This week, I’m pulling more thrillers that have been sitting on my TBR shelves for three or four years. I’ve picked two new-to-me authors whose books I bought because the publisher’s summary made them sound like they’d make great movies.
One is an FBI investigation of an unusual spree killer. This book apparently counts as historical fiction because the first killings take place on New Years Eve, 1999. The other novel has a plot wrapped around a familiar trope: bad guys take over a boat not knowing that there’s an ex-Black Ops specialist among the passengers. The twist is that the specialist is a woman with memory problems.
I hoping both will be fast-paced and entertaining.
“The Night Shift“ (2022) by Alex Finlay
It was the cover that got me to look at this book. If the text is half as atmospheric, I’ll be happy. I also like the idea of using the Blockbusters video store as an iconic 1990s setting. No one who was in a Blockbuster store in 1999 would have imagined that they’d be bankrupt a little over a decade later, making them a kind of generational marker.
I’m reading the audiobook, which has multiple narrators to help manage the shifting points of view. One of them is Brittany Pressley, who I normally enjoy listening to.
Alex Finlay has published four bestselling thrillers including the 2021 breakout EVERY LAST FEAR, the 2022 GoodReads Choice nominee for Best Mystery & Thriller, THE NIGHT SHIFT, the 2023 LibraryReads Hall of Fame recipient, WHAT HAVE WE DONE, and his latest 2024 release IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME.
Alex writes under a pen name and is a prominent Washington, D.C. lawyer who has represented clients in more than 40 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Water Memory” (2021) by Daniel Pyne
‘Water Memory‘ was a roll of the dice read that I picked up when it was offered for free on Amazon. I’ve had good experiences reading books written by people who are also successful screenwriters. They know how to sell a scene, keep the pace moving and keep the focus tight. I’m intrigued by the memory aspects of this book. If it’s done well, I’ll go looking for ‘Vital Lies‘, the second book in this series.
Daniel Pyne wanders restlessly between prose fiction and screenwriting. He is the author of Twentynine Palms, A Hole in the Ground Owned by a Liar, Fifty Mice, Catalina Eddy, Water Memory and Vital Lies.
Among Pyne’s film credits are Backstabbing For Beginners, the remake of The Manchurian Candidate, Pacific Heights, Any Given Sunday and Fracture.
Pyne’s television work spans from the seminal hipster cop show Miami Vice to Amazon TV’s longest running drama, Bosch.
Pyne has a BA from Stanford University, an MFA from UCLA’s Graduate School of Film, where he taught a seminar in screenwriting for a couple of decades.
Born in Chicago, raised in Colorado, Pyne lives in Los Angeles and Santa Fe with his wife, rescue dog Luna, and an extremely sullen box turtle his grown children left in their wake.
Mike Finn's Fiction 