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Review

A Talent for Murder

by Brian Kenney

Librarian Martha Ratliff doesn’t expect to marry—isn’t running a public library in Maine satisfying enough?—until she meets Alan. A traveling salesman, Alan sells novelty items like t-shirts (“Math teachers aren’t mean. They’re above average”) at academic conferences. But as sweet as Alan might be, there’s something a bit off. Martha can’t help but do a little research, only to discover that five of the cities Alan visited have unsolved cases of murdered women, with all killed during Alan’s stay. Coincidence? Add to this the blood she finds on one of his dress shirts and Martha’s on the phone to Lily Kinter, a buddy from library school who helped Martha escape from an abusive boyfriend years ago. Could Martha be married to a serial killer? But Lily has her own baggage, and what started as a simple mystery explodes into a fascinating, dark, and complex novel of suspense. Every true-crime reader will find something to appreciate in this hugely inventive novel.

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Review

The Trials of Lila Dalton

by Henrietta Thornton

This brilliantly disorienting debut takes place on Assumption Island, a cold, rocky British outpost in the north Atlantic. Lila Dalton finds herself in an island courtroom being addressed by an impatient judge who clearly expects her to argue for her client. Lila has no idea how she got to this courtroom, how to be a barrister, what the case is…she doesn’t know anything, including who the stranger in the mirror is. Things take a turn for the (even) worse when she gets anonymous notes telling her that she’d better win acquittal for the murderer she’s representing if she ever wants to see her daughter again (that would be the daughter she didn’t know she had). The various characters working for and against Lila (we’re often unsure which direction a character is leaning, adding to the dark, compelling tale) are well drawn, with each adding complications and drama. Spare but gripping dialog propels the strange story to an appropriately dizzying conclusion. For fans of Hervé Le Tellier’s The Anomaly.

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Review

Trust Her

by Henrietta Thornton

This sequel to the Northern Ireland-set Northern Spy (2021), in which Tessa Daly desperately searches for her sister, Marion, who has either been kidnapped by the IRA to work for them or is actually a terrorist, finds Tessa hiding in Dublin from the terrorists who want revenge. She’s enjoying a quiet, if lonely, life with her four-year-old son when she’s kidnapped by a gang that includes a childhood friend. He’s now in the IRA and wants Tessa’s help to turn an MI5 agent toward the Republican side. That starts a terrifying ordeal for Tessa, who walks a tightrope between British officialdom and homegrown extremists while keeping her son safe and pursuing a forbidden romance. As in the previous book, Berry portrays a modern Ireland that’s a maelstrom of contradictions, grief for the past and hope for the future, and fear that the country’s core can never really change. But there’s still hope for the Daly family, whose caring and exasperation toward one another makes this local drama into a universal fable of love overcoming all.

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Review

Three-Inch Teeth

by Jeff Ayers

Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett learns of a tragedy that hits home. It appears that a grizzly bear has attacked and killed his daughter’s potential fiancée. A search ensues to capture this rogue animal, and meanwhile, Dallas Cates, a man who blames Pickett for imprisoning him and destroying his family, is released. Cates has an agenda: to kill the people who wronged him, and at the top of the list is Pickett and Pickett’s friend, Nate Romanowski. Inspired by the bear attack, Cates creates a mechanical device that leaves victims looking as though a bear mauled them. The prison officials promised to alert Pickett when Cates was released, but in the wake of the carnage, they forget. Can the warden figure out his nemesis’s plan before it’s too late? Box has created a series with rich and diverse characters whom readers have grown to love, and his latest is one of his best. At times brutal and shocking, and with an ending that will have readers demanding the next one immediately, Three-Inch Teeth will top bestseller lists.

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Review

The Witless Protection Program

by Brian Kenney

Mia Carina is living her best life, as the kids say. Her family’s catering hall in Queens, NY is both hugely successful and, with her acumen, now a fully legitimate business (the Family hasn’t always played above board). Shane, the love of her life, has finally proposed (Mia’s one tough lady, although when it comes to Shane, her knees get weak). But then she catches sight of a man who very much looks like Adam Grosso, her presumed-dead husband. Could she be wrong? Possibly, but a second sighting of the no-good SOB confirms he’s alive, which means Mia and Shane will have to delay their wedding—which they refuse to do. Mia calls an emergency meeting of family and Family—capisce?—to remove Adam, just not kill him (“My goal is to be a divorcee, not a widow. Ya got it?”). While finding Adam takes up a good chunk of the book, there are several fun subplots, not to mention an incredible cast of characters. Normally I’d worry about telling them apart, but DiRico manages to give each a strong identity, starting with our lead, Mia the Magnificent. Yes, it’s the fifth book in the series, but feel free to jump in. You won’t regret it.

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Review

The Vacancy in Room 10

by Brian Kenney

The Sycamores, the brilliant setting for this tale of two young women, is a run-down motel, converted into apartments, on the edge of Santa Fe. The residents—whose lives spill out throughout the building, from the balconies to the pool—are a fascinating lot who love nothing more than getting into one another’s business. Broke and thrown out of her ritzy home by her partner, who technically owned everything, Cass ends up the Sycamores’ handyperson, unclogging toilets in exchange for rent. Throw in a side gig slipping married men roofies, photographing them near naked, then threatening blackmail, and Cass has just enough money to get by. Until she accidentally murders very much the wrong guy. Alicia’s route to the Sycamores is more convoluted. Her painter/husband rented one of the units as his studio, but one day—with no real warning—he calls her up, confesses to a murder, then shoots himself. Alicia moves into her husband’s studio to cozy up to the other residents and try to discover the truth behind her husband’s death. This thumbnail sketch only hints at the depth and complexity of this thriller, in which both women take enormous risks, with help from the neighbors, to learn the truth about the lives they’ve lost. Recommended for readers who like a strong, sophisticated thriller with a dynamic plot and unforgettable characters.

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Review

Assassins Anonymous

by Brian Kenney

In this remarkable thriller full of heartbreak, humor, and bone-chilling violence, Mark—the world’s most dangerous, and best, killer-for-hire—is trying to get out of the assassin business. Known worldwide as the Pale Horse, he inspires fear among his fellow contract killers wherever he goes. But as the book opens, Mark isn’t going anywhere except for a 12-step group on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Assassins Anonymous (he’s just received his six-month chip). And Mark has some major amends he needs to make. But at the end of an AA meeting—he’s alone, having stayed to clean up—he’s attacked by a vicious Russian assailant. Who is the attacker, and why is he pursuing Mark? The only way to find out is to track him down, and in no time, Mark, accompanied by his cat, P. Kitty, is off to Singapore then London then back to New York. Is Mark being lured back into the Agency, the organization he previously worked for? Is the attack just revenge, pure and simple? And how will he defend himself and eliminate his perpetrator—without killing him or her? A high-speed thriller that manages to burrow deeply into Mark’s past and present—and the future he dreams of. A wild and hugely entertaining ride.

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Review

Eye of the Beholder

by Brian Kenney

With a nod to Alfred Hitchcock’s twisted film Vertigo—and, like Vertigo, not employing any violence—this thriller really succeeds in ramping up the anxiety. Ghostwriter Maddy has taken on a new assignment: the memoir of internationally revered cosmetic surgeon Dr. Angela Reynolds. Maddy’s pretty excited; this is the first publication that will acknowledge her as coauthor. Angela ships Maddy off to Angela’s home in the Scottish Highlands, where the author can really hunker down on the memoir. Except it turns out that the book Maddy wants to write is far different from Angela’s vision, which cuts out anything from her past. Why is the doctor so paranoid? Meanwhile, Scott, Angela’s business partner—cute but super moody!—arrives at the house for no apparent purpose, although he and Maddy do ignite a passionate romance. As is often the case in U.K. mysteries, people can be sighted standing in the fog, staring into the house, which is actually broken into several times during Maddy’s stay. But as creepy as all this is, it’s in the months after Maddy returns to London that everything begins to unravel, identities fall apart, and the truth becomes more elusive than ever.

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Review

The Atlas Maneuver

by Jeff Ayers

Berry’s talent for mixing nonstop action with history is in full swing in his latest. Cotton receives what seems like a simple assignment: protect a woman named Kelly Austin. When he rescues her from a kidnapping attempt, he learns that Kelly is not her real name, and before plastic surgery that was necessary due to an accident, she had a torrid past with Cotton. The truth of her background and why she is being hunted will separately take Cotton and his lady love, Cassiopeia, on a global chase that will make them unable to trust anyone but themselves. How does the creation of cryptocurrency tie in with the plundering of a vast treasure by Japan near the end of WWII? The answers will surprise and even shock even die-hard Berry fans. The truth of the Atlas Maneuver, if it comes to pass, will change the world’s economic future forever. One of the best features of Berry’s novels is the writer’s note, in which he breaks down the facts behind the fiction, and it’s essential reading since everything in this thriller seems all too real. Whether you are a long-time reader of Cotton’s adventures or a newcomer, this book is terrific.

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Review

The Dredge

by Willy Williams

“Some families are haunted. The stuff of the past, the traumas and the ghosts—they just go on and on,” thinks Caleb “Cale” Casey, a successful real-estate broker in Hawaii who has been estranged for almost 30 years from his brother Ambrose, who runs a construction company back in their small Connecticut hometown. Both are tormented by a terrible secret that they buried as teenagers in Gibbs Pond. When a real-estate developer announces plans to dredge the pond in preparation for further development, Cale reluctantly returns home. Unbeknownst to the brothers, Lily Rowe, the contractor in charge of the dredging, also suffers from a dark family history, a childhood of abuse and neglect, shared with her troubled sibling Ray, that led to a shocking act of violence. How these well-drawn traumatized characters and their secrets collide in the present day, permanently changing the course of their lives, is the theme of Flaherty’s beautifully written debut. His Connecticut is not the monied suburbia of Rick Moody and John Cheever, but a rural working-class community more reminiscent of Daniel Woodrell’s Ozark mountain towns. After a strong buildup, the conclusion felt a bit anticlimactic. Still, this sad novel about the corrosive effects of family trauma and pain will linger in readers’ minds.

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