MEDICAL MYSTERIES CAN be so messy, what with all those untidy body parts and slippery viscera. THE HOLLOW MEN (Pegasus Crime, $25.95), a first novel by the pseudonymous Rob McCarthy, delivers its gruesome details in the authentic voice of the medical student McCarthy happens to be. The stage is set at John Ruskin University Hospital in London, where Harry Kent, on duty at the Accident & Emergency department and on police call as a medical examiner, saves the life of Solomon Idris, a desperate teenager shot by trigger-happy cops during a bungled hostage standoff at a fast-food restaurant. Harry has his quirks. ("Every hospital had its speed addicts ... but Harry was careful.") And he's not proud of having betrayed his best friend. ("Long story short, I slept with his wife.") But he's heroic in a crisis and obsessively devoted to some of his sadder cases, like Zara, his name for an unidentified girl who's been comatose since 2011. When she arrived at the hospital, her hair had been shocking pink and as it grew out Harry made sure it was dyed the same color. Because he regards his nerve-racking job with a certain sense of awe and his professional efforts with a degree of modesty, Harry is much more complicated than the conventional fearless hero. Maybe that's because he secretly feels like one of T. S. Eliot's hollow men, forever searching for something to fill his empty soul. That would also explain why he feels responsible for people like Zara and Idris, who have no one else "to speak for them." Whatever his sins, Harry doesn't deserve to be made a scapegoat when someone tries to murder Idris - for what reason, no one knows - as he lies helpless in the hospital in a coma. And although the plot, centered on violent youth gangs in depressed areas, is fairly predictable, it's presented with jarring realism and zero sentimentality. McCarthy's piercing view of the fortified world of a big metropolitan hospital reflects the perspective of an insider who may sometimes wish he weren't so close to the action. COULD YOU LIVE without kittens? How about books? Could you live without books? In THE GIRL BEFORE (Ballantine, $27), J P Delaney offers a diabolical choice - a chance to live in the house of your dreams if you renounce almost all material attachments. Both Jane Cavendish and the property's previous tenant, Emma Matthews, have made considerable sacrifices to live at 1 Folgate Street, an extraordinary ultraminimalist mansion ("a compact cube of pale stone") that comes with some 200 restrictive rules of occupancy, set by the architect. The bans on children, pets and loud parties are only the beginning; tenants are forbidden to introduce so much as a throw pillow into this austere environment, which is electronically programmed to monitor itself. Unsurprisingly, that hyperattentiveness also distinguishes the architect, Edward Monkford, who romances both women, giving them identical jewels and introducing them to cosmopolitan delights like eating live seafood. There's a distinct creepiness to this claustrophobic story, but in time common sense triumphs; what initially felt deliciously sinister eventually seems schematic and just plain sadistic. IT'S THE "SEASON OF GRAY" in Randall Silvis's chilly suspense novel TWO DAYS GONE (Sourcebooks Landmark, paper, $15.99), a wintry time when "surliness prevails" in the northwestern wedge of Pennsylvania. There a wanted man hides in the woods, "numb with cold and hunger and disbelief." The fugitive is Tom Huston, a locally well-liked novelist who fled his house two days earlier, leaving his wife and three children slaughtered in their beds. Now Sgt. Ryan DeMarco has been charged with directing the hunt for a man he has come to know as a friend. Silvis tells his parallel stories - of Huston's mad wanderings in the forest and DeMarco's reluctant dragnet - with finely tuned sensitivity. The novelist uses brute willpower to close his mind to painful reality, while the policeman struggles to understand his quarry by reading Huston's notes for an unfinished novel. "How much of the voice was artifice and how much a reflection of the man?" DeMarco wonders. He asks the same question of himself, then supplies his own answer. "We are all made up," he says. "We are only real at night." JOANNE HARRIS DELIVERS mischief and murder to an English prep school in DIFFERENT CLASS (Touchstone, $26), a delightfully malicious view of privileged students with overly active imaginations. The novel's alarming events are mostly related by Roy Straitley, a crotchety Latin master with a droll sense of humor and a partiality for students who are "rebels and clowns." In deference to the new reformist headmaster at St. Oswald's Grammar School for Boys, Straitley will deign to invite visiting parents into his office, "much as folklore dictates we should invite a vampire before he can feed." He draws the line, though, at trivializing the classics department or (God forbid!) consolidating with Mulberry House, a school for girls. But, as we learn from the diary of someone with a disturbing taste for torturing animals, more dangerous forces lie elsewhere. Years earlier, Harry Clarke, a charismatic English teacher, had been unfairly accused of pederasty and charged with murder. But, thanks to Straitley, we now know where to look for the true spawn of Satan.

*Starred Review* There's a new girl in town. And if you think that Girl-titled thrillers have exhausted themselves, think again. The Girl Before is a masterfully crafted spellbinder that bringsa whole new dimension to the premise. There are actually two girls, Emma and Jane. Emma is relocating after a traumatic assault, and the only place that makes her feel safe is the amazing house at One Folgate Street, a minimalist-design masterpiece that comes at a price she can afford. The only catch is that the architect and landlord has an extensive list of rules that forbid any personalization. The enigmatic Edward Monkford's vision is of a space designed to transform the tenant rather than the space itself being transformed. And transformative, it is, indeed. Next comes Jane, with her own trauma. After moving in, she learns about Emma's untimely death and is told she strongly resembles Emma in age and appearance. Her curiosity gets the better of her, and she investigates, all the time following the same path to terror as the girl before. The tables turn, and turn again, and the ending is guaranteed to both astonish and satisfy the reader. JP Delaney is the pseudonym of a best-selling fiction writer. The book is being published in 35 countries, and a film version is in the hands of Ron Howard. A must.--Murphy, Jane Copyright 2016 Booklist

Jane Cavendish and Emma Williams, searching London for a cheap safe place to live, are entranced by what appears to be a bargain, a unique minimalist house automatically controlled by cutting-edge technology. Both are equally entranced by the house's architect, Edward Monkford, a darkly handsome control freak who demands that voluminous stipulations be met before he turns over the Fitbit-like wristband that automatically opens the front door. The first of many twists in this psychological thriller from Delaney is that, though both perspectives are written in the present tense, Emma's takes place in the past. Actors Fox (reading Jane's sections) and Williams (reading Emma's sections) move the frequently shifting plot along at a swift clip, clearly distinguishing the differing emotions of the two main characters even as they go through their similar paces. The amazing automated house, almost as prominent as its inhabitants, does everything but speak. But while Fox and Williams are not called upon to give voice to the brick-and-mortar character, they are totally successful in capturing the atmosphere that the cold, indifferent, slightly terrifying building creates. A Ballantine hardcover. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

What if you could rent an architectural showplace, a futuristic house with state-of-the-art amenities, for the same price as a moderate apartment? As with many deals that seem too good to be true, the house at One Folgate Street had many strings attached in its rental contract, including a forced minimalist lifestyle and a stark lack of privacy. This psychological thriller by a best-selling pseudonymous author alternates between the stories of Jane, the current tenant, and Emma, the previous tenant, during the time that they inhabited the house. Both women began their residences in a vulnerable state, after each had faced a life-altering experience. The uncanny parallels between Jane and Emma and their obsessive architect-landlord's late wife are quickly discovered and hardly seem coincidental. As each woman draws closer to the eccentric architect, the lines are blurred and it becomes increasingly difficult to discern whether the house offers sanctuary or imminent danger. Verdict This haunting Big Brother-esque novel will consume psychological thriller enthusiasts and keep them thinking long after the final page. Fans of Paula Hawkins's The Girl on the Train should add it to their winter reading lists. [See Prepub Alert, 7/18/16; January 2017 top LibraryReads pick.]-Mary Todd Chesnut, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.