Lisa Towles is an innovative and inventive author from California who writes thrillers which share a common characteristic – each takes a well-worn plot-line or narrative within the genre, and gives it a distinctive twist.
CHOKE (2017)
Kerry Stine’s plan to rebuild her life goes into freefall when a patient vanishes from San Francisco General Hospital on her watch, thrusting her down a rabbit hole that leads to a past from which she can no longer escape. Out of work, terrified and running from the police, she trust no one and every step pushes her further away from logic and reality. 3000 miles away scientist Adrian Calhoun has developed a cigarette that cures lung cancer and he’s hellbent or distributing his miracle cure before the nig pharma mafia gets to him first. Kidnapped by his pursuers he is held prisoner in exchange for the chemical formula to his invention. His path crosses that of Kerry, and when the threads finally knit together Kerry discovers that what she and Adrian Calhoun have in common will return to her pieces of her past she never knew she’d lost.
THE UNSEEN (2019)
Ancient scrolls discovered by Rachel Careski threaten the power of the church. Descendants, of Pope Theopolis sworn to protect Christianity, believe Soren Careski took possession of them after Rachel disappeared, but he is dead. 40 years later Soren’s son Alex Careski receives an email from a dead man, he is fired from his job, shot at, his car is rammed and his wife Simone is kidnapped. In London meanwhile, two rare books go missing from the British Museum. The director of antiquities disappears, her colleague is murdered and her would-be lover is caught up in the intrigue. Soren left boxes of diaries in Alex’s cell: will they help unravel the truth about the disappearances of Alex’s wife father and aunt? Desperate for answers, he travels to Italy where he is kidnapped along with an enterprising young woman who is also embroiled in the deadly mysteries of the ancient scrolls.
NINETY-FIVE (2021)
Troubled University of Chicago student Zak Skinner accidentally uncovers evidence of an on-campus organised crime scam involving drugging students, getting them to commit crimes on camera and blackmailing them to continue their misdeeds under the threat of expulsion. Digging deeper, Zak discovers that the university scam is just the tip of the iceberg as it’s connected to a broader ring of crimes, themselves linked to a darkweb underworld. Following clues, Zak is led to a compound within Chicago’s abandoned Steelworker Park only to discover that he is being hunted. While trying to find his way out alive, Zak discovers that there is something much more personal he has been running from – his past. And now he has nowhere to hide.
HOT HOUSE (2021)
Former CIA operative and private investigator Mari Ellwyn teams up with seasoned investigator and former detective Derek Abernathy to look into the wrongful death of Sophie Michaud, a mentally ill college student whose murder is linked to Mari’s missing father. Two journalists – one dead, one missing – were writing a story on the dead college student with allegations about her connection to a federal judge. The two investigators must uncover the truth about Sophie Michaud before her killer makes them the next target. More importantly, Mari needs to find her missing father and reconcile her broken past and family.
THE RIDDERS (2022)
Brock “BJ” Janoff and his older brother Jonas run a private investigation firm in Venice California. BJ is randomly approached by a stranger on the street with a proposition he cannot refuse – $1 million to deliver a single envelope to a hotel lobby. They pay him upfront which sounds good on the surface, but now BJ’s life is in danger if he he doesn’t deliver the envelope in time. Obsessed with the envelope’s contents, BJ follows clues to investigate the people behind what he believes is an organised crime scam. When an act of brilliance changes the balance of power, the safety of everyone he loves is in jeopardy. The more he digs, the closer he gets to truths he cannot bear to face about the elusive Biderberg Group, his missing father and about the fate of his friends and family.
SALT ISLAND (2023)
The private investigation team of Mari Elwyn and Derek Abernathy are tested to the extreme with two new cases involving high-stakes corporate espionage and eco – terrorism. Someone is trying to sabotage billionaire CEO Jack Darcy’s reputation and – to complicate matters – his glamorous wife has gone missing. THRYVE, Darcy’s high-profile environmental start-up is lauded by investors as one of the best innovations of the decade, but a journalist has learned Darcy’s dirty little secret and is hellbent on exposing it to investors and the world at large. In a separate case Derek heads to the central valley to investigate two suspicious deaths from an explosion on a local farm. The deeper he digs, more questions emerge about what the murdered farm workers may have witnessed – toxic chemical dumping linked to an oil and gas company. A shadow witness is gathering evidence, but disappears before Derek can get to her. As Mari considers her next move in the Darcy case, her partner has gone undercover to find the missing witness and now he’s off grid. Mari must reckon with powerful ghosts from her past – a missing father and the truth about his double identity and secret agenda. She embarks on her own investigation to the British Virgin islands, one of her father’s secret haunts during his time as a CIA man. She uncovered details too painful to bear about her father herself and her future.
isa Towles is a California Girl by residence, but she hails from New England. She writes crime novels when she isn’t putting her IT Management MBA to good use in The Sunshine State’s tech industry. Long time followers of Fully Booked will recall my enthusiastic review of her earlier book Choke (2017) and will remember that I began that review with the words:
She is back with a vengeance – and that same imaginative flair – with her new mystery thriller The Unseen and the action is just as breathless. We have a story that spans five decades and whirls us between Dublin, the Egyptian desert, Boston Massachusetts, London and Rome. With a cast of larger-than-life characters including archaeologists, journalists, hit men – and a direct descendant of an Eastern Orthodox Pope – the story is never short of surprises and dramatic twists.
hat starts off in a rather Indiana Jones vein quickly morphs into Robert Langdon territory and there’s no shortage of rapidly-changing locations, sinister ancient manuscripts and malevolent religious freaks. Lisa Towles shows great skill in taking these well-visited elements and stamping her own imprint on them. The Unseen is published by 9mm Press 
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