Payback: A Brooks/Lotello Thriller

In Barak’s intriguing third mystery featuring retired federal judge Cyrus Brooks and homicide investigator Frank Lotello (after 2018’s The Puppet Master), Cyrus’s wife, Eloise, hopes to dampen her husband’s passion for engaging in hazardous investigations with Frank by encouraging his interest in novel writing instead. Eloise gets him to agree to attend Thriller Jubilee, a weeklong writers’ conference being held on an island off the coast of Spain, hosted by the International Thrillers Organization. Eloise, Frank, and Frank’s wife accompany Cyrus to the event. Chapters told from the perspective of an unidentified person, whose first shared thoughts are homicidal, raise the tension. Those intentions appear to have implications after several people slated to speak at TITO disappear. Adding depth are the debates among TITO’s leaders about the ethical obligation to warn the conference attendees about a potential killer in their midst. Fans of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None may appreciate this suspenseful homage. (Self-published)