The Woman in the Window

A.J. Finn

The narrator of this thriller—an homage to Hitchcock’s Rear Window—is an agoraphobe who watches noir films, snaps photos of her neighbors, and imbibes wine and pills throughout the day. She’s a psychologist who’s been reduced to practicing on an online forum for fellow agoraphobes. When she believes she’s witnessed a murder in the house across the park, the narrator can find no one to believe her—and it’s not clear to the reader whether she’s hallucinated the events or been gaslighted by one of the neighbors. Short chapters and a taut plot make this a good summer read. The book contains a smattering of obscenities throughout.

After Anna

Lisa Scottoline

This page-turning thriller begins with a happy family: a widower, his son, and the kind woman he marries. Then the woman’s long-lost daughter makes contact—and everything changes. The book alternates between the recent past when the daughter came into their lives, and the present, with the father on trial for murder after the daughter levels an accusation of sexual assault against him. Lisa Scottoline is a lawyer by training, and her courtroom scenes snap. She manages to write realistic dialogue while limiting her use of obscenities. The book would be better without its too-tidy ending.

The Rooster Bar

John Grisham

John Grisham’s legal thriller focuses on mediocre students who take on enormous debt to attend a third-rate law school. One mentally ill student can’t deal with the stress and kills himself. His friends realize they’ll never land good law firm jobs. They may not even pass the bar exam—so they set out to expose the rotten system, not bothering to graduate before beginning to hand out legal advice. Like most Grisham novels, this one identifies a real problem. Its language is cleaner than most, but the book lacks likable protagonists. Their cynicism, ethical corner-cutting, and slacker mentality make the novel drag.

Death Notice

Zhou Haohui

According to the publisher, this thriller is China’s biggest-selling suspense novel. Set in Chengdu, it’s a complicated story about Eumenides, a vigilante who murders criminals who have escaped punishment. He sends both victims and police notices warning of the impending deaths. As the police investigate, they discover a connection to crimes 18 years earlier, but the special investigative squad seems unable to put together the puzzle and stop the vigilante. This first book in a trilogy offers a peek into Chinese popular culture and issues of police corruption. Some graphic violence and language.

War child

You’ve likely seen Kim Phuc Phan Thi before—she’s the girl running naked from a napalm attack in the famed Vietnam War photo by Nick Ut. Phan’s autobiography, Fire Road: The Napalm Girl’s Journey Through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness, and Peace (Tyndale Momentum, 2017), depicts how that day changed her life.

The napalm burns left her with severe pain. Vietnam’s Communist government used her as a propaganda tool. The traumatic experience left her feeling angry and depressed. Yet Christians around the world prayed for that little girl in the photo, and Phan came to profess faith in Christ.

She eventually escaped to Canada and later forgave her government handlers, the soldiers who bombed her village, and others who had wronged her. Eventually her entire family (including her seven siblings) professed faith in Christ. —Angela Lu