The atmosphere, attitude and ambiance in Emma Flint’s debut thriller, Little Deaths, tunes right into the era in which it’s set—that of 1965 New York. It’s a time full of female stereotypes, where law enforcement, juries, the press and the general public frequently pre-judge women on appearances, eager to denounce those who deviate from mom-and-apple-pie images of Norman Rockwell fantasies.

Ruth Malone is a single, working mother who discovers one morning that her two young children have gone missing from their beds. When their dead bodies surface days later and the case turns into one of murder, Ruth’s look and lifestyle immediately render her a prime suspect. She works long hours as a cocktail waitress; her makeup is heavy glam; she’s been known to sleep around and keeps a notebook of male “friends”; she’s not good at socializing with other women; and she dreams of finding that rich lover who’ll rescue her from her meager surroundings.

Local reporter Pete Wonicke gets assigned to the murder case, and he becomes increasingly obsessed with the case and attracted to what he believes is the real person beneath Ruth’s caricature of a surface. Lead detective Charlie Devlin is also obsessed, though in his eyes it’s “cherchez la femme”—for him, she is the obvious perpetrator to the exclusion of all other suspects. He’s a cop with a past, and he’ll do everything in his power to see that she’s found guilty of murder.

Ruth’s ex, Frank, was with his children shortly before they disappeared. He adds another voice to the narrative as the search for the guilty party heats up and readers sift through the stories and opinions from multiple sources.

As a thriller, Little Deaths succeeds as a fairly run-of-the-mill crime story with the usual collection of suspects, bad guys and sympathetic characters. However, as a psychological study of the subtle terror visited on a woman who is alone and essentially a victim herself, it’s superlative. The book effectively delivers a convulsive look at a woman trapped by circumstance and gender, skillfully tuned by the author to convey Ruth’s claustrophobic sense of fatalism.

There’s an unfinished feel to the end of the book, and some readers will consider the conclusion a cop-out. But in another way—and more effectively than a slam-bang finale—the final pages will embed readers in the real drama of Ruth’s descent—and perhaps her hope.

Former Marine lieutenant Peter Ash has a knack for finding trouble in the most unlikely of situations.

In Burning Bright, the fast-paced, action-heavy follow-up to Nicholas Petrie’s debut novel, The Drifter, Ash is trying his best to keep to himself and avoid the “white static” that comes with his frequent bouts of post-traumatic stress, while hiking among the redwoods of Northern California. But a hungry grizzly bear hell-bent on devouring Ash whole has other ideas, literally chasing him up a tree where he finds a damsel in distress, June Cassidy.

That may seem a bit of a stretch, but if you’re a fan of Jack Reacher-style action/thrillers, who cares? Because like Reacher, Ash is a hard-nosed, take-no-nonsense hero who prefers to shoot first and ask questions later. So just go with it.

Cassidy is on the run from ruthless covert operatives after a complex computer algorithm invented by her mother, who died in a mysterious car crash. The pseudo-government thugs believe Cassidy can lead them to the program, which can learn and adapt on its own. Ash and Cassidy pool their skills to trace the missing algorithm to its source: Cassidy’s equally mysterious father, a man known as The Albino. Ash could just as easily have escorted Cassidy to the nearest police station and wash hands of the whole mess, but that’s not in his nature. His outlook is much simpler and he even says so on page 252: “Get the bad guys. Save the girl.”

Petrie wastes no time or excess words as the first hundred pages rip by. Things calm down a bit in the middle as the book’s intrepid heroes attempt to solve the puzzle and explore their own feelings toward each other before ramping up again in an explosive finale.

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