Thrillers to take winter's chill off

4 novels offer red-hot suspense

By Carol Memmott
USA TODAY

There's no doubt about it: A good thriller or spy novel takes the edge off those long winter nights. A sampling of this season's finest:

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Over the Shoulder: A Novel of Intrigue by Leonard Chang (HarperCollins, $26). Every once in a while, a reader is introduced to an unfamiliar author and is overjoyed by the discovery. Chang's third book is dark and complicated, with a Hitchcockian flair.

The protagonist is Allen Choice, a man lost in a quagmire of loneliness and an inability to find himself. With no family life, no friends, no identity (he's Korean-American but doesn't even have an Asian surname), Choice is unwillingly sucked into a load of trouble when his partner at a security firm is shot and killed. He becomes emotionally entangled with newspaper reporter Linda Maldonado, as their search for the killer drags up links to the suspicious death of Choice's father 20 years before.

Like Hitchcock's The Wrong Man, the innocent Choice becomes the prime suspect. The search for the killers is frustrating, laced with acts of violence and all-too-human reactions. Realistic racial and family tensions make this a winner.

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USA Today, Thursday, February 22, 2001
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