Category:

Review

Review

The Beautiful and the Wild

by Henrietta Thornton

Liv is imprisoned in a rusting shipping container in rural Alaska, her captor her ex-husband, whom she’s tracked down after he faked his death and ran from their marriage and disabled son. He’s now living with a new partner in a proto-cult based on the writings of a guru who espouses pleasure above all else and is happy to philosophize endlessly while harsh conditions threaten his family. Over time, as Liv gains entry to Mark’s house and to some of his more sordid secrets, she plots her escape, one that it seems impossible being phone- and car-less as she is. Townsend takes us on a tense ride through family and cult dynamics, along the way treating us to a memorable look at female and parental resilience; the up-close look at a narcissistic patriarch who’s setting himself up to fail is a bonus. For fans of wilderness thrillers such as Karen Dionne’s The Marsh King’s Daughter.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Murder by the Seashore

by Jeff Ayers

Yew’s first book in this series creates a perfect launch point for the adventures of bookseller Scarlett Gardner and her world of nosy tourists; endearing friends; and a former boyfriend, Connor, who embodies the word jerk. She moves to the beachfront town of Oceanside, CA, to open a bookstore with Connor, but he leaves her in the lurch soon after opening. She finds friendship with Evelyn, who helps her run the store. One morning, Scarlett finds a woman’s body on the beach near the store. When the police learn that not only was the woman in the store the night before but also that she left Scarlett a vast inheritance, the bookseller becomes a prime suspect. Scarlett has no idea why she is receiving this enormous sum of money, and suddenly everybody wants to meet the “murderous bookseller.” Yew has the goods to craft a compelling story full of everything cozy fans expect, including the red herrings, sketchy suspects, and motivation to have Scarlett investigate the case herself to prove her innocence. Under the name Holly Yew, the author launched another mystery series, The Rose Shore Mysteries, featuring an art curator. Under any name, Yew has a bright future in the cozy world.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

West Heart Kill

by Brian Kenney

You could call it a meta-mystery. Or you could just call it a whole lot of fun. Gerald Ford is president, the Concorde is dominating the news, while Neil Sedaka is on the turntable. Detective Adam McAnnis accompanies a college chum to the West Heart Club, sort of an Adirondack hunting club set in the northern New York wilderness, crawling with tipsy uber-WASPS. This place is so old and insular the residents speak their own sort of slangy English. What brings a New York City detective to this rarefied compound? Hard to say, but it’s clear he’s got a motive. Comparisons to the Blades Out series are inevitable, but McDorman’s novel is a whole lot more sophisticated and a good deal more humorous. Reading this book is a bit like driving behind a school bus and a garbage truck; the narrative leaps ahead, only to pause while we’re treated to an essay on the rules of the mystery, or the nature of locked-room stories. Then we move ahead a bit, only to stop and be regaled by the disappearance of Agatha Christie, Auden on the Whodunit, and any number of references to mystery’s grand tradition. Confused at where we are? Fear not. There are narrators ready to jump into the fray and remind us we are in a detective story, and what to believe—and what not. It’s a thrill to come across a book that is at once so playful and so erudite.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Sight

by Henrietta Thornton

Faith Harrington’s mother is dying. It’s no surprise to Faith, who can see others’ deaths when she looks in their eyes, though she can only guess at the timing of the demise. This ability revealed itself when Faith was a child and she saw her brother’s drowning ahead of time, an event that left the members of her family’s circus thinking that the girl, like her grandmother who had even more such powers, was cursed. Since then, Faith’s been pushed to the periphery of her family’s traveling and performances. But when she enters the big tent and accidentally sees a performer collapse, and reassures his daughter that she’s seen his death and it’s when he looks much older, it’s the beginning of chaos and danger surrounding the strange talent. The question of whether fate can be changed will linger with readers after this thoughtful, atmospheric book that features a startling twist at the end. Remember Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus? This is for fans of that who are ready for something darker, as well as readers who like to learn about intriguing subcultures.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

In the Dark I See You

by Henrietta Thornton

Neighbors, amirite? Audrey has some of the worst: Bob, who won’t stop dropping in unannounced, and, worse again, Sarah, a new mom who expects Audrey to babysit regularly for free. Adding to her stress is that the neighbors are going through a spate of frightening break-ins, with odd things of only sentimental value targeted by the thief. What only Audrey and readers know is that a different kind of crime might be going on, as Audrey, who is blind, uses her considerable hacking skills, and her hacker comrades, to spy on Sarah. Her activities become suspect when she finds Sarah murdered in her home and is hauled in for questioning as the last known person to visit the murdered woman. This is Narayanan’s debut thriller, and her background in short-story writing serves her well, as the scenes here are structured as neat packages that leave readers wanting more. The author herself is not blind, but used a consultant reader who is, and the protagonist’s disability is thankfully more a fact of her life than a plot device. Readers who enjoy tension and twists are the audience for this Alice LaPlante readalike.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Mother-Daughter Murder Night

by Brian Kenney

A wonderfully paced mystery, in a fascinating setting, told through the lives of three generations of women. Lana Rubicon is one of the leading real-estate developers in Los Angeles. But these days she’s spending less time running to power meetings in her Chanel suits and Jimmy Choos and more time asleep on her daughter Beth’s sofa, 300 miles up the coast. Recovering from cancer, the super Type-A Lana is bored beyond belief, with her days spent observing life in the slough—that’s a wetland, or marsh—that surrounds them. But when Jack, her teenage granddaughter, finds a body in the slough, where she gives kayak tours part-time, and the cops start looking at Jack like suspect number one, Lana grabs her wig and gets in on the action. The action, it turns out, is quite complicated, involving the recently deceased patient of Beth, a land dispute that involves one of the most prominent families in the area, rich ranchers, and some conservationists who can’t be completely trusted. To find the truth, and to get out alive, all three women need to do the unthinkable: work together. This reader would love to see more from this fab trio.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Hike

by Brian Kenney

A near-perfect novel of utopia-gone-wrong. Liz and her three female friends take a vacation together every year, typically somewhere with plenty of sun and a good bartender. But this year it’s Liz’s turn to pick, and needing a radical reset, she decides they’ll go mountain climbing in the gorgeous wilds of Norway. Gorgeous, but deadly. And—as the locals point out, not a climb for the inexperienced—which is all of them. Here’s a bit of what could go wrong: creepy, predatory males spying on them; killer storms; mud slides; loss of all provisions; no cell phone reception; and interference from a drug cartel. In addition, each woman manages to screw things up in her own way, like losing the trail or spraining an ankle, regularly setting them at one another’s throats. The novel builds slowly, we get plenty of insight into each woman’s personal life and the baggage she hopes to leave on the mountain, while the suspense blossoms beautifully. Richly atmospheric, well-plotted, with plenty of insight into female friendship, this should appeal to fans of Lisa Unger and Claire Douglas.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Couple in the Photo

by Brian Kenney

Two couples—Lucy and Adam, Cora and Scott—are the best of friends. It helps that, with the exception of Lucy, they were flatmates as far back as university. They’re in and out of one another’s houses, share care for the children, and have even purchased a beach house together, spending the weekends collectively renovating it. So when Lucy is at a work party and a colleague shares photos of her honeymoon in the Maldives, she’s shocked to see Scott in one of the photos, clearly with another woman. What is going on? Adam tells her to drop it—who knows what she really saw in the photo?—but Lucy is like a dog with a bone. Her investigation of Scott’s life opens up layers of deceit, causing Adam, and then Scott, to launch an aggressive campaign to gaslight her. Eventually Lucy realizes that she isn’t crazy but that everyone in her life knows far more about Scott, and the mystery woman in the photograph, than she does. For readers who love domestic suspense that doesn’t shy away from well-developed characters; large, complex plots; and plenty of dialogue. For fans of Lisa Unger and Rachel Hawkins.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Woman Inside

by Henrietta Thornton

“Before I got this job,” says Jennica Jungstedt, “I had no idea how far people are willing to stretch the limits of their values,” neatly summing up the theme of this Swedish psychological drama. Jennica is a psychic-hotline operator, but really more of a therapist for those who call; she’s also dating a much-older professor, Steven Rytter. He seems almost too good to be true when they get together after meeting on an online-dating site. “Don’t want to jinx it,” she tells her friends, “but right now it’s going pretty fucking great.” Not so great is that Steven has a wife, Regina, who’s been struck down by the mysterious after-affects of a virus He also forbids his house cleaner, Karla, the only outside contact Regina has, from talking to the sick woman. Karla, meanwhile, has a new space as a lodger in a home that’s equally dysfunctional: she lives with a recent widower who might soon lose his home as he’s unemployed and the bills are mounting. There are lots of characters here, each with a distinct personality and a unique way of adding to the spiraling chaos. Starring two young women, Jennica and Karla, this book is both lighter than many of the Scandi noir titles of recent years and more devastating in portraying the characters’ slow, then all too rapid, descent into murder. A must read.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Kala

by Henrietta Thornton

Small towns in cozies tend to center on sumptuous bakeries, homey libraries, and kind neighbors. Walsh and his characters aren’t here for that. Instead, they kick you upright to witness the rot that can set in when greed, fear, and both too much and too little hope clash in a small community. The story here focuses on the titular character, a member of a Kinlough, Ireland posse of teens who make fast, cutting judgements—some startlingly accurate—about those around them. Those judgements and their attendant goings-on follow the group over decades. Except for Kala, that is, because she goes missing as a teen, an event that’s explored through flashbacks to that hormone-and-sunshine-filled time and in the present, when one of the gang returns to Kinlough for a wedding and Kala’s disappearance becomes a focal point once more. This is far more Stuart Neville than Maeve Binchy, and includes both graphic descriptions of animal abuse and child abuse that happen off the page, but if you can stomach those scenes, you’re in for a memorable tale with not a word wasted. Side note: until I checked, I thought this was written by an Irish woman, as my days as an all-girls’-school-schoolgirl in rural Ireland were that faithfully reproduced (hand me the smelling salts whenever you get a chance).

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail