They Came to Baghdad

 Fiction by Agatha Christie

https://www.audible.com

This was a fun story of the "intrepid young heroine" variety, like The Man in the Brown Suit.

Victoria Jones heads to Baghdad in search of adventure, and finds it when a young man stumbles into her hotel and dies!

I also read recently by this author: They do it with Mirrors

The Driver

 Fiction by Hart Hanson

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Ex-soldier Mickey Skelling owns a limo service that employs a couple of wounded veterans and the Afghan interpreter he smuggled into the country. At the beginning of this story, Mickey saves the life of Bismarck Avila, a rich celebrity client. Avila makes Mickey an offer he can't refuse, and Mickey ends up working for Avila exclusively. But Avila's last driver was murdered, and Mickey needs to figure out how to keep that from happening again.

This was an exciting story with interesting characters and some funny dialogue. I really liked it.

Local Woman Missing

 Fiction by Mary Kubica 

https://www.audible.com

Shelby Tebow goes for a run late one evening and never comes home. In the same neighborhood,  Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter vanish two weeks later. Eleven years later, Delilah is found alive. What happened to Shelby and Meredith? Where has Delilah been? 

This story is told in two different time frames, and from several perspectives, keeping the reader intrigued and guessing. The twist at the end was very unexpected!

I also read by this author: Don't You Cry 

The Reckless Oath We Made

 Fiction by Bryn Greenwood

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This author can write the craziest and yet most believable characters I've ever seen!

Zhorzha Trego (called Zee for short) is already having a tough night, and to top it all off, she's got to drag her five-year-old nephew on a drug run. Zee's sister LaReigne didn't come back from her volunteer job (as a Wiccan prison minister!) in time to relieve Zee from babysitting duty, and so Zee is stuck taking the poor kid along to haul suitcases full of dope over state lines.

Then Zee finds out that LaReigne didn't come home because she was abducted during a prison breakout. She can't go back to the apartment she and her sister share because the cops are there. She can't stay at their mother's house, because the woman is a hoarder and there is literally no room to even  lie down. What next? How about the fact that Zee has a stalker, an autistic man called Gentry who actually thinks he's a seventeenth century knight?

This is such an amazing book. I loved it!

I also read by this author: All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

Discordia

Audible Original Fiction by Max Barry

https://www.audible.com

At the beginning of this story, a guy called Diego is digging a hole on the beach in Malibu. A really big hole. Why? Because some rich guy is paying him to do it. At the same time, cell service and internet connections go down everywhere, and the radio and TV report that the country is under attack. By whom? Nobody knows. Then Diego finds a mysterious box in the hole he's been digging, and his employer wants him to open it. What's inside? You'll never guess...

This was a fun little story that I really enjoyed.

I also listened to recently by Audible Originals: Second Skin

Counted With the Stars

 Fiction by Connilyn Cossette

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This book is a novelization of the Hebrew people's exodus from Egypt. It is the beginning of a trilogy.

I liked it at the beginning but had trouble staying interested as the story went on; I'm not sure if this is because I knew exactly what would happen (it's in the Bible) or because I didn't like the writing style. Maybe I'm just distracted right now, but I didn't really care what happened to the characters.

In any case, this was an okay book but I didn't love it. I'm not sure if I want to invest in the other two books or not.

Boy Underground

 Fiction by Catherine Ryan Hyde

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Fourteen-year-old Steven feels like an outcast in his small California farming community; he's not like the other kids, or even like the people in his own family, because he's attracted to boys and not girls. He finally finds a group of non-judgmental boys he feels accepted by and takes a camping trip into the mountains with Nick, Ollie, and Suki.

The thing is, the weekend trip begins on December 6, 1941, and Suki is Japanese. The four boys come back to a world where everything has been changed: there has been an attack on Pearl Harbor and the US has been plunged into war. Steven feels even more oppressed in his tiny hometown now that racism as well as homophobia is a problem. Plus his friends are all in trouble: Suki might be sent to an interment camp, Ollie is almost old enough to be drafted, and Nick is being accused of a crime he didn't commit. 

This was good character story with a lot to think about. I did feel like the author was trying to force a contemporary issue into a historical setting, though. 

I also read recently by this author: Jumpstart the World