Small Casts, Big Suspense

Focusing on just a few characters, these YA thrillers and mysteries are packed with subterfuge, subtle clues, and lots of tension. Click on the book title to place your TBPL holds!

The Girl in the Wall by Daphne Benedis-Grab: Former best friends Ariel and Sera must work together to survive when terrorists attack Ariel’s birthday, intent on getting at her father, a rich industrialist.

The Compound by S A Bodeen: After his parents, two sisters, and he have spent six years in a vast underground compound built by his wealthy father to protect them from a nuclear holocaust, fifteen-year-old Eli, whose twin brother and grandmother were left behind, discovers that his father has perpetrated a monstrous hoax on them all.

The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks: Sixteen-year-old Linus Weems, a street person since leaving his wealthy father’s home, is kidnapped and taken to an underground bunker where he is soon joined by five others, ranging in age from nine to seventy, who are alternately cared for and tortured by their unseen captor.

The Devil You Know by Trish Doller: Exhausted and rebellious after three years of working for her father and mothering her brother, eighteen-year-old Arcadia “Cadie” Wells joins two cousins who are camping their way through Florida, soon learning that one is a murderer.

The Rules by Nancy Holder: High school junior Robin Brissett accompanies her best friend, Beth, to the hottest party of the year knowing there will be alcohol, drugs, sex, and a scavenger hunt designed to scare and thrill, but this year the school’s elite are not the hunters but the hunted.

Ten by Gretchen McNeil: Ten teens head to a house party at a remote island mansion off the Washington coast … only for them to picked off by a killer one by one.

What Waits in the Woods by Kieran Scott: A hiking trip in the woods in upstate New York is out of the comfort zone for sixteen-year-old city girl Callie Velasquez, but she wants to bond with her new friends Lissa and Penelope, not to mention her new boyfriend, Jeremy–however, nothing could have prepared her for the true human darkness that waits for her in the wood.

Welcome to the Dark House by Laurie Faria Stolarz: Seven super fans have won the trip of a lifetime to meet the master of horror, legendary film director Justin Blake. But things quickly go from delightfully dark to dangerously deadly, when Ivy, Parker, Shayla, Natalie, Frankie, and Garth find themselves trapped in an abandoned amusement park. To earn a ticket out, they must face their darkest demons one ride at a time.

Extra Credit: Adult Fiction

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie: First, there were ten – a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they’re unwilling to reveal – and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. And only the dead are above suspicion.