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Review

A Deadly Bone to Pick

by Brian Kenney

Live in Massachusetts and need to reinvent your life? Move to a small seaside town on the California coast. Molly Madison, ex-cop, former PI, and dog wrangler, does just that, wanting to put behind her the murder of her husband, for which she was never fully exonerated. Fortunately, Pier Point is a welcoming community that is perfect for Molly; her golden retriever, Harlow; and Noodle, a neighbor’s enormous, slobbering Saint Berdoodle that Molly semi-adopts. On a morning beach walk, Noodle digs up a woman’s hand, setting in motion a search for the victim and the murderer that again has Molly on the police’s radar. Rothschild has created the first in what could be a wonderful series. Molly is quirky and totally believable. The community is engaging. And Harlow and Noodle, rooted in real-dog behavior, make great co-stars who lend a great deal to the story. I’m hooked.

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Review

Autopsy: A Scarpetta Novel

by Henrietta Thornton

A familiar author is a great choice for vacation, as there’s no need to learn about their characters or world. But even if you haven’t tried Patricia Cornwell before, this 25th in the series is a cracking read. The author’s long-running medical examiner character, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, is back, but a lot has changed in her life. The COVID-19 pandemic is over and it has devastated Scarpetta’s family; her always-tense relationship with sister Dorothy has been complicated by Dorothy’s marriage to Scarpetta’s sidekick, Marino; and the doctor has moved from Miami to a Virginia job that’s turning out to be a nightmare. Very unusual for Scarpetta and for forensic science-related novels is the site of an early case in this book: space, from where one astronaut has returned, abandoning his colleagues. When Scarpetta is called in to observe the opening of the capsule they inhabit, in case an autopsy is needed, it pulls her away from investigating the death of a young woman who was recently found by the railway tracks, with the tantalizing clue—or is it just a coincidence?—of train-flattened pennies nearby. The doctor herself even has a scrape with death this time, all adding up to what readers have come to love from Cornwell: puzzling cases that star both science and family (and found family) love.

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Review

The Stalker

by Brian Kenney

nitially, this novel seems weighed down by clichés: the weak, timid wife; the macho, type-A husband; the island rumored to be haunted. But keep going and you will be rewarded with a top-rate thriller which is nothing as it seems. Liam and Laura chose to spend their honeymoon on a remote Scottish island, empty except for the two of them. Their lovely cottage is stuffed with a week’s worth of fine foods and wine, and all they plan to do is explore the island’s ancient burial sites and ruined castle. Until things start to get weird—is someone in the bushes watching them?—and they wake to find a message scratched into the window. Clearly they aren’t alone, and their one way of contact with the mainland, a satellite phone, is missing its charger. Then the electricity goes out. From there, it’s clear that their stalker isn’t playing trick or treat, he’s out to murder them. You would expect this book to end with a face-off between the newlyweds and the villain, but a 180-degree twist ends up rewriting the whole book, leaving readers absolutely stunned.

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Review

Deep Sleep

by Henrietta Thornton

Konkoly, Steven. Deep Sleep. January 2022. Thomas & Mercer.
Fans of espionage and breakneck action are the audience for this political thriller from Konkoly (Black Flagged series). Unusually, the catalyst for the action is a dead woman: former CIA agent Helen Grey meets her end early in the book on a mysterious solo mission to kidnap a man from a retirement home. Her son, Devin, is not surprised to hear that his mother is behind this bizarre crime; she’s been paranoid about a government conspiracy for years. But carefully coded messages she left in anticipation of her death lead Devin to the truth of the old saying that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. Devin and his former-Marine friend Marnie (will they or won’t they get together by book’s end?) realize that long-swirling rumors about Russian agents infiltrating the U.S. government, working to sabotage the country from within, might be true. While the premise here is interesting, the action makes the book; it’s almost one long fight scene, and those who are nerdy for specs on drones, weapons, and surveillance tech will eat it up. A must for Tom Clancy devotees.

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Review

The Cottage

by Brian Kenney

Suspense fiction for those who enjoy character-driven stories, plenty of dialogue, and simple, straightforward prose. Single parent Kate is awoken by noise in her backyard, but it’s just deer. Then she sees some teens running from the cottage at the end of her property. Days later she starts getting anonymous texts—which are vaguely threatening—then a window is smashed and a knife is found embedded in the cottage’s wall. This would be enough to set anyone on edge, but Kate is especially vulnerable; she survived a home invasion two years ago in which her husband, a cop, was murdered. Fortunately, the former police chief is her father-in-law, and her sister —they’ve been estranged for 20-plus years—agrees to move in and help raise Kate’s two kids. As the terror slowly escalates, and the list of potential suspects grows, Kate has to go deeper into her past to understand who wants to kill her today.

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Review

Secrets of Our House

by Henrietta Thornton

This is one of those books that makes you want to befriend the characters, or at least get annual updates on how it’s all going. It’s a family story with two couples as focal points: Desiree (Desi) and Peter, whose marriage seems to be ending, due in part to a mysterious past event; and their daughter Jules and her boyfriend Will, crazy-in-love teenagers. While the young couple’s romance is just starting, it also seems doomed, as Jules is a rich, summertime-only visitor to Will’s rural North Carolina town and is leaving soon for college while less-well-off Will stays put. Both relationships are tested by tragedies and bring each character’s most extreme emotions to the forefront, feelings that are poignantly described by Frey (Until I Find You, 2020). Desi is a particular highlight, with her flawed parenting lending a rawness and realness to the book; the strain induced by tragedy brings her to drop a bombshell revelation that shocks family and readers alike. After this, you may feel like no other characters can measure up and head straight to the TV; once that has passed, try a book I’ve recommended in First Clue before, but I’m doing it again! Paullina Simons’s The Girl in Times Square; those characters almost ruined me for other books.

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Review

Repentance

by Brian Kenney

It’s 1981 and Inspector Joaquín Alzada has one goal: to keep his head down and avoid trouble. Not so easy when you are a cop in Buenos Aires during a period of extreme political turmoil, with Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo bearing daily witness to the thousands of citizens who have been made disappeared. But when his activist brother Jorge is among the missing, Joaquín has no choice but to use his political chips and try to save his brother. Flip to twenty years later, when Argentina is facing a serious economic crisis, with middle-class citizens going hungry and taking to the streets. Again, Joaquín’s reaction is to lie low—he’s close to retirement, after all—but circumstances won’t allow it. For one thing, the body of a woman is found, dumped near the morgue, while at the same time one of Buenos Aires’s wealthiest women has gone missing. Are they a match? Then, the twenty-something son of Jorge—raised by Joaquín and his wife—joins the protestors. Repentance isn’t so much crime fiction as it is fiction embedded in crime, and Díaz skillfully uses Joaquín’s inner voice—poignant, dryly witty, anxious—to move the narrative along. A powerful first novel that brilliantly illuminates a country, a historical period, and an individual.

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Review

Devil’s Chew Toy

by Brian Kenney

Life could be better for Hayden McCall, a diminutive, red-headed (don’t call him cute!) eighth-grade teacher in Seattle. The bad news: While hanging out at a gay bar, he manages to get kicked in the eye by Camilo, a beautiful go-go boy. The good news: Camilo invites him home for the evening and turns out to be quite a gentleman. The worse news: Hayden wakes up the next morning to find Camilo gone, his bull terrier needing to be fed, and the police knocking at the door. With that, we are off and running as Hayden searches for Camilo, accompanied by two of Camilo’s best friends, both lesbians: Hollister, who’s African American, a risk taker, and in possession of an impressive mohawk; and Burley, who’s a giant, a baker, and a total stoner. Both women are keenly aware that the cops are not going to take the disappearance of a young Latino man seriously, a go-go boy at that, and it is up to them to save their friend. This novel is a wonderful mix of lightheartedness—no surprise, sidekicks Hollister and Burley provide plenty of laughs—and seriousness, as we learn that Venezuelan-born Camilo is a “Dreamer” whose stay in the U.S. is precarious. Congratulations to Osler for creating a mystery set in the LGBTQ community that is both compelling and heartfelt. Bring on the next installment!

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Review

The Cottage

by Brian Kenney

Poor Jan. In her late twenties, she’s lost both her job and her boyfriend at the same time. Pretty much directionless, she rents a remote cottage on the edge of a forest and settles down to start that novel she’s always wanted to write, and to try to sort out her future. All would be wonderful were it not for the tapping on the windows every night, the dog barking at something—or someone?—in the garden, and the continual feeling that she is being observed. Cut away to Ian and Emma, a young couple in the area, who have lost a second child to stillbirth, with both babies born deformed. Although they decide to no longer seek having children biologically, Ian becomes obsessed with trying to understand the cause of their misfortunes. These two narratives really crank up the suspense as Jan seeks to discover the nature of her nocturnal visitors while Ian slowly uncovers disturbing facts about his and Emma’s parentages. Eventually the two story lines converge, making for a super creepy, but satisfying, ending. Kudos to Stone for a thriller that relies on neither violence nor murder and manages to treat a medical condition with compassion, not exploitation. Reading groups will enjoy discussing the many moral dilemmas the novel presents.

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Review

A Thousand Steps

by Henrietta Thornton

Matt Anthony, a high-schooler in 1960s San Francisco, has the weight of the world on his skinny shoulders. His conservative father abandoned the family and writes only to rail about the “queers and communists” who have taken over the city. Matt supports his family with a punishing paper route while living off fish he catches and foraging restaurant leftovers, all because his mother claims to have a curiously long-lasting flu but is actually using their grocery and rent money on drugs. Worst of all, right after Matt sees a teen girl’s body washed up on the beach, his sister Jasmine goes missing. Matt’s mother doesn’t take Jasmine’s disappearance seriously for days and the police are little help, leaving Matt to investigate the seedy human infrastructure of the city’s drug scene, which wears a veneer of peace and love but underneath is cut-throat capitalist. Matt’s story is akin to an ancient epic that sees the hero tested and battered (his lengthy skirmish with a giant fish—two week’s worth of food for a hungry boy—is terrifying). But ultimately he triumphs as he fights for what’s right. The prolific Parker has 27 other novels to back this up, most recently Then She Vanished (2020); readers who like a modern epic should turn to Michael Hughes’s Country, a version of The Iliad set in present-day Northern Ireland.

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