Books to pack in your Beach Bag

book bagsA fold-into-nothing knit Hobo bag, this Verloop toe is equal part beach bag and book bag that comes with a bright interior and interior zip pocket. Now, that you have a bag, it’s time to choose the Mystery/Thriller you will read at the beach!

dead dropDead Drop by Jesse Miles

Jack Salvo teaches philosophy one night a week at a community college, but he pays his bills working as a private detective in Los Angeles. An aerospace company hires him to investigate a small-time embezzlement. It’s a piece of cake – a direct route to the embezzler and client with deep pockets. The company assigns a pretty, quick-witted security expert named Lilith Lin to work with him.

Salvo is looking forward to a big paycheck and a possible date with Lilith, when another embezzlement and a pair of corpses expand his investigation into more perilous territory. As Salvo searches for answers, from the bland L.A. suburbs to the tawdry sparkle of the Sunset Strip, he is grilled by suspicious LAPD detectives, punched in the face by a dazzling TV actress, and stalked by cold efficient killers.

Salvo’s investigative options are running out when he observes a mysterious exchange of information at a “dead drop” in a canyon near Beverly Hills. From there he descends into a labyrinth of espionage, kidnapping and murder orchestrated by a brilliant, perverted psychopath. Jack’s life and Lilith’s are at stake, as are stealth technology secrets that could impact national security.

shadow ritualShadow Ritual by Eric Giacometti and Jacques Ravenne

An electrifying thriller about the rise of extremism. Two ritual murders—one in Rome and one in Jerusalem—rekindles an ancient rivalry between modern-day secret societies for knowledge lost at the fall of the Third Reich.

Detective Antoine Marcas unwillingly teams up with the strong-willed Jade Zewinski to chase Neo-Nazi assassins across Europe. They must unravel an arcane mystery, sparked by information from newly revealed KGB files.

Inspired from the true story of mysterious Freemason files thought to hold a terrible secret, stolen by the SS in 1940, recovered by the Red Army in 1945 and returned half a century later.

First in a hugely successful series that has sold over 1.5 million copies in France and is translated into seventeen languages.

the death of a detectiveThe Death of the Detective: A Novel by Mark Smith

A killer calling himself The Deathmaker is on the loose, pursued by Arnold Magnuson, a grief-stricken detective on the verge of a mental breakdown.

Magnuson’s dogged investigation to find the killer, and himself, takes him deep into urban Chicago, laying bare the corrupt city and its seething soul in all its macabre, heartbreaking, and violent complexity.

It’s a sprawling, utterly compelling story, widely regarded as a stunning literary achievement and perhaps the best detective novel ever written.