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Review

Killingly

by Brian Kenney

A haunting tale set in the rarefied world of Mount Holyoke college, the oldest of the Seven Sisters, and inspired by a true story. It’s 1897 and Bertha Mellish, a quiet and rather odd junior, has gone missing, last seen walking into the woods that surround the college. As days go by, her disappearance draws to campus her sister and father—an enfeebled minister from Killingly, Connecticut—the police, and a private investigator hired by the family. But the one person who likely knows what happened to Bertha is Agnes Sullivan, and she’s being incredibly circumspect. Agnes is poor and Irish, a promising scientist, and Bertha’s closest friend…or lover? At a time when women in an environment like Mount Holyoke could establish romantic relationships, and display affection, Agnes and Bertha were such a couple—in fact, they planned after graduation to live in a Boston Marriage, the name for two women who set up a household together. So why is Agnes so tight-lipped? Rape, incest, abortion, vivisection, and insanity swirl around the narrative, as does the imagining of the precarious lives of women, even when privileged. Beutner does a wonderful job of pulling the reader into this world then locking the door behind us, keeping us engaged until the very last page.

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Review

The Personal Assistant

by Henrietta Thornton

@UnapologeticallyAlex is Alex Hutchinson’s wildly successful Instagram account, one that is moving toward a million followers until she and her personal assistant AC hit the booze and the next morning her following has turned rabid. Through her hangover haze, Alex sees that she has fifteen thousand notifications that give her in ALL ANGRY CAPS the information she dreads: last night, she trashed another online celebrity in a three-paragraph-long diatribe that might or might not have used the words “attention-seeking slut.” And that’s only the beginning. Alex and her handsome, financial-guru husband, Patrick, who has a successful TV show, along with their twin daughters, find themselves suddenly locked in a spiral of misfortune. Alex’s personal assistant—the one person who could fix this Insta nightmare—is missing. The police discover evidence of a crime in their carriage house. And the normally well-behaved twins are in trouble at school for drinking. Can it get worse? Oh yes, it can. Join Alex for this wild ride—you won’t be sorry!—and get ready for a look at the real world of online fame, which is made to seem both frighteningly exposing and frighteningly isolating by the masterful narrative and especially the inner dialogs of Alex, AC, and Patrick. While this is a thriller with tech as a catalyst, anyone who likes a great story will eat it up (the heaping spoonful of schadenfreude doesn’t hurt).

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Review

The Last Grudge

by Brian Kenney

A classic police procedural that does a miraculous job of balancing the investigation on the one hand and the complex personal lives of the detectives on the other. One of Helsinki’s most successful business leaders is murdered in his home, by a kitchen knife to his heart. He was on his way to a dinner celebrating his company’s fiftieth anniversary, an event overshadowed by protests because of recent layoffs he’s authorized. Yusuf, one of the leading detectives throughout this series, is put in charge of the investigation, which leads inward, with a meticulous examination of the apartment, and outward, contacting many of the executive’s colleagues and just individuals with whom he may have had contact. Unnerved at his leadership position, Yusuf brings on Detective Jessica Niemi, his partner in the earlier books, who’s now on leave trying to escape from her personal demons—literally, not metaphorically. As the story briskly unfolds—Seeck keeps the plot moving—the past and the present collide in a terrifying way. While this can be a stand-alone, it’s best to read it as part of a series. For fans of Camilla Läckberg and Jo Nesbø.

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Review

A Mother Would Know

by Henrietta Thornton

Remember We Need to Talk about Kevin, Lionel Shriver’s dark novel about a mother’s fraught efforts to understand her violent son? Here, neighbors believe Valerie Jacobs has set up her own version of Shriver’s book: her son, Hudson, suspected years ago of a violent crime, is back home and seems eager to live off mom. Valerie’s daughter, Kendra, is against the arrangement. Valerie has always spoiled Hudson, Kendra says between snapping at her mother’s attempts to be a new grandma and pushing miracle cures for Valerie’s seemingly encroaching Alzheimer’s disease. Then a shock crashes into the setup: a young woman is found murdered in the neighborhood and Valerie’s neighbors immediately point the finger at her home. Even Valerie herself suspects Hudson, except when she’s suspecting herself and her memory gaps. Garza (When I Was You) excels at making our heads spin as facts emerge, some from the present and others the past, adding to both the murkiness and the drama. This tale is constructed on a scaffold of slights, family grudges, deceit, and quiet love, all of which build to an out-of-the-blue reveal. This isn’t—thankfully!—as dark as We Need to Talk about Kevin, but it’s every bit as gripping.

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Review

Bright and Deadly Things

by Brian Kenney

Oxford don Emily is off to a retreat of sorts at Chalet des Anglais—a large estate in the French Alps, owned by several of the Oxford colleges. Emily is recently widowed, and this Alpine sojourn, including students and faculty—several of whom are her friends—seems to be exactly what the doctor ordered. But from the get-go, something isn’t right. Her house is burglarized as she is leaving for the airport. At the Chalet, someone rifles through her belongings and attempts to log into her laptop. Friends, too, are acting oddly, while an attractive undergrad is busy putting the moves on nearly everyone, including Emily. Not exactly a locked-room—let’s call it a locked chalet—the house is tremendously remote and, naturally, without any Internet access. Elliott slowly and skillfully builds the tension, carefully layering conversations, glances, overheard conversations, diary entries, and annual reports from the Chalet’s earlier years. When all hell finally breaks loose—and it certainly does, in multiple ways—Emily is left without anyone she can trust, forced to recreate her world

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Review

Locust Lane

by Henrietta Thornton

The puzzle pieces that make up the rich town of Emerson, Massachusetts don’t quite fit and in the cracks between, unhappiness grows. Michel is a striving Lebanese restaurant owner, his son Christopher a quiet kid who’s trying his hardest to fit into a very white town, with his most strident effort expended on friendship with bully Jack. Michel’s fancy restaurant often hosts the ladies-who-lunch crowd, most frequently Alice, Michel’s married girlfriend who’s stepmom to volatile teen Hannah. The façade of prosperous goodness collapses in a heap of gossip and accusations when “that girl Eden,” who’s from the other side of the tracks and has a troubled background, is found dead after partying with Christopher, Hannah, and Jack. The usual haves-and-have-nots divide becomes starker as the pressure mounts on the police to solve this quickly, and secrets and bigotries are revealed…but who did it is tantalizingly unclear until the very end. All through the book, the testing and twisting of relationships keeps the drama high and Amidon leaves us pondering the question of what’s worth sacrificing for love. For Celeste Ng’s many fans.

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Review

Murder Book

by Henrietta Thornton

It’s no wonder Harry Duncan’s ex-wife, Ellen, a U.S. Attorney, calls him when her cases need some extrajudicial help. Former cop Harry is an expert at getting himself into trouble—just the kind that suits his investigations—and getting back out, with each leg of the journey equally satisfying. His current murder book, or record of a crime investigation, opens when Ellen asks him to hit the road on her behalf to look into what might be a new criminal organization setting itself up in Indiana. Arriving in Parkman’s Elbow, a town identified as one focus of the possible gang, Harry stops for lunch, the action finds him immediately, and his combination MacGyver/James Bond maneuvers are decidedly ON. The investigation often takes a back seat as readers get lost in Harry’s vigilante moves—defeating bumbling bad guys in ways that ridicule them, saving a woman the gang is trying to extort—and his smart evasion and tracking methods. But the case is almost beside the point when such exciting chases and devastating put-downs of criminals are on the menu. Would the police really ignore the wild things Harry does? Probably not, but you won’t care. One for a late-night binge.

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Review

Such Pretty Flowers

by Brian Kenney

A little bit of a mystery, a whole lot of a thriller, and definitely a Savannah gothic, this novel is 100 percent guaranteed to creep you out. Holly and Dane are close as brother and sister, but when Dane starts having psychological problems in his final semester of college, Holly pulls back. After all, Dane now has Maura, his girlfriend who he has moved in with and who is taking care of him. But when Dane dies from suicide—he actually tried to disembowel himself—Holly spirals into a guilt-induced depression. “Get it out of me,” reads Dane’s last text to his sister. To understand what happened to Dane, Holly seeks out the mysterious and beautiful Maura, a florist obsessed with carnivorous plants and harnessing the power of botanicals. From stalking Maura to rooming with her to surrendering to her erotic powers, Holly realizes that if she doesn’t solve the mystery of what Maura did to Dane, then she will be forced to reenact it, with the same tragic results. A steamy f/f romance. Gothic vibes. A love story gone terribly wrong. Carnivorous roses. Get this title on Booktok!

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Review

The Survivalists

by Henrietta Thornton

Ready for something completely different? This brilliantly odd and unexpected tale sees striving corporate lawyer Aretha go on—finally!—a great date, one that doesn’t end with her crawling out the bar’s bathroom window to escape (yes, she has) or wondering mid date if she’s already dead. Aaron does arrive in the bar looking like he “[chops] wood for a living right there in the middle of Brooklyn,” but that’s not so unusual for the area. What is unusual is that he’s part of the “dead parents club.” His mom died of cancer while Aretha’s were gored by deer, but her past dates have made her less choosy. This might be why Aretha tries to chalk it down to individuality when she finds that Aaron and his housemates have built a bunker in their garden to keep safe when the world is destroyed, eat only optimized protein soy bars, and own guns (not just a few). As Aretha drops further into this bizarro world, into crime, and away from Aaron, the sadness underneath the spectacle shows itself: this tale is about the rot that sets in when you sell something that doesn’t belong to you. Plagiarism features, with housemate James a perpetrator and Aretha, in a separate event, a victim, but even worse is Aretha and Aaron selling versions of themselves that can never be. A must-read debut.

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Review

Waste of a Life

by Brian Kenney

What do you remember most about a Simon Brett novel? The characters. Brett, a genius at writing traditional mysteries, has created several series over the years, all based on personalities that draw readers back again and again. These days, Brett has two series in the works, the long-standing Fethering mysteries—featuring two sort-of best friends in a very English village—and a newer series featuring professional declutterer Ellen Curtis. Having a declutterer as your protagonist is inspired: they allow for easy access into other people’s lives—through their stuff—whether those people are dead or alive. Here, Ellen has been hired to work with Cedric Waites, an octogenarian who hasn’t left the house since his wife died years ago. Yes, there are mountains of empty frozen-dinner containers, but Ellen is slowly making headway with Cedric. Only to find him, one day, dead. And not just dead, but likely murdered, with Ellen one of the suspects. The novel goes deeply into Cedric’s past, marriage, and his dealings with his awful son and even worse daughter-in-law. But more compelling is Ellen and her relationships with her two adult children, both of whom are deeply troubled, and both of whom end up moving home at some point. The publisher describes this as a light-hearted mystery. It’s not. It’s actually a darn good novel about families—the good, the bad, and the ugly—set against a murder inquiry.

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