You're Hunting for a Thriller

Own a knock-off bag or are dreaming of the beach

Hi friends,

Hope you’re doing well. Life intervened in my writing time this weekend so I’m spotlighting a few favorites from my archives. I’ll be back next week with new picks.

And, now, what to read if…

You Want to Read One of My Favorite Thrillers

Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

I pushed Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden on a coworker last week and realized I should re-up it here as well.

Winter Counts opens with Virgil Wounded Horse beating up a high school teacher who molested students. Virgil is an enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. When the U.S. or tribal justice systems fail, members of the reservation hire Virgil to get vengeance. After heroin begins to appear on the reservation and Virgil’s own nephew nearly dies of an overdose, the vigilante launches an investigation, seeking to end the drug trade.

Weiden, an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota nation, is a brilliant writer. He delivers a cast of fleshed-out characters and a tightly plotted mystery in a setting that is so often ignored. I’m hoping it’s the start of a long-running mystery series focused on Virgil.

You’ve Ever Bought a Knock-Off Purse

Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen

I devoured the audiobook of Counterfeit, stealing minutes to listen here and there. It’s a rollicking ride of a novel about two Asian American women who build a multimillion-dollar counterfeit handbag ring.

At the novel’s beginning, Ava Wong, a corporate-lawyer-turned-stay-at-home-mom struggling to manage her toddler’s tantrums, reunites with Winnie Fang, her former roommate at Stanford. Winnie dropped out before finishing her first semester, caught up in a scandal of Chinese students paying others to boost their SAT scores. Now, she has a new scheme. She purchases luxury bags at boutiques and department stores and then returns perfectly made replicas, pocketing the refund. On top of that, she sells the original, authentic bags. Ava, lost and floundering, tepidly joins her ring and eventually becomes Winnie’s deputy.

As Camille Peri noted in her New York Times review, “Make no mistake, Counterfeit is an entertaining, luxurious read — but beneath its glitz and flash, it is also a shrewd deconstruction of the American dream and the myth of the model minority.” It’s the kind of brilliant, frothy book that tricks you into thinking and will stick with you long after you read it. A perfect pick for fans of the movie “Hustlers.”

You’re Ready to be Beachside

Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me by Adrienne Brodeur

I think we’re all hoping it’s a bit easier to get to the beach this summer. If you’re counting down the days until you have the sand between your toes, pick up a copy of Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur. Large portions of the memoir take place at her step-father’s Cape Cod beach house, and it’s one of those books where the setting almost becomes another character.

Wild Game is perfectly named. Every time I try to describe it, the first word that comes to mind is “wild.” In the book, Brodeur recounts the years she spent — starting at age 15 — facilitating her mother’s affair with her step-father’s best friend. She came up with excuses for them to spend time together, even serving as a chaperone. When the couple concocts a plan to write a wild game cookbook as an excuse to spend time together, Brodeur helps make it happen.

It’s a memoir that reads more like a thriller, with gripping tension. I was, at times, stressed that the affair would be discovered and, other times, desperately hoping it would all be exposed so the family could begin to rebuild.

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