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Review

The Oligarch’s Daughter

by Jeff Ayers

Joseph Finder combines various themes from his previous novels and creates his best book to date. Six years ago, Paul Brightman worked on Wall Street and met a Russian American woman named Tatyana, who quickly became an infatuation. After they court and fall in love, she introduces him to her father, a Russian oligarch who soon sweeps Paul into his financial world. Tatyana and Paul marry, and everything seems to be going smoothly until it all blows up. At present, Paul lives in a small town in New Hampshire under the name Grant Anderson. He spends his days working on boat repair and helping with a boat charter that takes clients fishing. One morning, as he takes the boat out with a tourist, the man turns to Grant and says, “I know who you are, Paul.” Finder perfectly blends Grant’s storyline with that of a terrified Paul trying to survive. Nothing is predictable here, and the payoff is glorious. The Oligarch’s Daughter will be remembered as a classic years from now and should be used as a textbook to teach writers how to craft a perfect thriller. Is it too early to say this is not only the best book of the year but the best book of the decade?

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Review

This Is Not a Game

by Brian Kenney

A classic “locked-mansion” mystery set on Michigan’s actual Mackinac Island, which in off-season has a population of a mere 500. And the only way to get on or off the island is by boat or chartered plane. Mimi—as curmudgeonly as she is humorous—is a well-established resident who’s invited to an opulent party cum auction by Jane Ireland, a super-rich neighbor (who’s dating her own son-in-law). Mimi decides to bring her granddaughter Addie, hoping to use the party as a way to mend their fractured relationship. Wouldn’t you know, a big storm blows in, effectively cutting off the partygoers from the rest of the population. Anxiety producing for sure, but when Jane is found dead—and she’s only the first victim—all hell breaks loose. Lots of the fun in this book is thanks to granddaughter Addie, a gamer who produced Murderscape, a hugely popular video game, while her fiancé claims to have done most of the work. See you in court, Mr. Wrong! Addie’s expertise helps solve many of the problems while moving the story along. Also, like a cloud hanging over the evening, is the blackmail threat that Jane sent to Mimi and that Mimi hasn’t shared with anyone. Does Jane’s murder invalidate the blackmail? Closed circles are hugely popular these days, but this title puts an unusual and playful spin on the proceedings.

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Review

Chain Reaction

by Jeff Ayers

Byrne’s latest starts with a bang and never lets up for a second. Dez Limerick has unique skills and training as a former special ops operative. His talent as a gatekeeper ensures the client has access to get in and out of a sticky situation. Now retired, he’s thrilled to get an offer to play for one of his idols in a concert. He arrives at the venue only to learn that the entire mall complex has been taken over by terrorists. Working behind the scenes to save everyone, Dez, along with a thief named Cat, starts to realize there is more going on than it initially appears. Do these men have ties to a higher-up in the Russian government? This fun take on Die Hard could easily be the entire story, but it’s merely the beginning. Someone with a personal vendetta is hunting Dez, and they won’t rest until he’s in the ground. Byrne has created an unconventional hero with unorthodox methods and a darn fun attitude. The series gets better and better with each installment, and readers will be eager to see what’s in store for Dez next.

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Review

The Department

by Henrietta Thornton

Get ready to face big questions in Faber’s novel, one that uses a southern college’s philosophy department as a magnifying glass on relationships between haves and have nots; having power and not, that is. Decidedly a have not in this equation is Neil Weber, a professor whose chances at tenure are fading, a situation he’s desperate to change but too depressed to take real action over. Instead, he becomes enmeshed—his friends and the police say obsessed—with the disappearance of student Lucia Vanotti. This young woman, whose narration alternates with Neil’s, is technically a have not, the daughter of Italian immigrants who own a local restaurant. But a chance encounter has Neil placing her on a pedestal and desperate to find her. As he digs deeper into the student’s life and related goings on in the town, and before-disappearance Lucia brings us further into her trauma-ridden life, readers will ask, can love ever be enough? Who is a savior acting for? Humming in the background of the drama is the perplexing question of what happened to Lucia, the answer to which brings delicious twists. An absorbing debut.

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Review

The Inheritance

by Brian Kenney

Succession meets Canyon Ranch in this terrifying family reunion. The deeply complex and über-rich Agarwals family (parents, three adult kids, a daughter-in-law), with homes scattered about the map, have gathered together on an island off Scotland. The estate is owned by Myra, the oldest daughter. She’s putting the finishing touches on the conversion of the mansion into a luxe resort and wellness center, and losing buckets of money in the process. But for now it’s just the Agarwals’ playground. And there’s plenty to celebrate, including the parents’ fortieth anniversary (Shalini, the mother, is very needy) and the announcement by patriarch Raj of his long-awaited succession plan (he’s pretty arrogant). Narrated by both Myra and Zoe, the middle-class daughter-in-law who is a fake influencer, everyone’s dirty laundry gets exposed as they wait to see who gets the biggest cut of the pie. With the addition of some angry Scots—this is their land!—and the arrival of former family members, you have a recipe for murder that is certain to shock most readers. Here’s a clue: if the Agarwals motto is “family first,” where does that leave everyone else?

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Review

The Plus One

by Brian Kenney

It’s the marriage of the moguls, and a crew of celebrities and business titans have gathered at a super-posh resort in Cabos to celebrate the wedding of Radhika Singh and Raj Joshia. The week-long affair—which we see through the eyes of Shaylee “Shay” Kapoor—is just about to begin. But Shay is far from belonging to a wealthy Indian-American family; something she is reminded of regularly. She’s the “plus one,” the girlfriend of Raj’s best friend, preppy Caleb Prescott III. But on the morning that the wedding is set to begin, Daniela, the wedding coordinator, finds the bride and groom dead, gunshots to the head, drug-lord style. With knowledge that there is a killer in their midst, chaos takes over the resort and the guests start swarming to leave. But Shay stays on, as the reader begins to realize that Shay isn’t what we thought. In fact, many of the inner circle, including Caleb, have alternate personas. Shay’s still an outsider, but that’s just what might be necessary to uncover the truth. For those who enjoy closed circles, family drama, and sinister resorts.

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Review

All the Other Mothers Hate Me

by Brian Kenney

She ain’t lying! All the moms do hate her. Because Florence Grimes is quite the unrepentant good-time girl who gets all the side-eye from the moms and smirks from the dads. She has a collection of lovers that’s like a deck of cards. Her get-ups are designed to provoke, at the very least. And her last, and only, job—years ago—was in a girl band that ended in humiliation. The one ray of light is her ten-year-old son, Dylan, who is a radical environmentalist and attends a fancy London all-boys school. But when Alfie Risby, Dylan’s bully and heir to a frozen-food empire, suddenly disappears during a class trip, and Dylan is the prime suspect, Flo starts to wake up and realizes that she is the only one that can save Dylan. Rich in satire, hugely funny, with a running wink-wink to the reader, this novel is pure comedic gold.

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Review

The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne

by Henrietta Thornton

Men do live in Waterville, Maine. They even live in Petit Canada, the staunchly French neighborhood where “people [have] more trouble than money.” But the town’s men seem mostly beside the point. The women, on the other hand, use “visiting”—sitting over coffee—as time to “organize, decide neighborhood business, and leverage collective will to solve problems.” Chief at both causing and solving those problems is self-proclaimed “goddamn cast-iron bitch” Babs Dionne, who runs the town and is feared by all, but also fiercely loved. A teenage Babs commits a crime as the book opens, one that follows her over the decades of the story, corroding her ability to show love to the children she adores. One of them, Sis, is now missing and the family suspects her drunken husband is to blame. Babs and her other daughter, Lori, who’s using drugs to push down the PTSD she gained in Afghanistan, set out separately to find the woman, Lori desperate to spare Babs from the pain of likely tragedy. At the same time, a character known as “The Man” is not so gently working to convince Babs that the underworld business she’s controlled for decades is his now. We’ll see about that. Currie’s tale and his powerful writing are reminiscent of small-town sagas by Richard Russo, and are peopled by the same kinds of won’t-let-you-go characters. An immersive book to be savored.

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Review

Nemesis

by Jeff Ayers

Hurwitz delivers another knockout thriller as Evan Smoak, Orphan X, deals with the fallout of his battle with the killer, Wolf. Missions to secure justice for those who can’t find it in other ways involve Evan distancing himself from personal feelings. This time is different, as someone he has known for a long time and who supplies his special gear has betrayed him, and now Evan needs to betray a code and eliminate someone he cares about. Tommy has a unique way of making things right, which conflicts with Evan’s core beliefs. He was Evan’s friend and confidante until he betrayed his friend by supplying the Wolf weaponry that almost put Evan in the ground. To make things even harder, Evan also must deal with his “adopted” daughter, Joey, who makes a mistake for the entire world to see on the Internet, putting their relationship on rocky ground. Evan has nowhere to turn but himself, as he is forced to fight and make amends with people who are closer than family to him. It’s a good day when Hurwitz has another Orphan X novel for us to devour, and this is perfect for thriller readers waiting for the next Jack Reacher to hit the shelves (but Nemesis is better!).

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Review

Betrayal at Blackthorn Park

by Willy Williams

It’s November 1940, and Evelyne Redfurn has returned to her London boarding house after six secretive, grueling weeks of training to be a Special Investigations Unit (SIU) agent for the British government’s Special Operations Executive (SOE). But before she can relax with her roommate and best friend, Moira, she’s called up for her first assignment. Hoping to be parachuted into occupied France (her mother was French), Evelyne is disappointed when she is sent instead to investigate the possibility of theft at a weapons research and development facility in rural Sussex. Worse, her handler is her old sparring partner, David Poole. On Evelyne’s first night, however, a routine probe becomes a murder case after she stumbles upon the body of Sir Nigel Balram, the leader of the engineering team at Blackthorn Park. His death appears to be an act of suicide, but drawing on the sleuthing skills she honed in A Traitor in Whitehall, Evelyne and David race to identify a killer before Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s impending visit. The clever and resourceful Evelyne is an appealing protagonist, who struggles to maintain her close friendships without revealing her double life as a spy. Her budding chemistry with David is obvious but doesn’t distract from the main plotline. Fans of Susan Elia MacNeal’s Maggie Hope series will delight in following the adventures of a promising new World War II spymaster.

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