[chong777]

Hi,

I like my mysteries and thrillers. I find the futuristic mysteries and thrillers very enjoyable. With the exception of JD Robb. She is a romance author at heart, and has in my opinion too much of the romance in her books under the pen name of JD Robb.
Any recommendations?

Thank you in advance

[Wondergirl]

Broken Angel by Sigmund Brouwer

From Publishers Weekly:
In this addictively readable futuristic Christian dystopia, Brouwer (The Last Disciple) takes readers inside a state run by literalistic, controlling fundamentalists. There, reading is a serious crime; citizens are drugged into submission; and those who break rules are either sent to slave labor factories or stoned to death. Occasionally, a few brave souls try to escape to Outside. At the center of this novel is Caitlyn, a disfigured but graceful and brave young woman whose father essentially orders her to make a run for it. For reasons not revealed (even to Caitlyn) until the very end, she is chased by a variety of people who want her dead or alive. While trying to escape, Caitlin meets up with two traveling companions who have their own reasons for fleeing, and she is aided by a sort of underground railroad. Its leaders believe the fundamentalist government has distorted true Christianity, so they risk everything to help people get Outside to freedom. The terrific pacing is surpassed only by the character development; the many supporting characters are extremely well-drawn. Brouwer adds even more suspense by regularly revealing that some of these characters are not who they appear to be.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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It's called "alternate history" --

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card

From Publishers Weekly:
Playing with the time stream isn't new to science fiction, but Card (Ender's Game), who's won both a Hugo and a Nebula, gives the concept a new twist here-with mixed results. His angle is to make the temporal interference not accidental but intentional, as a group of scientists go back in time to alter Columbus's journey. Sponsored by the organization Pastwatch, which uses a machine called TruSite II to view the past in remarkable detail, the "Columbus Project" is headed by Tagiri, whose TruSite viewing of the horrors of slavery has prompted her to revise the famed explorer's agenda. Tagiri sends into the past her daughter, Diko, a Mayan descendant named Hunahpu and a man named Kemal, a prickly sort whose initial skepticism is transformed into a fierce commitment to change the past. Armed with devices from the future, the three return to 1492, determined to transform Columbus from a gold-seeking pirate into a proponent of world peace and global unity. Uniformly well-meaning, the trio is just too sanctified to believe, and in their hands, the complexities of temporal mechanics are boiled down to simplistic cause and effect. Some sparks are generated when the Pastwatchers finally meet Columbus, but even that encounter produces fewer surprises than you'd expect from a master like Card.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Kindred by Octavia Butler

Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stays grow longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.