Vicious Circle, which seems like a rather appropriate title given the ending of Off The Grid, features a slick-looking cover with an attractive orange color scheme.

**SPOILER ALERT** If you haven’t read Off The Grid yet, skip this section and start reading after the jump!

In the final pages off Off The Grid,  Joe Pickett is nearly home from his adventure in the Red Dessert when his phone displays a notification signaling that he has a new email. Looking down, Joe sees that the email is from the Wyoming Department of Corrections and that the subject line reads “Dallas Cates.”

Cates, of course, is one of the antagonists, along with his entire miserable family, in Box’s fifteenth Pickett novel, Endangered. After being locked up for his involvement in assaulting April Pickett, as well as the kidnapping of Olivia Brennan (Nate Romanowski’s girlfriend), it appears that Cates’s story and history with the Pickett’s is about to come full circle. Viciously!

While no official release date has been given, Vicious Circle is expected to hit bookstores in early 2017, likely sometime during March. While it’s not yet available for pre-order, I will update this article just as soon as it is, so make sure to check back often! 

The post Book Announcement: C.J. Box’s Seventeenth Joe Pickett Novel, ‘Vicious Circle,’ To Hit Bookstores Next March first appeared on The Real Book Spy.

They can also serve as the perfect appetizer story to a full-course novel, a tactic many of today’s most famous authors use to keep their readers’ hunger in check. Therefore, I’ve compiled a list of twenty short stories (broken down into two separate articles) that I personally recommend thriller fans check out.

Start with these ten awesome mini-reads, and check back for the second part of the list in July!

1.) The Athens Solution – Brad Thor

The Athens Solution is Brad Thor’s first ever short story and was originally part of the International Thriller Writers anthology, titled Thriller. Thor released an updated version of the short story on Kindle back in December of last year, which also includes an exclusive afterword.

So why does The Athens Solution come in at #1 on our list? Simply put, nobody packs as much action into fifty pages as Brad Thor!

When a new type of super-weapon falls into the wrong hands, the U.S. Ambassador to Greece is tasked with recovering it. Things take a shadowy turn, making The Athens Solution heavy on conspiracy–which is why Scot Harvath is brought into the fold. As a traitor emerges, Harvath takes him on in pulse-pounding, high-octane fashion.

Soon, bullets are flying and pages are turning as readers race to see how this story comes to a close. Trust me, it’s well worth the $0.99 price tag, and then some.

Click here to purchase!

2.) White Death – Ted Bell

I’ve been saying for a long time that Ted Bell (along with Daniel Silva) is one of the best pure writers penning thrillers today. Bell’s Alex Hawke series is as good as any, and a must-read for fans of political thrillers.

The majority of Bell’s novels are a little on the long side (hey, I’m not complaining, I’ll take all that I can get!) and feature his mesmerizing writing style intertwined with action. A true wordsmith, Bell writes with a unique cadence to his  dialogue and sentence structure. For this reason, it’s easy to read his books slowly, savoring each and every page.

While Bell’s novels are a savory treat, his short stories pack a quick knockout punch that will thrill readers and leave them begging for more. This is especially true with White Death, Bell’s second novella about a conspiracy involving a Swiss banker who is found dead high up in the Alps.

When concerns rise over the banker’s connection to the British royal family, the Chief of British Intelligence calls on MI6 officer Alex Hawke to collect the pieces and solve the puzzle. But to do that, Hawke must make the dangerous climb up a portion of the Swiss Alps that is essentially a sheet of ice, in less than favorable conditions–and that’s only the beginning.

Coming in at just over two hundred pages, Ted Bell packs a stunning amount of substance into White Death. Plus, he brings the action–and plenty of it.

Click here to purchase!

3.) Plan B – Joseph Finder

Joseph Finder is a master novelist, known primarily for penning standalone stories–which he did for years before finally settling on a series protagonist named Nick Heller. 

Heller, a private spy for hire, is a brilliantly crafted character. He’s introduced in Vanished (2009) and returned for Buried Secrets (2011). The third novel in the series, Guilty Minds, comes out this July and is one of my very favorite books of the year. 

Plan B takes place between Vanished and Buried Secrets and features an action-packed kidnapping plot that will keep readers guessing until the final page. 

On a job in Barcelona, Nick Heller is tasked with rescuing a girl who is being held inside a secure compound against her will. Plan A is to get inside, grab the girl, and then get back out without setting off the alarm or alerting any guards. Things, though, don’t go according to plan, so Heller is forced to switch to Plan B. 

I feel like I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t warn you that this story ends pretty abruptly. Just as you’re settling in, ready to spend the day following Nick around, it’s over. It will definitely leave you jonesing for more, which is okay since your fix is right around the corner with Guilty Minds. 

Click here to purchase!

4.) Gut Instinct – Brad Taylor

Gut Instinct takes place between Brad Taylor’s full-length novels All Necessary Force and Enemy of Mine, which are the second and third books in his Pike Logan series. 

In Gut Instinct, Pike Logan is recovering from injuries he previously sustained. In fact, Pike isn’t of much use, nor is he the main character here. Jennifer Cahil is, taking the lead when another Taskforce team needs a female operative for a specific mission. 

Earlier in the series, Jennifer runs into her ex-husband, Chase, who is a real piece of work. After being physically abused by him for years, Jennifer finally unleashes on Chase–delivering him a thorough beating from head to toe.  Beyond that, the story revolves around a terrorist plot and Jennifer’s “gut instinct” that Taskforce leaders are zeroing in on the wrong targets. Following her own intuition, she and Pike take matters into their own hands.

This short story is a real treat for fans of Taylor’s Pike Logan series and anyone else looking for a quick, awesome read. 

Click here to purchase!

5.) Tracker – James Rollins

Falling between The Devil Colony (2011) and Bloodline (2012), this Sigma Force short story follows Tucker Wayne and his war dog, Kane, as they attempt to help a woman in search of her father. 

Set on the streets of Budapest, Tucker and Kane find themselves mixed up in some trouble when they observe an attractive young woman, Aliza, being followed. Stepping in to save her, they discover that she’s searching for her father, who was kidnapped while searching for Jewish treasures that had been confiscated from the Nazis many years prior. 

Upon learning that the men following Aliza are actually NSZ (Hungary’s equivalent of America’s FBI), Tucker forms a plan and takes action–using Kane, a Belgian Malinois Shepherd, as his secret weapon. 

The only drawback to this short story is that it’s a tad too short and left more to be desired. In the long run, that’s fine, as Rollins has since teamed with Grant Blackwood to write two full-length Tucker Wayne (and Kane) spinoff novels: The Killswitch and War Hawk.  

Click here to purchase!

6.) Soft Targets – John Gilstrap

John Gilstrap writes one of the most underrated series in the thriller genre. His Jonathan Grave franchise is the real deal, and Gilstrap keeps getting better and better with each new book.

Soft Targets is essentially an introduction to the entire series, going back and showing a glimpse of Grave during his younger days–and how he got into the hostage and rescuing business in the first place.

When FBI Agent Irene Rivers’ (who later on in the series becomes the Director) daughters are kidnapped by a man who is both a murderer and a child molester, she becomes desperate to get them back. The problem is that Irene has sworn to follow the law at all times, and the law isn’t getting her anywhere. Therefore, she turns to a man who operates outside of the law.

Jonathan Grave works in the shadows, willing to break whatever laws necessary to help his clients. Especially this time! 

Coming in at just over a hundred pages, Soft Targets is a fun, action-packed read that provides much-needed insight into Gilstrap’s main hero.

Click here to purchase!

7.) Bullseye – David Baldacci 

With multiple hit series to his name, David Baldacci is one of the most famous–and best-selling–authors on the planet. This novella marks the first time Baldacci merged two of his franchises, mixing super assassin Will Robie with Oliver Stone from The Camel Club. 

Oliver and Robie just happen to be among those present during a bank robbery and are both taken hostage along with the rest of the innocent bystanders. It doesn’t take long, though, for both men to realize there is more than just a heist at play.

The fun starts when the duo decides to team up to stop the bad guys, mixing in old school tactics (Oliver) with younger, brute force (Robie). The two characters, with so vastly different personalities, are a real treat to read together. Their flaws come out, making Bullseye one of the few novellas or short stories that actually add depth to a leading, series-starring character–and in this case, two of them!

Note: This short story was originally written to hold off readers’ appetites leading up to the release of Baldacci’s third novel in his Will Robie series, The Hit. There’s been another full-length novel added to the franchise since then called The Guilty. Bullseye can be read out of order or by new readers of the series, as it’s a standalone story.

Click here to purchase! 

8.) Switchblade – Michael Connelly 

Written and released just before Michael Connelly’s twenty-third Harry Bosch novel, The Crossing, this short story features Connelly’s fictional LAPD detective following up an anonymous tip about a crime that’s remained unsolved for decades. 

The cold case that needs solving revolves around a teenage prostitute who was murdered in the early 1990s. When a well-informed tip comes in, Bosch has to find a way to prove it without the benefit of a body, DNA, or a crime scene to analyze. Fear not, though, because he has a few tricks up his sleeve and immediately gets busy looking for answers. 

Switchblade, released on Kindle, is only a tick over twenty pages long, but what it lacks in length, it more than makes up for with a surprising twist at the end. Connelly’s short story is a fun, easy read for anyone on the hunt for a good, quick mystery story. 

Click here to purchase!

9.) The Master Falconer – C.J. Box

C.J. Box’s most famous character, without question, is Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett. Joe, the protagonist of sixteen novels, including this year’s Off The Grid (one of my personal favorites so far in 2016), is loved by fans because he is so relatable. Your average hard-working family man just busting his hump to make ends meet, Joe Pickett is just like the rest of us. 

So while Joe is the affable, everyday red-blooded American, Box’s most mysterious (and lethal) character is Nate Romanowski–who was first introduced in the third Pickett novel, Winterkill. 

Nate is a master falconer who, before hunting with his birds, was an elite Special Forces soldier. While Joe is a lousy shot with his state-issued pistol and anything but a tough-guy, Nate is the total opposite. Packing one of the world’s most powerful handguns, which he shoots with incredible accuracy, Romanowski is the type of larger-than-life character you’d expect to see starring in this particular genre. 

This short story, which sees Nate taking on a shadowy figure who comes looking for some trouble, does a terrific job filling in some of the holes from Romanowski’s past. If you’re a fan of this series, you simply have to read this eBook special! 

Click here to purchase! 

10.) Deep Down – Lee Child

In this exhilarating short story, released as an eBook special on Kindle, Jack Reacher must find a way to expose a mole who is leaking classified information. 

Someone is whispering secrets about a new state-of-the-art, high-powered sniper rifle designed for the United States Special Forces. The government, in an effort to make sure this information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, tabs Reacher to plug the leak. 

In Washington, Reacher is tasked with meeting and having drinks with four officers, during which he is to try and expose one of them as the mole in question. This mission, which is supposed to be quick and easy, turns into anything but, as Reacher once again finds himself in a situation that is more dangerous than he originally thought possible.

Click here to purchase!

The post Twenty Short Stories That Pack a Full-Size Punch: Part 1 first appeared on The Real Book Spy.

Note: This awesome review was written by my friend and fellow thriller fan, Beth Soles. See more details about her at the bottom of the page! 

While trying to decide which epic novel by CJ Box I would review, I kept going forth and back (you really can’t go back until you’ve gone forth) between Back of Beyond and The Highway –Back, being the first Cody Hoyt novel, and Highway being the second. While I enjoyed them both immensely, I decided to go with The Highway because it’s the one that shows the world that CJ Box has cojones. Big cojones.  You’ll see what I mean around chapter… never mind. You’ll get there.

When Box decides to make a character realistic and flawed, he does it very well. He doesn’t sugarcoat anything, and it is never a simple fix, but a flaw or a struggle that doesn’t ever go away completely. Box gets the balance right between story and the character development, knowing that a good story needs both, and needs it to be well balanced.

The Highway starts off where Back of Beyond leaves off for Cody, a recovering alcoholic. He’s holding onto his job by a thread when the thread suddenly snaps and he’s  plunged into utter despair. He knows he’ll never get another law enforcement job, and that it will wreck havoc on any chance he may have had in restoring his marriage. The inevitable happens:  he falls off the wagon, and it backs over his head.  What could be worse?  Enter Cody’s son with news about two of his friends who have suddenly gone incommunicado while on their way to visit him.

Hoyt is one hot mess, but he’s a brilliant cop, and he’s likable in spite of his flaws. You want to root for Hoyt to get his life in order, and you know he can, but will he stay sober long enough to find the missing girls before it’s too late?

When we first meet Cassandra Dewell, she’s spying on her partner, Hoyt, while eating a chocolate covered doughnuts. Cassie (thank you CJ for not making her a Victoria Secret model-turned-cop, I will forever love you for making her normal), like Hoyt, is flawed, but in different ways. She’s still new on the job, but she is smart, and a fast learner.  Hard on herself for her role in Cody’s downfall, she tracks him down to apologize for her role in his demise.

And then everything goes sideways, forcing Cassie to up her game, find her confidence to help Hoyt out.  Along the way,  she often asks herself “What Would Cody Do,” and she realizes that even though sometimes his methods may, ummm, skirt the law, was it always wrong?

Regardless of the subject matter, which is difficult to stomach, the story is perfectly crafted and told convincingly.  Never over-the-top descriptive with details of “the crimes,” there’s just enough to let your imagination fill in the rest.

The characters in all of Box’s books seem so real that you might would run into them if you traveled in their neck of the woods. Some you’d love to meet, others — like The Lizard King —you’d rather not. CJ Box is a six-star writer on a five-star scale. If you haven’t met his characters, it’s about time you did.

Book Details

Author: C.J. Box

Pages: 400 (Hardcover)

Publisher:  Minotaur Books

Release Date: July 30, 2013 (Order now!)

About the guest reviewer 

Beth Soles is a writer, editor, and graphic designer for Shannon Miller Lifestyle, as well as a freelance editor. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in writing and editing from Western Carolina University where she studied under Edgar Award-winning author, Rick Boyer. A fan of thrillers and mysteries, writing reviews is a new venture that she hopes will help new and established authors and readers find each other.

The post Throwback Thursday: ‘The Highway’ by C.J. Box first appeared on The Real Book Spy.

Off The Grid (which came out on March 8th) is one of my favorite books so far this year, and the second highest rated book on our 2016 Ratings Board. It’s a must-read for all fans of the thriller genre, whether you’ve read any of the previous fifteen books in the series or not. Newcomers can absolutely pick this book up and fall in the love the characters, plus follow the story line, with ease.

Here’s a quick picture of The New York Times list, taken from Box’s official Facebook page:

(Note: Off The Grid is #1 on the fiction hardcover list, I’ll update later to include it’s rating under the eBook and eBook/Print Combination categories)

If you haven’t already, order Off The Grid today by clicking here! 

The post C.J. Box’s ‘Off The Grid’ Debuts as #1 on The New York Times Bestsellers List! first appeared on The Real Book Spy.

Here’s his post–which you can visit by clicking here. Scroll down to read why I couldn’t be happier with today’s announcement, even though I’d love to see a Joe Pickett television series in the future. 

Look, I’d love to see a Joe Picket TV series as much as any other fan of the novels, but only if it’s done right. That means, as Box stated, that the integrity of the characters and everything else he’s built over the course of sixteen novels (including tomorrow’s Off The Grid) must be preserved. Otherwise, what’s the point? 

A lot of authors, but certainly not all of them, give up creative control once they sell the rights to their novels. I applaud C.J. Box for caring more about keeping things true to the stories he created, which we as fans have loved for many years and hold near and dear to our Pickett-loving hearts. 

Let’s face it, a Joe Picket television series not based closely on the books–isn’t even a Joe Pickett television series! It’s just a bunch of characters kind of like the ones in the books, running around bearing their names without embodying the traits and qualities we love and respect most about Box’s characters. Sorry Hollywood, we’ll wait for the real deal! 

Way to go Mr. Box, and thanks for putting your fans first yet again. 

The post BREAKING: C.J. Box Announces Joe Pickett TV Show has been Withdrawn from Producers first appeared on The Real Book Spy.