Bestselling author Thomas Perry has a distinct and methodical way of telling a story: bare bones with no extra words floating around. He’s a master at writing descriptively, plainly and with remarkable clarity, as well as imagining what can happen when the net tightens in an exciting, claustrophobic thriller. These skills combine nicely in what has become his métier, novels of escape suspense. Perry loves to write about people on the run and the detailed, scrupulous preparations they must make to ensure they disappear successfully—as well as try to make a different life and stay hidden from their enemies permanently.

This distinctive narrative form reached a kind of zenith in Perry’s outstanding Jane Whitefield series, beginning with Vanishing Act (1996). The so-named “Jane” helps others elude, evade and escape when they are unfairly being targeted, usually by a criminal agency, whether private or governmental. Jane embodies a kind of one-person “A-Team” who can materialize to help—if you can find her, since she lives under another identity.

The Old Man, Perry’s latest fictional marvel, is a standalone with a similar pretext, and it’s equally addictive. The main character, who becomes known to readers by several different aliases during the course of the novel, seeks to escape unfair targeting by a secret U.S. government agency that wants to offer him up to accommodate a shady alliance with a terrorist Libyan government—one that our man, first known as Dixon, ran afoul of 30 years earlier. Dixon has been living a quiet life for more than 30 years. But they’ve found him, so he must put in place the getaway plans he’s kept ready throughout that time.

Perry astounds and draws in even skeptical readers with his blow-by-blow descriptions of Dixon’s plans to evade the agency’s draconian clutches. Aiding him are a couple of marvelous canines; a woman who’s a story all by herself; a doubting independent contractor; a 30-year collection of survival skills and weaponry; and in-the-front, out-the-back tactics and preparedness. The book’s pièce de résistance is an exciting chase through the deep snow, with snowmobiles pitted against snowshoes and skis.

The Old Man is Perry at the top of his game, and readers will rip their way through every word to find out just who’s going to win this contest.

The heading on Joanne Harris’ website remarks that she “does a bit of writing.” Many readers will recognize the understatement: Harris is the author of more than a dozen notable works, including the popular, award-winning novel Chocolat, which first brought Harris to the attention of American readers.

In Different Class, Harris has created an absorbing novel with a deep, dark mystery at its heart. Though the story is a standalone, Different Class returns to geographical territory Harris explored in Gentlemen Players (2005) and Blueeyedboy (2010)—that of St. Oswald’s, a not-quite-first-class boys’ grammar school located in Yorkshire. Harris taught modern languages at a boys’ grammar school in England for 15 years, so she has nailed the musty, chalk-filled, stuck-in-time atmosphere dead-on.

Different Class doesn’t read like a traditional, blood-and-guts thriller, but its slow-burning fuse has a deeper impact that readers absorb through two different, remarkable narratives: that of Latin teacher Roy Straitley, who’s been at St. Oswald’s for decades; and that of a more sinister-sounding and anonymous diary writer who tells a chilling story about his time as a student at the school.

Readers are introduced, at first in a low-key way, to a milieu that encompasses pedophilia, homophobia and the sorts of subtle cruelties that may seem to sprout naturally in the setting of a boys’ school of this kind, where close contact provides fertile ground for adolescent discontent, dependency and an inbred atmosphere of bullying.

The book straddles a period of about 25 years in the life of the school. The unknown diarist writes during the 1980s, when St. Oswald’s experienced the imprisonment of a gay teacher for a crime that involved pedophilia and murder, with tragic implications that filter through to the present, as revisited by the now-elderly Straitley, who was a best friend to the accused. Straitley is also pretty much alone among the current teaching staff in his revulsion for the school’s new headmaster, Johnny Harrington, who was present during the 1981 event.

The author skillfully misdirects readers, who must sift for the truth through the lens of her narrators’ conflicting perspectives. Straitley remains intent on bringing the real wrongdoers to justice, although at book’s end, as in all good stories, the feeling remains that there’s still much to be accounted for.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Behind the Book essay by Joanne Harris on Different Class.

Argentinian author Samanta Schweblin’s English-language debut, Fever Dream, snares readers. It’s a page-turner of mounting dread, unfolding entirely through a conversation between a bedridden young woman and the boy who whispers in her ear.

Amanda lies dying in a hospital clinic in rural Argentina. Sitting next to her is David, a boy who asks her—urges her—to remember the events of whatever trauma rendered her terminally ill. At his behest, Amanda recalls meeting David’s mother, a nervous and elegant woman named Carla. Carla tells Amanda a strange story about a very young David, who drinks the same toxic water that kills Carla’s husband’s prized stallion. To spare her son’s life, Carla calls upon a local woman with medicinal and magical abilities. By splitting David’s soul with another child’s, she saves the boy.

But this is only the beginning. Why is Amanda in the hospital? And what has happened to Amanda’s own daughter, Nina? Time and again, Amanda references the “rescue distance,” the variable space between her and Nina, the distance between a mother and any worst-case scenario that may imperil her child. “I spend half the day calculating it,” Amanda says. As she recalls more and more details, Amanda begins to tell the story her own way, trying to make sense of what matters in these events and what does not—and decide which threats are inevitable or imagined.

With the urgency, attention to detail and threat of an abrupt ending that define short stories, the novel builds unease seamlessly through exceptionally well-paced dialogue. The sparseness of Schweblin’s prose, translated by Megan McDowell, anchors this strange conversation and keeps it from becoming disorienting. 

Minimalist yet complex, monochromatic yet textured, Fever Dream is a delicate and marvelously constructed tale, like a bundle of our darkest worries artfully arranged into our own likeness.

This article was originally published in the January 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook

Just when you think you’ve got things straight, Christopher Brookmyre throws you another curveball in his newest book, Black Widow. Brookmyre builds layers of intrigue like a chef crafting a multilayer cake, with each layer providing another tantalizing clue or red herring to keep readers guessing. But no matter how diligently readers strive to piece everything together, it’s doubtful anyone will see the final twist before its reveal.

The “black widow” in the title is Dr. Diana Jager, a successful surgeon and outspoken critic of sexism in medicine on her blog. Her pulls-no-punches social media diatribes ultimately land her in hot water when a hacker reveals her true identity, bringing her career crashing down on her. Vulnerable for the first time in her life, she finds comfort in a young IT specialist, Peter. After a whirlwind romance, the pair marry and appear to resume a semblance of a normal life. Until Peter is killed in a car crash.

Brookmyre, who is a popular crime novelist in Scotland with 18 previous novels and multiple awards to show for it, brings his longtime investigative reporter Jack Parlabane into the mix when Peter’s sister, Lucy, implores him to find the truth behind Peter’s death. Specifically, she steers him toward Diana as a suspect, and before long the trail of clues and evidence seem to bear her out.

But, as with any Brookmyre novel, not everything is as simple as it appears. While the narrative takes on a decidedly slow build toward its multiple twist ending, Brookmyre keeps things interesting by mixing up his narrators from chapter to chapter. Part of the story is told directly through Diana’s eyes in a first-person narrative, while other chapters look over Jack’s shoulders. Still other chapters are seen through the eyes of the police, who are trying their best to make sense of what happened as well.

Not everything you read should be taken at face value, and there will be surprises in store, no matter who you believe.