Pre-Pandemic I would receive one or two books a day from publishers. That all stopped when publisher employees started working from home. It’s picked up a little lately but I’m still lucky to get 2-3 physical books (mostly advance reading copies) a week. So last Friday was a good day — I got two books! Yeah!

One was the new Don Bentley/Tom Clancy ZERO HOUR. I read the first one that Don wrote that came out last year and thought it was pretty good, so I’ll give this one a try.

Then I noticed the title of the second book that arrived — THE ZERO NIGHT by Brian Freeman, a Jonathan Stride novel. What are the chances of two books landing on my doorstep on the same day, both with “Zero” in the title?

Then last night I finished an excellent U. K. thriller called NEMESIS by Anthony Riches (Head of Zeus), which will be reviewed in the next issue of DP. I looked up the author to see if NEMESIS was a standalone and found that a sequel is coming out July 15th with a title …. wait for it … wait for it… TARGET ZERO! Again, what are the chances? Are we seeing a new trend in titles. It sure beats “Girl” books.

Last, but not least, is a new Michael Crichton- type thriller just released (May 10th) by Chris Holm called CHILD ZERO.

Get the drift? Let me know if you run across any other recent titles.