Absence of Light: A Charlie Fox Thriller

In Sharp’s crackling 11th thriller featuring bodyguard and security expert Charlie Fox (after 2013’s Die Easy), Charlie is dropped into the middle of an earthquake zone (in an unspecified locale) to help with a search and rescue mission. She’s going in place of security agent Kyle Stephens, who met a supposedly accidental death in Colombia while helping at a mud-slide disaster scene a few weeks earlier. In addition to looking into what happened to Kyle, the formidable, no-nonsense Charlie must investigate a number of reported thefts, from the earthquake victims no less, and she doesn’t quite know whom to trust. It soon becomes evident that finding out the truth might not be partnered with getting home alive. Meanwhile, Charlie is still reeling after her lover, Sean Meyer, a colleague in the close-protection industry, came out of a coma with no memory of their romance and is now missing. The razor-edged action builds to a clever, poignant closing twist. (July)