Annal:2008 Barry Award for Best Thriller

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Results of the Barry Award in the year 2008. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:

The Cleaner

Brett Battles

Meet Jonathan Quinn: a freelance operative with a take-no-prisoners style and the heart of a loner. His job? Professional “cleaner.” Nothing too violent, just disposing of bodies, doing a little cleanup if necessary.

The job seemed simple enough: investigating a suspicious case of arson. But when a dead body turns up where it doesn’t belong—and Quinn’s handlers at “the Office” turn strangely silent—he knows he’s in over his head. Quinn’s only hope may be Orlando, a woman from his past who may hold the key to solving the case. Suddenly the two are prying into old crimes, crisscrossing continents, struggling to stay alive long enough to unbury the truth. But as the hunt intensifies, Quinn is stunned by what he uncovers: a chilling secret…and a brilliantly orchestrated conspiracy–with an almost unimaginable goal.

Furiously paced, filled with superbly drawn characters and pitch-perfect dialogue, The Cleaner puts a powerful twist on all our expectations as it confirms Brett Battles’s place as one of the most exciting new talents in suspense fiction today.

 

No Time for Goodbye

Linwood Barclay

The house was deathly quiet. That was the first sign that something was terribly wrong. Fourteen-year-old Cynthia Bigge woke that morning to find herself alone. Her family—mother, father, and brother—had vanished without a word, without a note, without a trace. Twenty-five years later, Cynthia and Terry Archer still live in Milford, Connecticut. The questions raised by Cynthia’s past still haunt her.

Someone has returned to this Connecticut town to finish what was started twenty-five years ago. And by the time Terry and Cynthia discover the killer’s shocking identity, it will be too late even for goodbye.

 

Midnight Rambler: A Novel of Suspense

James Swain

In South Florida, Jack Carpenter is infamous. He’s the cop who busted the notorious serial killer Simon Skell—aka the Midnight Rambler—and sacrificed his badge and marriage in the process. Haunted by the Skell case, Carpenter now works as an abduction specialist in Fort Lauderdale, reuniting families with their missing children.

But the body of one of the Midnight Rambler’s victims has just been uncovered—and forensic evidence suggests Carpenter jailed the wrong man. With Skell just days away from release, the tarnished hero must reopen the case that shattered his life and the lives of eight murdered women.

As waves of heat and rain wash over the steamy streets, Carpenter races against the clock to reaffirm the case against Skell. Yet the deeper he digs, the more he starts to realize that Skell is just one piece in a terrifying puzzle of predation and murder, just one player in a shocking conspiracy that ranges across the state of Florida. And as the relentless Carpenter draws the net tighter, his enemies prepare to spring a devastating final surprise.

 

Silence

Thomas Perry

Six years ago, Jack Till helped Wendy Harper disappear. But now her ex-boyfriend and former business partner, Eric Fuller, is being framed for her presumed murder in an effort to smoke her out, and Till must find her before tango-dancing assassins Paul and Sylvie Turner do.

The Turners are merely hired to do a job, though, and prefer to remain anonymous. When they find that a middleman has let the true employer know their identities, finishing the job is no longer enough. Their fee just went up. And now they must double-cross the man who wants Wendy dead before he can double-cross them—if their jealousy and cold-blooded calculations don’t result in a fatal lovers’ quarrel first.

With masterful plotting and unnerving psychological insight, Perry delivers another mesmerizing thrill ride.

 

Volk's Game: A Novel

Brent Ghelfi

Alexei Volkovoy—known to the underworld as Volk—is a hardened veteran of the conflict in Chechnya, a gun-for-hire now living in a lawless Russia, serving two corrupt masters: one is Maxim, a psychotic Azeri mafia kingpin, the other a mystery man known only as “The General.” When Volk and his lover, a wild-eyed, white-haired young Russian named Valya, are hired by both men to steal the same lost painting from the Hermitage Museum, Volk must choose which to betray, and what that betrayal will cost him. His decision will lead this honest thief into the dark heart of the new Russian oligarchy, where only cash and violence can open doors.

 

The Watchman: A Joe Pike Novel

Robert Crais

Joe Pike—the ex-cop, ex-Marine, exmercenary from Robert Crais’s superb PI Elvis Cole novels—headlines the explosive action of this page-turning New York Times bestseller.

A wild-living young heiress slams into trouble in the L.A. night—the kind of trouble even her money can’t shut down. After her Aston Martin collides with a mysterious car, Larkin Conner Barkley attempts to help the accident victims—and becomes the sole witness in a federal investigation. Whisking her out of her Beverly Hills world is Joe Pike, hired to shield Larkin Barkley from a relentless team of killers. But when a chain of lies and betrayals tightens around them, Pike drops off the grid and follows his own rules for survival: strike fast, hit hard, hunt down the hunters….

 
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