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"A Deadly Silver Sea"

By Bob Morris (Minotaur/St. Martin, $25)

A cruise on a luxury ocean liner becomes the epicenter for a terrorist plot in the fourth — and most thrilling — mystery from Orlando, Fla., author Bob Morris.

Former pro-football star Zack Chasteen and his travel editor wife Barbara Pickering have been tapped for the inaugural voyage of the Royal Star. But anytime the promise is made you'll have "the time of your life," as the cruise ship owner tells his passengers, that's a sure signal that everything is about to go wrong.

When the crew violently takes over the ship, Zack bands together a rag-tag group of passengers to fight back. With Barbara about to go into labor, Zack draws on his experience as a former football star to take back the ship.

"A Deadly Silver Sea" works equally as a well-plotted mystery and as a swashbuckling adventure. Morris keeps the suspense high as the terrorists become increasingly violent.

Morris captures the mood and ambience that draw people to cruise ships, giving us a behind-the-scenes tour.

"Good People"

By Marcus Sakey (Dutton, $24.95)

The masterful Good People are Tom and Anna Reed, an average couple who work hard at their jobs, enjoy their lives and owe way too much between their mortgage and bills.

The one thing they both want — to have a baby — hasn't happened. Years of infertility treatments and failed in-vitro fertilizations have strapped them financially and strained their relationship. Their dream and sometimes their love have become "a burden."

But these two Good People may have found an answer when they find nearly $400,000 hidden in the apartment of their recently deceased tenant. Their renter had no family, no friends, and taking the money seems like "a victimless crime."

This isn't about buying new things — though they do engage in one heady afternoon of shopping — but a way to clear out their debts and, more important, to afford another infertility trial.

But their tenant was no kindly hermit hoarding his money. He was a deadly criminal who was recently involved in a high-profile robbery-murder in Chicago in which he ran off with the money. Now his former partners in crime and a ruthless drug lord want their share back.

In just three critically acclaimed best-sellers, Marcus Sakey has established a reputation for incisive, suspenseful cautionary tales about ordinary people caught up in circumstances beyond their control. By making Anna and Tom's main goal having a baby, Sakey imbues "Good People" with more noble stakes — that of starting a family.

"South of Hell"

By P.J. Parrish (Pocket Star Books, $7.99)

Hell is a place that private detective Louis Kincaid knows well, but he also had hoped never to return to this aptly named little Michigan town south of Ann Arbor.

But a call from a cop re-opening a years-old case involving a missing woman jolts Louis out of his comfortable life near Sanibel. New complications have surfaced in the cold case. As Louis helps with the investigation, he's reunited with his old girlfriend, Jo Frye, and is forced to confront his painful past.

Wrapped in the tenets of a private-detective novel with overtones of a police procedural, "South of Hell" taps into the issues of domestic violence, Michigan's racial history and how the cavalier attitude of a young man can haunt his life.

The tense plot in "South of Hell" careens with multiple twists as the suspense accelerates. Characters who are easy to care about and a vivid look at the Michigan landscape — Hell is a real town — further elevate the story.

"The Last Embrace"

By Denise Hamilton (Scribner, $15)

Denise Hamilton, best known for her award-winning series about reporter Eve Diamond, makes a smooth transition from contemporary Los Angeles to the City of Angels of 1949 in the lively "The Last Embrace."

Hamilton's sixth novel vividly captures the nuances of L.A., showing that the same concerns of immigration, development and economics haunted the city in the post-World War II years as they do today. Of course, the lure of Hollywood and possible stardom remains a constant.

Lily Kessler spent the war years as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services. She's come to L.A. not for stardom but to find her late fiance's sister, Kitty, a starlet who has disappeared. Using the skills she honed during the war, Lily jump-starts an investigation the cops seem to have dropped.

Although a few cardboard supporting characters detract from "The Last Embrace," the brisk pace and Hamilton's storytelling skills keep the story on track.