There is considerably less hope in Robert E. Dunn’s Dead Man’s Badge, in which Longview Moody, the lookalike brother of Paris Tindall, a murdered Texas chief of police, pretends he’s Paris, and takes up the reins of his brother’s office. Right there is enough of an eye-popper plot for any crime novel, but the eye-popping doesn’t stop there. Moody, unlike his law-abiding brother, is a drug-cartel, money-carrying criminal—and a violent one, too. So violent that he’s involved in three fistfights in two days, and that’s after he sets himself up as police chief. Another eye-popper is that even after Moody is outed as an impostor, the bulk of the police officers working for him carry on like there’s nothing untoward with the situation. Also eye-popping? Many of the villains in this fast-moving knuckle-buster of a book are DEA agents, and it’s the fraudulent police chief’s job to bring them down. Now, any one of these bizarre plot points would render most novels ridiculous, but in author Dunn’s capable hands, many readers—like Moody’s “fellow” police officers—will jump on board for the ride. The quality of the writing saves it. Dunn is a gifted writer, and he opens Dead Man’s Badge with one of the most gripping scenes I’ve ever read: Moody digging his own grave in a secluded part of the Sonoran Desert. He and several other cartel employees are about to be murdered by a rival cartel, and at the end of this hair-raising scene, only Moody remains alive. Being so close to death makes him philosophical, so when he returns to his trailer in Texas and finds his brother’s dead body, he vows to go straight. More or less, anyway. Fans of grit and gore will love this fast-paced book, but readers who demand plot believability might frown. As for me, I found Moody’s self-honesty refreshing. Especially when he spouts lines like, “If criminals were smart enough to run their own lives, lawyers would starve.”
There’s never a dull moment in Lauren Stahl’s The Devil’s Song. A serial killer is at work, and his preference is redheads. Assistant district attorney Kate Magda, herself a redhead who once barely escaped being murdered as a child, immediately recognizes the killer’s M.O.—but her own former assailant is still behind bars. Or is he? Author Stahl, not caring that fictional attorneys are usually portrayed as logical beings, goes for the emotional jugular by focusing on Kate’s still-present PTSD. In vivid flashbacks, Stahl allows readers to experience Kate’s terror as she was buried alive by the deranged Ron Wells. She lets us feel Kate’s anguish in the knowledge that her young cousin might be Wells’ next victim. Flashbacks like this don’t make for a cool and collected investigation, but by the time the plot reaches its crescendo, it is obvious that Kate’s memories—more than cold, hard facts—will provide the solution to the crimes. The Devil’s Song is an unsettling read, but a unique one. And while some readers might quibble with the psychology of the reveal, rest assured that such cases aren’t unknown to medical science.
Finally, Libby Klein (actually Lisa Schwartz) has written a first mystery, the title of which we will all applaud and with which we will no doubt heartily concur. Class Reunions Are Murder introduces recently widowed Poppy McCallister, who has been invited to her 25th high school class reunion in Cape May, New Jersey. Poppy, still grieving for her husband, is reluctant to attend because many of her memories from high school are unpleasant. Nonetheless, she makes the trip from Virginia to New Jersey, in part to visit her Aunt Ginny, the woman who essentially raised her. When Poppy arrives home, she notices immediately that Aunt Ginny’s Victorian has descended into shabbiness and that Aunt Ginny herself is in danger of being ousted from her home and relegated to an assisted-living facility against her wishes. Poppy springs into action to rescue the delightfully quixotic Aunt Ginny. In the meantime, though, she attends the dreaded reunion, which becomes worse than anticipated when her major high school nemesis is murdered at the event itself. Fortunately, Poppy sorts everything out and begins life anew. Yes, readers, high school reunions are murder!
Quarry’s Climax finds Max Allan Collins’ hard-edged hit man on assignment in 1970s Memphis, Tennessee, doing some risky undercover work for his boss, known to him only as “The Dealer.” The Dealer has asked Quarry to exert his considerable charms and lethal skills to infiltrate the organization of Larry Flint analog Max Climer, who publishes the controversial skin magazine Climax. Someone has taken out a contract on the porn peddler, and Quarry’s boss wants to know who. It’s quintessential Collins and Quarry, a glorious mix of well-written action, humor, and sudden, unexpected, brutality.
Turn on the Heat, by Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner, writing here as A.A. Fair, is aptly named. The second Bertha Cool and Donald Lam novel (the first, The Knife Slipped, “lost” for 75 years, was resurrected by Hard Case in December 2016), but the first to see print, Turn On the Heat finds the resourceful Lam looking into a decidedly odd missing-persons case with more wrinkles than an un-ironed dress shirt. Along the way, he finds deceit, romance, action and, as he seems to be especially prone to taking a beating, pain. Although written several decades ago, the novel still reads well; the dialogue and offbeat chemistry between Lam and his iconoclastic, tough-as-nails boss Bertha is electric, making for absorbing reading.
Snatch delivers two short novels on the subject of kidnapping from the estimable Gregory Mcdonald. The first tale, Snatched, tells the story of Toby Rinaldi, a precocious eight-year-old who is kidnapped by traitors to his homeland, who hope to prevent the introduction of an unpopular regional policy by the boy’s father, a UN ambassador. Mcdonald does a great job portraying the fascinating relationship between the boy and his hapless kidnapper, who is cajoled by his “victim” into a trip to Fantazyland, the author’s substitute for Disney World. The second story, the Dickensian Safekeeping, chronicles the adventures of another eight-year-old, young Brit Robby Burnes, who is unceremoniously shipped to early 1940s New York City and placed under the custody of his father’s old WWI comrade after he is orphaned during the London Blitz. His adventures in the Big Apple are varied and fascinating, as he meets a number of different folks from several social strata, rich and poor, law abiding and less so, all while trying to avoid death at the hands of a violent criminal. In both novels, Mcdonald does a truly fine job of blending menace and mirth, and action with cutting social and political commentary.
Lee Child puts such an emphasis on the size of Jack Reacher in this, his 22nd novel (the 6-foot-5, 250 pounder is referred to as Bigfoot and/or The Hulk, with “fists like Thanksgiving turkeys”), one might suspect him of purposely separating his literary creation from the character’s somewhat diminished film version. And, since the novel is so crisp, sharply plotted, and socially significant, the author could simultaneously be attempting to make up for 2016’s series entry, Night School, which even die-hard fans found wanting. It’s possible, of course, that a few diehards will be equally unimpressed by the new novel’s emphasis on deduction over destruction. Not that those Thanksgiving turkeys don’t get a workout or two, but, from the moment Reacher notices a female West Point ring in a Wisconsin pawn emporium, his goal is to find the woman, a job requiring more brain than brawn. By the time his sleuthing takes him to a flyspeck on the map of Wyoming, he’s met a biker gang that falls prey to his turkeys, a blasé, powerful mobster who’s responsible for much of the country’s opioid crisis, a dedicated young Asian American policewoman who’s determined to bag the drug dealer, a smart, non-talkative private eye, several cowboys who are more noble than they initially seem, and the kindhearted sister of the owner of the ring. Narrator Dick Hill does well by all of them, along with the whiny pawn shop owner and the mysterious woman whom Reacher seeks. Regarding the star of the show, Hill, as always, provides him with a voice both educated and tough, occasionally sarcastic and, when appropriate, surprisingly tender. This arguably comes close to a best of series.
This first in a series has a comfortable, cozy formula—main character with an interesting backstory, a cute/cool career change, and a neat hometown where the protagonist lives with her cat and her garden. Emily Westhill owns Deputy Donut, a donut and coffee shop she runs with her father-in-law, and a place frequented both by local law enforcement and by a group of knitting ladies known as the Knitpickers.
As the book opens, Emily is serving donuts and coffee to the weekly Knitpicker gathering, but one of their number is missing. Georgia is a popular and beloved member of the group, so when the meeting breaks up, the ladies, along with Emily, go over to Georgia’s to see if she might be sick or in need of help. Of course, Georgia is dead. Worse, Emily, a former 911 operator, spoils the crime scene in an effort to see if her friend is still alive.
Still traumatized by the death of her young husband, a cop, she shuts down when asked to give a statement. The loss is still too raw and she has a hard time being around his former partner, Brent. The heavy backstory gives Emily’s character some heft, but Survival of the Fritters is not an especially sad novel. Like any good cozy, it creates a setting and atmosphere that’s comfortable and familiar; the crime, when it happens, is an intrusion that must be solved so that the status quo can be restored.
Later that day, Emily’s cat goes missing, prompting a search that reveals a cat-sized hole in her garden wall. She goes next door to investigate and finds her neighbor passed out in the backyard, obviously having been attacked. The neighbor denies it, though, saying she just got dizzy, and proceeds to feed Emily’s cat a sardine—apparently an established ritual. Emily and the neighbor, Lois, become shaky friends and allies, even as suspicion for the local murder begins to center on Lois’ nephew.
It transpires that Georgia was killed on the anniversary of her own son’s suspicious death, and it becomes clear as Emily listens—the main skill of a good detective—that Georgia must have seen something, and Lois may have seen something as well, thus putting her in danger.
Emily, while not exactly investigating, is well placed to hear all kinds of gossip in her shop, and Brent is willing to listen to her thoughts. The story is not terribly complex, but Ginger Bolton makes good use of the connections between her characters, and develops each while basing their motivations and actions on their personalities, instead of just sketching in random characters and having things happen to them for the sake of moving the plot along. The result is a pleasant read and a good set up for a series.
In A Cold Day in Hell, Lissa Marie Redmond, a retired cold case homicide detective turned author, throws the reader into the world of Lauren Riley, a police detective who moonlights as a private investigator. When defense attorney Frank Violanti asks for her assistance in absolving the son of his family friend, she initially declines to help the smug, antagonistic lawyer. But after interviewing Violanti’s client, she decides to take on the case, a decision that will lead her into conflict with former flames, coworkers, and her own beliefs.
Redmond has concocted a well-crafted story with plenty of twists, but more importantly good characterization. Riley is a protagonist whom the reader trusts and wants to follow. She’s strong-willed, tough, and while she sometimes makes questionable choices, her motivations as well as her mistakes are marked by her humanity. It is a joy to watch Redmond throw Riley into different situations with the people in her life.
By the end of A Cold Day in Hell, readers not only get a resolution to the case, but the answer to a larger mystery that Riley is after. We also get a fully formed picture of a detective trying to do her best with the situations she has been dealt. As the book draws to a conclusion and Redmond works to wrap up loose ends of the plot, the reader might feel a gnawing sense of loss. Don’t worry. It’s normal. It often happens when you’re not ready to let a character go.
What would you do, how far would you go, to save the life of the person you love and can’t fathom living without? That is the premise of this thriller from debut author Tom Hunt. Gary Foster is an ordinary Joe, married to Beth, who, after 20 years of marriage, is finally seven months pregnant. Money is tight; Beth just recently lost her teaching job, and the outdoor apparel store Gary and his brother recently opened is doing only so-so. But they feel they’ll be able to get by.
Then their world falls apart. Beth has a seizure and is rushed to the hospital where they discover she has a brain tumor. Traditional treatments don’t work, and they’re told she has only a few months to live. But there is hope: a clinical trial in Germany has shown remarkable results. The problem is, the trial costs $200,000, none of which is covered by insurance.
Then a miracle happens. A stranger approaches Gary and tells him he’s read his and Beth’s story in the paper. He will give them the entire $200,000. But, of course, there’s a condition: Gary has to kill a man. At first Gary rejects the offer out of hand, but then he thinks about what life would be like without Beth. From there follows a series of twists and turns that will leave readers’ heads spinning.
The characters in Killer Choice are not necessarily likable, but they are compelling—as is the story line. Few readers will find themselves on middle ground about the ending. They’ll either love or hate it. Either way, the verdict is in on author Tom Hunt: he has a great future ahead of him.
The fifth book in the Daniel Rinaldi series picks up soon after the events of the previous story, 2014’s Phantom Limb, and finds Dr. Rinaldi, a psychologist who consults with the Pittsburgh Police Department, studying a dossier that supposedly holds a clue to the unsolved killing of his wife years earlier. It is a calm night, the doctor enjoying some Miles Davis on the stereo, until his window is shot out by a neighbor’s abusive boyfriend. As the story unfurls, it is soon learned that the woman lied to her lover, claiming she had cheated on him with Rinaldi. While this would be a good setup for a story, in Head Wounds it is only the catalyst for more intense darkness and tragedy to come.
Dr. Rinaldi, who has never been all that popular with the powers-that-be inside of the police department due to his penchant for getting personally involved in the cases on which he consults, ends up being a suspect when both the woman and her boyfriend turn up savagely murdered. Quickly cleared, the doctor is confronted by the real murderer, Sebastian Maddox, a brilliant killer with an axe to grind against Rinaldi. The only problem is that Rinaldi has no idea who Maddox is or why he would be his target.
Maddox goes on a killing spree that targets Rinaldi’s friends, colleagues and patients, and the doctor, who has been forbidden by the killer to contact the police, turns to a retired FBI agent, Lyle Barnes, who was once his patient, and Agent Gloria Reese to help put an end to the twisted game being played by Maddox.
From the literal bang that starts off the story to its fiery conclusion, author Dennis Palumbo keeps the adrenaline and action flowing. Head Wounds is a fine example of cinematic storytelling—not a surprise, given Palumbo’s previous work as a screenwriter. The psychological detailing of the killer’s mind also rings true thanks to Palumbo’s day job as a practicing psychotherapist. Head Wounds, possibly the author’s best work yet, is a fantastic read, and one that I already predict will be hard to beat as a favorite thriller of 2018.
This story begins with an intriguing setup: a man goes home, and his fiancée doesn’t recognize him. He tries to convince her of their shared history, but not only does she not know him, every trace of him has been removed from their apartment. Has she had a mental breakdown? Has he? Or is something more insidious taking place?
Coauthors Ursula Archer and Arno Strobel have written a page-turning psychological thriller that not only has the couple at the center of this mystery, Joanna and Erik, grasping for information, but will have the reader eagerly searching for clues as to what has happened right alongside them. Told in alternating chapters from both Erik and Joanna’s points of view, Strangers gives the reader insight into what both characters are thinking, lending depth and emotional clout to the story. The reader identifies with Joanna’s fear of the stranger in her house, as well as the pain that it causes Erik each time Joanna pushes him away. In addition to her memory loss, Joanna has begun suffering unexplained rages that leave Erik in danger even as he tries to rebuild their trust and their relationship.
When outside forces come into play, it’s even more important that the two learn to trust each other, although the reader, like Joanna, may still have some niggling doubts about Erik’s intentions as well as Joanna’s sanity. The paranoia runs high in this book, and Archer and Strobel do a masterful job of ramping it up through each successive chapter. While you want the couple to succeed, there’s no guarantee that they will get back together—or even survive to continue trying.
In 1986 Eddie Adams (nicknamed Eddie Munster) is 12 years old. He lives in the idyllic English village of Anderbury, and spends most of his time riding his bike with his gang of friends, Fat Gav, Metal Mickey, Hoppo, and tomboy Nicky, on whom he secretly has a crush. After Fat Gav receives a tub of chalk for his birthday, the gang comes up with a way to leave secret messages for each other using stick men drawn in chalk—different colors for each person. It all seems like harmless fun until someone outside the group leaves chalk-men messages that lead the gang to the body of a decapitated and dismembered teenage girl.
Thirty years later, Eddie (now Ed) is an unmarried school teacher, still living in Anderbury. He believes the horror of 1986 to be far behind him—the person considered guilty of the murder committed suicide long ago. But then he and other members of his old gang begin receiving cryptic stick-man messages and pieces of chalk. When people, including some of the gang, begin dying and chalk-men drawings turn up at the site of their deaths, Ed fears that he and his friends are being targeted.
Debut author C.J. Tudor has taken an innocent child’s game and turned it into a creepy atmospheric thriller that will keep readers up long after lights should be out. She skillfully weaves alternating 1986 and 2016 chapters, and her characterizations are spot on; Eddie and his friends will remind readers of their own childhood friends. Add to that a haunting ending, which most readers won’t see coming, and Chalk Man is a must-read.
When London prosecuting barrister Kate Woodcroft is disappointed by a court verdict that doesn’t go her way, she is more than keen to jump into her next case. A handsome, charismatic MP who is close chums with the sitting prime minister is accused of rape by a former research assistant with whom he had been carrying on an affair. It’s a public and salacious trial, and Kate finds herself more devoted to the case than anything else previously in her career.
Anatomy of a Scandal unfolds in alternating chapters between the hard-nosed Kate, the arrogant MP James, the MP’s milquetoast wife Sophie (who wants to believe him, but can’t shake a nagging feeling), and Holly, Sophie’s brainy but socially naive Oxford University tutorial partner from two decades earlier when James, Sophie and Holly first met. The interlaced chapters seed doubt and play with truth, as they reveal more about the rape and the imperfect lives of the characters. The result is a thrilling and acute suspense novel.
Sarah Vaughan is dexterous in her ability to glide from one character to the next, dropping hints as to what is really going on. The novel, too, is deliciously wicked as Vaughan fictionalizes Britain’s sordid upper crust. This might not be the England of Brexit and other major upheavals of the past year, but Anatomy of a Scandal still has a timely quality, as if Vaughan was typing up until the moment the reader cracked the book open. The world of Vaughn’s novel is in the thick of it, and more than a simple legal tale of guilt or innocence, it is a close observation of character and people, their personal stories, and ultimately, their scandals.
In 1921 Perveen Mistry, a petite young Oxford-educated Parsi woman, has just joined her father’s respected law firm. As one of India’s first female lawyers, and the only one in Bombay, she isn’t yet permitted to argue cases in court—but she is uniquely positioned to help some unusual clients: three Muslim widows who practice strict purdah, living in seclusion from any contact with men. While reviewing documents related to the will of their late husband, a wealthy mill owner, Perveen finds that all three have signed their inheritances over to the family’s wakf, or charity. Even more troubling, the signed name of one of the widows, a former entertainer, doesn’t match the signature on her marriage contract—which she signed with a simple X. Is someone trying to defraud the women? How will they support themselves and their children if they give their inheritance away? Perveen’s own background has sensitized her to the sometimes desperate plight of women in a sexist society, and she is determined to find out the truth.
Partly inspired by the real-life stories of India’s first women lawyers, The Widows of Malabar Hill shifts back and forth between Perveen’s personal history and her current investigation, but the clearly marked transitions are never confusing. A younger Perveen persists in pursuing her education and career despite harassment from classmates, while her current self escapes hair-raising situations with nothing more than brains and pluck, and faces down a murderer without flinching. The interesting multicultural setting and delightful characters, including Perveen’s family, her British best friend, Alice, the widows, and Perveen herself, keep the reader engaged. The Widows of Malabar Hill’s highly original story and satisfying ending make this a promising series debut.
When Alafair Tucker’s oldest son, George Washington Tucker, known as Gee Dub, returns to the family farm from the battlefields of World War I he looks unchanged, but his mother knows something is wrong. Post-traumatic stress disorder had a different name back then. They called it shell shock. Drifting and unsure after his military service, Gee Dub finds a purpose when he volunteers to help Holly Johnson search for her missing husband, a soldier named Dan Johnson. When Dan’s body is discovered shot through the heart, though, Gee Dub becomes the prime suspect. Alafair does what any good mother would do; she sets out to defend her child and find the real killer.
Forty Dead Men is populated with colorful and memorable characters beginning with Alafair, a tough and capable farmer’s wife and mother of 11. Other favorites include the earnest Sheriff Scott Tucker, who tries to do what’s right despite his family connection to the accused, and Granny Murphy, a woman with a watchful eye who is always happy to gossip with anyone who asks. Key to the story is rich bank manager Bertram Evans, his wife, daughter, and future son-in-law—a family with secrets behind the fragrant flowers and white lace curtains of their impressive home.
This well-written mystery is the tenth in Donis Casey’s Alafair Tucker series. Rich with historical detail, as befits her academic librarian background, Forty Dead Men leaves the reader one final twist at the end, along with Alafair’s delightful country recipes.
Susan Furlong’s Splintered Silence is the first in the new Bone Gap Travellers Mystery series. The Bone Gap Travellers are an Irish Traveller clan of itinerant workers. They refer to themselves as pavees, but are popularly called gypsies. Former military cop Brynn Callahan, half Irish Traveller, thought she had escaped Bone Gap, Tennessee, forever when she joined the Marines. But after injuries from an IED explosion in the Middle East, Brynn and her cadaver dog, Wilco, return to her childhood home.
It is there, in the thick woods behind Bone Gap, where the two discover the hidden remains of a red-haired woman at the bottom of a deep rock fissure. At first it appears to be the remains of a local missing woman. Her brother, Kevin Doogan, the neighbor of Brynn’s grandparents, suspects his sister was killed by her husband. But when the autopsy reveals the corpse to be another woman altogether, it appears something larger and more sinister than simple domestic malice is at work.
Splintered Silence is long on character, especially the likable Brynn and her silent, wounded companion Wilco. Author Susan Furlong paints Brynn as an outsider, mistrusted by both the pavees, because she is of mixed blood, and the townspeople, who see her as a gypsy. The tension between the Traveller enclave and the rest of the local population of Bone Gap is nicely rendered, as is the appealing Tennessee setting. And while the mystery plays out, there are enough twists and action to keep the pages turning. Splintered Silence is a good start to a series primed to gain speed and depth with each successive tale.
Need to Know, a thriller that merges espionage, domestic, and psychological subgenres, received so much buzz that before it even had a publisher its film rights were sold to Universal Studios as a major motion picture produced by and starring Charlize Theron. Pretty heady stuff for debut novelist Karen Cleveland, who, like her protagonist Vivian Miller, has experience as a CIA analyst.
Slaving away in the CIA’s Counterintelligence Center, Russia Division, Viv and her small group of fellow analysts are tasked with unearthing a sleeper cell of Russian agents embedded in the United States. The Russian spies are so sophisticated that it’s nearly impossible to identify them; they speak perfect English and lead “normal” lives raising families and working regular jobs.
When Viv hacks into a Russian operative’s computer, she finds a file titled “Friends” that contains thumbnails of five people, the long-sought-after sleepers. She clicks on each one, checking out each face and trying to decipher the info written in Russian. When she clicks on the fifth thumbnail, her world stops. It’s a face she knows well, with a smile she sees every day.
And with that, Viv finds herself sucked into a vortex of deception and betrayal, trying to suss out what is truth and what is fiction, but most of all, trying to understand what it means to her, her husband, their four children, and the life they’ve built together.
With each new page ratcheting up the tension, the story is hard to put down as Viv finds herself in a situation with no redeemable options. Before the book’s end, Viv will be tested as to where her loyalties to her family, her job, and country lie. The tension doesn’t let up until the last word, a “wow” ending the reader won’t see coming and won’t soon forget. Do not miss this one.
“What is her name? Which one should she use?”
Pauline—now Polly Costello—is a woman with secrets. A lot of secrets. When she walks away from her husband and child during a weekend trip to Delaware’s Eastern Shore, she lands in the tiny town of Belleville, Delaware, hoping that she will be difficult to trace. Adam Bosk, a private investigator hired to track her and a large sum of money she may be hiding, finds her working at a small diner. He gets a job as a cook in order to keep an eye on her, but can’t help getting too close to the alluring Polly. Before long, the two are engaged in a steamy affair. But tragedy has a way of befalling those who enter Polly’s sphere. When someone in the tiny town dies, Adam and Polly have to make some decisions about the future.
Crisp prose and evocative descriptions of people and places alike drive Laura Lippman’s modern noir, a tale that pays homage to the novels of James M. Cain and the genre films dominated by women like Barbara Stanwyck. Polly is a complex character, and it’s difficult to blame her for her choices even as it’s impossible to tell what her “truth” is. How could she leave her child behind? Does anything—or anyone—touch her heart? Like many women, fate has dealt her a difficult hand. She’s not the most beautiful woman, but she has an indefinable quality that draws men to her, and she’s not above using whatever is at her disposal in order to survive.
Sunburn is an engrossing story, both passionate and fatal. It’s full of characters who can neither trust nor be trusted, an uncertainty that lends heightened suspense. But readers shouldn’t expect a happy ending here—at least not for everyone—Lippman doesn’t flinch at killing your darlings.
It is 1894 in Coney Island and a Jack the Ripper-type killer is on the loose. An innocent man has been convicted thanks to crooked cops at the highest levels and the wealthy politicians who control them, and Brooklyn detective Mary Handley has been asked by the convicted man’s brother—both of them Algerian immigrants—to help clear him. This is a fast-moving, hard-hitting look at the ugly politics and prejudices of that era, and the difficulties honest investigators have in stopping a clever multiple murderer.
Thanks to Mary’s previous successful investigations, she has a solid relationship with at least one top-ranking policeman and an entrée into the New York business world. However, even that does not seem to be enough until she meets a good-looking newspaper reporter named Harper Lloyd who is interested in both the story and Mary.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of Last Stop in Brooklyn is the quick-witted and sarcastic banter between Mary and her friends and foes. Harper proves himself to be her equal in that respect, and their verbal interplay alone is worth the price of admission.
After following several promising leads to the presumed actual serial killer, whose murdering of women of the night continues while the police look the other way, Mary and Harper realize that they may have been chasing the wrong suspect, and time is running out for the innocent brother. Fortunately, with the help of some influential friends, including reformer Jacob Riis and the soon-to-be police commissioner Teddy Roosevelt, they are able to turn the tables on the corrupt among them and solve the case.
The conclusion took me completely by surprise, and I suspect most readers will feel the same.
When Robin Davis, a therapist, tells a patient that she needs to stop dealing with her toxic family, she knows what she’s talking about. Her own family includes a distant and disapproving father, a spiteful sister, and a stepmother who used to be her best friend—until she left Robin’s brother to marry Robin’s father.
Though she’s been estranged from her family for five years, she returns to her childhood home when her father and his family, including his 12-year-old stepdaughter, are shot. The attack was originally considered a home invasion, but it is soon clear that someone close to the family may know far more about the crime than originally thought.
Robin is a complex character, and her relationship with her family is what makes this story unique. Professionally, she is able to help with other people’s problems, dealing with her own results in panic attacks and Ativan popping. Having never had the support of a loving family, she pushes away the people who want to help her, especially her fiancée. Instead of dealing with her problems, she chooses to avoid them—something that any experienced therapist would advise against.
Forced to confront the source of her anxiety, Robin has to work on herself at the same time that she’s trying to unravel the mystery of her family’s attack and take care of her former best friend’s daughter, who may or may not have seen who committed the crime.
Though she thought she could escape her past, there is no way that Robin can move forward until she has made peace with her family—and in the process, find out who wanted them dead.
Jonathan Moore completes his “three-panel painting” of San Francisco with The Night Market, the trippy follow-up to 2016’s The Poison Artist and 2017’s The Dark Room. The final book of Moore’s loosely knit triptych is a dystopian tale set in the not-too-distant future.
Three days after he and his partner investigate an extremely odd and disturbing crime scene, Inspector Ross Carver wakes up in his apartment with only a vague memory of what might have happened to him over the last 72 hours. Plagued by uncertainty, he begins to retrace his steps, piecing together events, and coming to a jumbled, disturbing picture of a conspiracy so vast that it causes him to question both his sanity and the very nature of reality.
Moore’s latest is a masterpiece of suspense and paranoia, a dark and intelligent exploration of memory, loyalty, corruption, consumerism, and the notion of free will. A frightening, carefully crafted novel, The Night Market comes across like a mash-up of Raymond Chandler and Philip K. Dick. It’s a winning cross-genre thriller that should please both mystery and science-fiction fans alike.
How far are you willing to go to help a friend? That’s the dilemma faced by four women, whose bonds are forged over the time spent waiting for their children after school. The simplicity of their friendship takes on a new dimension, though, when domestic violence enters the equation.
Alison Riordan, Julie Phelps, and Sarah Walker are solidly middle-class mothers in the Pittsburgh suburb of Sewickley. But Heather Lysenko, the fourth member of their quartet, is in a different economic strata, married to the mega-rich plastic surgeon Viktor. The foursome enjoy their laughs and gossip sessions at the local coffeehouse, or over wine during their children’s play dates, but their friendships take a turn when Alison notices a nasty bruise on Heather’s arm. Is Heather a battered wife?
The theory is strengthened when Sarah spots a huge welt on Heather’s abdomen, and then Julie believes she overhears a threatening argument between the Lysenkos. The other women want to help Heather, but what can they do since Heather refuses to leave Viktor? And besides, as Alison says, “You never really know what happens in someone else’s marriage.”
Rebecca Drake imbues Just Between Us with characters who could easily be your next-door neighbors in a domestic thriller that examines how a violent incident tests her characters’ loyalties and affects each of their lives.
Alternating between each woman’s point of view, Drake realistically keeps the plot churning. These are suburban women not action heroines, and Drake sets their skills firmly within the boundaries of realism. Each woman tries to maintain a tight control on her secrets, but, of course, that never works out—much to the advantage of the plot, as private problems become weapons used against one another.
In Just Between Us, Drake explores the many shades of human experience to be found in even the most seemingly “normal” and mundane of settings. “There are no monsters,” Alison says, “just deeply flawed people.”
In 1976 teenager Annalise Wood went missing from a small village outside of Cambridge, England. It was all anyone in the area talked about, and echoes of Annalise's disappearance are still felt throughout the community
Laurie Ambrose, a Cambridge University psychologist, learns that firsthand when two young women with stories of Annalise come to see her within weeks of each other. Hannah, adopted as a baby, wonders if she is Annalise’s secret daughter. Anna Williams, an unsettling young woman, confides in Dr. Ambrose that she sometimes pretends to be Annalise to gain sympathy from men. Dr. Ambrose is troubled by the coincidence and the link to Annalise—even more so when Hannah dies under mysterious circumstances.
Morris Keene was forced into early retirement due to a hand injury he received on the job. Keene is now working cold cases as a civilian, and he is assigned Annalise’s case because a match in the DNA database has finally been made.
Keene draws his former partner Chloe Frohmann in from her maternity leave to do a little groundwork with him, interview a few witnesses, check up on old statements. But they soon discover that the body uncovered in 1992 and identified as Annalise might not have been her after all. So, who was buried next to that grove of poplars? And what became of Annalise?
The narrative shifts from person to person—Ambrose the psychologist, Frohman, Keene, Morris, and even Anna Williams, and includes “transcripts” from counseling appointments between Ambrose and her clients. All the jumping back and forth between narrative voices is jarring, and leaves the reader without the sense of knowing any one character well, but Winslow does do an excellent job of giving everyone distinctive voices. Winslow weaves the complex threads of the storyline together well, and displays insight into the darker sides of human psychology, exploring the secrets we keep and the attention we covet. Yet while Look for Her is an interesting read, it falls somewhat short of the mark to be truly engrossing.
Relative newcomer Jane Harper, who penned arguably the crime novel of last year with The Dry, flips the script with her sophomore tale. At least weather-wise.
Only months after barely surviving the drought-stricken farming landscape of Kiewarra in southeastern Australia, Federal Agent Aaron Falk finds himself shivering in the waterlogged Giralang Ranges, hoping for the return of a key witness in a big fraud case he’s building.
Alice Russell hiked into the Giralangs with her work colleagues for a team-building trip that seems to have gone horribly awry. Five women hike in, only four make it out. The other women say Alice left the group of her own accord, trying to strike out for help after the group got into trouble. Falk and fellow Australian Federal Police officer Carmen Cooper wonder if brittle group dynamics may have played a part. Team-building, or team-breaking? Or is something more sinister at work: Could someone at the company have uncovered Alice’s role as a mole?
There’s an eerie quality to Force of Nature. As in her debut, Harper crafts a setting that casts a character-like shadow over the story line: there is a simmering, malevolent power to the isolated landscapes. Readers also get more insight into the character of Aaron Falk, particularly his troubled relationship with his father after they’d fled his childhood home of Kiewarra so many years before. Whether Force of Nature quite reaches the heights of The Dry is debatable, but it certainly shows Harper is no one-hit wonder.
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