Olen Steinhauer, THE CONFESSION

Gripping thriller set in eastern Europe, 1956, with Comrade Inspector Ferenc Kolyeszar trying to uncover the reason for a growing body count. Dark, seedy, scary, with a shifty, uncertain moral center and several satisfying plot twists. Not gratuitously violent, but though I will read other novels by this author, I will not read them before bed.

Stef Penney, THE INVISIBLE ONES

Another good suspenseful novel ... but I have to confess I liked her first (TENDERNESS OF WOLVES) better. I'm not sure why. Like TOW, this novel shifts between points of view--this one between 14-year-old JJ (a Gypsy, a Traveler) and Ray Lovell, a half-Romany private investigator who is asked to solve the disappearance of Rose Janko. It's well told, and the ending reveals a "secret" that is fair, in the sense that the clues are there, when you flip back through. But I think TOW had more power and passion behind it. Still, I'd recommend this one; it's definitely near the top of the stack of suspense/mystery novels I've read. Tana French (another favorite author, of In the Woods) wrote the blurb for the back, and this book reads (to me) very much like hers ... the troubled, drinking Rob Macky with his mess of a love life is fairly close to Ray Lovell.