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Review

Things We Do in the Dark

by Henrietta Thornton

After marrying Jimmy Peralta, an old-time comedian who’s making a comeback, much younger yoga-studio owner Paris is content to live in her husband’s shadow. Then his assistant sends out a press release that includes the odd couple’s wedding photo. Paris hates life in the spotlight, and it’s turned on her full glare when the police are called to the couple’s home and find Paris with a bloodied straight razor in her hand and Jimmy dead in the tub. It’s hardly a good look for someone assumed to be a gold digger, but there’s much more to Paris’s background than she reveals. The odd romantic story here is often poignant and always unexpected, and it effectively contrasts with the much worse physical and mental treatment of Paris in her younger life, an existence that promises to end in an extreme one way or the other. It doesn’t disappoint. Hillier excels in portraying more than one woman who’s been beaten down by life and how it’s possible to react to the blows in strikingly different ways. The language here maintains a tone of low expectations shot through with hope and devastation, making this perfect for noir fans.

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Review

Privacy

by Brian Kenney

Dr. Laina Landers is the sort of shrink anyone would want. She’s super smart, wonderfully compassionate, and completely devoted to her patients. So when the husband of a couple she is working with holds his wife hostage at gunpoint—an incident broadcast on live TV—Laina quickly gets to the scene. She saves them both, while also meeting investigative journalist Cal Murray. Empathetic? Check. Handsome? Oh, yes. Reliable? Totally. Which comes in handy, as Laina really needs a friend/lover she can depend on as her patients are receiving deeply unsettling “presents,” like a plastic fetus in a bottle of fluid, each with the same message: Watching you. More disturbing, the gift giver is relying on knowledge about the patients that can only be found in Laina’s notes from her sessions. But who would want to destroy Laina and kill her practice in the process? As Laina and Cal search for the possible culprit, the stakes get higher as the therapist herself is targeted. The I-didn’t-see-that-coming conclusion is guaranteed to make your head explode.

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Review

Cheddar Off Dead

by Brian Kenney

There’s something comforting about a mystery that opens with the still-warm body of the victim. So when cheesemonger Willa Bauer discovers Sonoma food critic Guy Lippinger slumped over in his car, a knife from Curds & Whey—her new cheese shop—sticking out of his neck, we know we can relax and enjoy the ride. Guy passed by the store earlier in the evening to review it, and the review was clearly going to be a pan, which leaves Willa pretty much the number-one suspect. Willa is new to town, and in her efforts to clear her name and find the killer she gets to know both her colleagues at Curds & Whey and the other food entrepreneurs in town. Moss develops a great sense of community for Willa, filled with some stand-out characters and the potential for at least one love interest. While plenty of cozies have a food or drink focus—from coffee bars to bakeries—Moss does an excellent job of integrating cheese into the story, subtly teaching the reader while pairing cheese with plot developments. This all adds up to a series that readers will be eager to revisit.

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Review

Bad Day Breaking

by Henrietta Thornton

n some places it’s easy to make good choices, and then there’s Bad Axe County, Wisconsin, where Sherriff Heidi Kick has clawed her way out of addiction and onto the right side of the law. Her deputy is likely the one using the office computers to exchange risqué communications with prisoners (the men’s comments, such as “if you have children of your own that is not at all a problem with me,” could be a novel of their own). The same deputy’s husband is causing Heidi headaches through his leadership of Kill the Cult, a group that gathers to protest a nomadic religious group that’s moved into a local abandoned storage facility. Cults, whether fiction or nonfiction, are always a big draw, but the undercurrent of strength shown by the sheriff, which is complemented by others who find their way to the right decisions when things heat up, is the quiet draw here. Galligan has created a flawed character to follow in Heidi Kick, who’s at once jaded by her past and her surroundings and ready to spring into action when needed. And boy is she needed. A nonfiction book by an ex-cultmember would be a great companion read to this: try Tara Westover’s Educated.

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Review

Nameless Acts of Cruelty

by Henrietta Thornton

Returning from vacation to London with his family, Jeremy, or Jez, Horton sees from the plane a figure running in a field. Without knowing why, he’s suddenly in the grip of a panic attack, certain that it’s a girl being pursued and she’s in terrible danger. Back home, he remains obsessed with the strange sighting and what could have happened to the girl, stressing himself and his wife as he retreats further into dark thoughts. His slide into an abyss of fear accelerates when he visits his dying mother, a cruel woman who’s treated him terribly, especially since his young sister’s death. As he returns to the family home that he’s now inherited, a place he hasn’t been since the tragedy, murky memories and renewed contact with boyhood friends force Jez to confront his past and deal with odd, dangerous characters who are all too present. Cameron masterfully develops those around Jez even as we are stuck in his increasingly frantic thoughts and actions. Her depiction of a tired, scared mind grasping for childhood memories is immersive and affecting, with the psychological suspense matched by a continuous ramping up of real-life drama. Fans of Helen Monks Takhar’s Precious You should add this to their TBR stash.

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Review

The Ghosts of Paris

by Brian Kenney

Part historical fiction, part mystery, this sweeping novel picks up the reader and transports them on a whirlwind trip from Sydney to London to Paris, where the long and compelling search finally comes to an end. It’s 1947, and the Second World War has been over for two years, although its impact remains enormous. Detective Billie Walker is hired by a well-to-do woman to find her husband, who’s been missing in Europe these past two years, and before you can say Qantas, Billie is up in the air, accompanied by Sam, her handsome assistant. Funny thing is, Billie also has a husband lost in Europe—a wartime photographer—providing the story with a double plot. But the greatest pleasure in this book comes from all the rich history and social commentary: the experiences of the Australian Aboriginal peoples with the police, the legal persecution of Australia’s gay men, Dior’s new look, London as it climbs out of from the Blitz, Paris as it tries to recoup, and so much more. The author has done her research, and it shows—in the best possible way. Moss does slam on the brakes, and the book rattles to a quick close, but that’s O.K. We’re happy where we’ve landed, and would follow Billie Walker anywhere.

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Review

What Can’t Be Seen

by Henrietta Thornton

What’s stranger than an eight-year-old Gretchen White standing over her murdered Aunt Rowan holding a knife dripping with blood? That child growing up to be a sociopath who works for the Boston police department and uses her access to investigate the crime, which she can’t remember. There’s a lot to learn here, and part of it is Dr. White’s lesson that her sociopathy is a neurodivergence, not a moral failing. Its core element—the inability to empathize with others—makes Gretchen an unlikely but effective psychologist, as her feelings don’t get in the way, as well as an oddly endearing villain. She’s highly aware of her emotional shortcomings, but others are too, and her vulnerability to the possible machinations of those surrounding this crime keeps the psychological twists coming. From the warped, rich family to the local woman desperate to find who murdered her sister—a separate crime that might be related to Aunt Rowan’s death—everyone’s a mess here, and everyone has motives and history that are painstakingly revealed and entwined. One for fans of Dexter and other characters we should loathe, but don’t.

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Review

The Girl They All Forgot

by Brian Kenney

Life is certainly nasty, brutish, and short—at least for most of the characters in Edwards’s much-awaited new installment, set on the edge of England’s Lake District. DVI Hannah Scarlett is in charge of cold cases, and she’s actually been funded well enough to put together a small team. Here she’s investigating the disappearance of a young woman, Ramona Smith, who is presumed to have been murdered 21 years ago. The case gets noticed when a young man commits suicide by running into quicksand—at the exact location and date that his father, who was acquitted of Ramona’s murder, took his life. The search for Ramona takes Hannah and colleagues through quite a number of plot lines with quite an assortment of characters, one creepier than the last: a sexually repressed antiques dealer, an over-the-top toy boy, a sexy—but completely plastic—middle-aged woman, and so many more. What’s remarkable is how intertwined the characters are; even Hannah’s personal life comes into play. As Hannah digs deeper into the evidence of the past, and confronts the present, readers have the pleasure of seeing such a complex narrative effortlessly resolve itself. For readers of Ann Cleeves, Mark Billingham, and Clare Donoghue.

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Review

The Perfect Neighborhood

by Henrietta Thornton

On the surface, Oak Hill, New Jersey, is, yes, a perfect neighborhood. Perfect lawns, perfect homes, perfect families. A crack appears when we see local high-schooler Cassidy on a clandestine outing, running late to meet Billy, the kindergartener she babysits for when he walks home from school. He doesn’t show, and his disappearance reveals the hurt, deception, and toxic boredom lurking behind many of the tony town’s facades. Billy’s mother, Rachel, is overprotective; his father resents his younger wife for trapping him in this second marriage by becoming pregnant; his older stepbrother, a small-time drug dealer, barely acknowledges Billy. Cassidy, reviled in the papers as The Babysitter, is having an affair with a much older man. The local celebrities, has-been musician Chris and his actress wife, Allison, have just split up and she’s moved away with no explanation. As the investigation into Billy’s disappearance continues, his shattered family is the nexus of a town in turmoil, allowing Alterman to show how pressure and desperation can manifest in very different ways and result in vastly different outcomes. Billy’s disappearance isn’t the only crime, and the interpersonal stories as well as the crime-centered mysteries will keep readers shaking their heads in disbelief as they keep the pages turning, hoping for justice.

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Review

The Self-Made Widow

by Brian Kenney

After Andie Stern’s debut in Suburban Dicks—in which she solved a shocking murder in her New Jersey town—you’d think the former FBI employee would be ready for a little R&R. Or at least as much relaxation as a mother of five can get. But when the husband of Molly, a member of her mom’s group—which Andie secretly calls The Cellulitists—unexpectedly dies, Andie strongly suspects Molly is to blame. The hard part, but also the fun part, is proving it. Helped out by disgraced journalist Kenny Lee, a buddy from Suburban Dicks and the only man in the book who isn’t a complete, well, dick, along with new friend Sathwika, Andie follows the many leads, which eventually bring her and Kenny far too close to home. Nicieza, the co-creator of Deadpool, is a wonderful satirist, and the friction brought about his women characters’ multiple lives as mothers, wives, professionals, and even criminals is pure pleasure and more than just a little bit realistic. Towards the end there’s the hint that Andie and Sathwika may set up their own detective agency. Pray God this is so.

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