimmy Tock comes into the world on the very night his grandfather leaves it, as a violent storm rages outside of the hospital. At the very height of the storm's fury, Josef Tock suddenly sits up and speaks for the first and last time since his stroke. What he says turns out to be a prediction of Jimmy's years to come - that there will be five dark days in his grandson's life - five dates whose horrible events Jimmy will have to prepare himself to face. Jimmy's father, Rudy, is all too ready to discount his father's last words, until he finds out that Josef also predicted other facts about his grandson: Jimmy's birth down to the minute, as well as his exact height and weight, and the fact that he was born with a physical deformity on his foot. Suddenly, the dying man's prediction takes on a chilling significance. What terrifying events await Jimmy on those five days? As the novel unfolds, picking up Jimmy's story at each of these crisis points, the path he must follow will leave you wondering how it will all end.

Disclaimer: If you have a fear of clowns, you might want to skip this book. Take my word for it.

Book Review- "Caught" by Harlan Coben

This book has been praised as one of Coben's finest works in years; it is reminiscent of his earlier novels when the pages were filled with twists and astonishing thrills. Dan Mercer is a teen social worker who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thinking he is going to help a troubled girl, he finds himself caught up in a Internet predator sting that ruins his reputation. Reporter Wendy Tynes soon finds out, however, that not all is as it seems, especially when she is witness to a murder. Wendy goes on a hunt to make sense of the murder she saw, find out how this correlates to five college roommates whose lives are falling in ruins, and learn how this all connects to the disappearance and possible murder of a teenage girl.