Tag:

Suspense

Review

Someone Saw Something

by Jeff Ayers

A parent’s worst nightmare comes true for news anchor Corina and her family in Mofina’s gripping thriller. Six-year-old Gabriel is playing in Central Park with his older sister when he vanishes after going after his model airplane. Initial searches show no evidence of how he disappeared, nor any witnesses to the abduction. With no ransom demand, the police and investigators are baffled. Since Corina is a celebrity, the case brings out some sympathetic thoughts, but those are few. Most of what Corina reads online are vicious attacks and conspiracy theories regarding Gabriel’s true origins that make her life, and that of her family, a living hell. It doesn’t help that her husband and daughter have secrets they don’t want the world to discover. Mofina intelligently crafts the story by never showing Gabriel’s whereabouts or who is responsible for his kidnapping, amping up the conspiracy and paranoia. Focusing on the family’s agony and quest for the truth puts the reader directly into the story, and the final payoff is terrific. Mofina is a number-one bestselling author in Canada—as he should be in many other countries.

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Review

Missing White Woman

by Brian Kenney

This is one wild, suspense-driven tale, equally rich in characterization and plot. Breanna is on a mini-vacation with her new boyfriend, Ty, staying in a beautiful brownstone in Jersey City while touring Manhattan. Ty’s thought of everything, and the long weekend is 95 percent perfect, except for that five percent when Ty won’t stop with the work calls. But when Bree wakes up on their final morning, she can’t find Ty anywhere. What she does discover, strewn in the foyer, is the bloody corpse of a young woman that turns out to be Janelle, who has been missing for days. From here, things really take off, with Bree’s best friend—they’ve been estranged since college—arriving on the scene (she’s a take-charge criminal attorney), while Billie, a super-successful makeup influencer, rallies her thousands of followers into seeking #Justice4Janelle. Garrett does a great job of tracking the racism Bree experiences, from the neighbors’ microaggressions to the stereotypes purported about Ty to the national frenzy that only a white woman’s disappearance could generate (and thus the book’s title). A great cast, a wide-reaching narrative, and a resolution that will leave readers ruminating for days. Can’t wait to introduce this to a book group

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Review

Hollywood Hustle

by Jeff Ayers

Actor and now debut novelist Lindstrom explores the dark side of life in Los Angeles. Winston Greene used to be one of the top actors in the world, but his prestige is gone, along with most gigs. His six-year-old granddaughter arrives in the middle of the night after getting a ride from a stranger; she appears out of sorts, and she’s carrying a stuffed puppy and a thumb drive. The drive contains a ransom video featuring Winston’s daughter, who will die unless he gives her kidnappers all the money from his prestigious career. Going to the police will only put a target on Winston and his granddaughter’s backs. Thankfully, he has some friends who can help, including a former LAPD detective and a stuntman. These characters are all flawed, but that makes the story more engaging than if they were squeaky-clean superheroes. Lindstrom uses his knowledge of Hollywood to deliver a clever and gripping thriller, and he writes like a pro. It is hard to believe this is a debut.

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Review

The Father She Went to Find

by Henrietta Thornton

A childhood fall down the stairs, for which she blames her alcoholic mother, caused a head injury that has left Penny Bly a savant with perfect recall of everything that has happened to her since the fall. She’s one of only 75 people in the world with this level of abilities, but it doesn’t feel so special: she’s lonely and rebellious, living in a facility where she’s always being studied. One of her only joys is receiving birthday cards from the father who abandoned her when she was a child, but when her 21st birthday card arrives, it bears a message that sees her leave the home and take a cross country trip to find him, encountering friendship but also terrible danger along the way. Penny is a fascinating character who’s full of extremes: off-the-charts intelligent but completely clueless when it comes to the real world; desperate for love but pushing everyone away; longing for safety but causing mayhem with her single-minded pursuit of a plan-less goal. Get ready for a wild ride and a WHOA ending.

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Review

The Last Applicant

by Henrietta Thornton

This novel takes place in the social black hole that sucks in (very) rich New York City parents: admission to the kind of private elementary school that costs the same as college. These institutions usually seem to be named with an eye toward Beatrix Potter characters attending—St. Bernard this, country that. This one’s called Easton but is nevertheless The School to attend. That’s why admissions director Audrey Singer is only surprised by the casual tone of a begging email from a mom who didn’t realize the application pool would be capped. Sarah Price is desperate, devastated, disconsolate, not to mention a little drunk, and fears she has “completely derailed” her son, Eli’s, future. Audrey makes the mistake of allowing an exception to the rules, and that’s all it takes: Sarah now begins to stalk the gatekeeper of her dreams for Eli, with her antics growing ever more unhinged as decision day grows closer. Fans of psychological thrillers and mysteries will lap up the tense moments created by the power imbalance between Audrey and Sarah; emotional ups and downs that stem from the women’s private lives add to the roller coaster effect. As the novel is episodic, cliffhangers will thrill readers at points, and there’s a completely unpredictable ending twist. Pick up this one if you enjoyed Chandler Baker’s Cutting Teeth or Sylvie Perry’s The Hawthorne School.

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Review

The Lost Van Gogh

by Henrietta Thornton

Artist Santlofer’s previous novel, The Last Mona Lisa, saw Luke Perrone, great-grandson of the man who stole the Mona Lisa, digging into his ancestor’s thievery, with Interpol also on the case. Perrone and the organization are back and chasing a painting that has long been rumored to exist: Vincent van Gogh’s last self-portrait. The work is mentioned in a letter by a friend of van Gogh’s as having been displayed at the artist’s funeral, but was it the mistake of a grieving friend? At the outset of the book, what may be the painting turns up, but greed and the less-savory machinations of the art world soon see it disappear. The book combines fiction and nonfiction, as explained by Santlofer in an absorbing interview that’s a coda to this fast-moving work. A real aspect is the sad dispersal across the world of Nazi-looted art, the tireless work by descendants of the real owners to retrieve it, and the equally tireless work of dishonest art collectors to keep it from being returned. Beauty and horror are wonderfully contrasted by Santlofer, both in the sad life of van Gogh compared to the incandescent art he produced, and in the clash of the love of art and the pursuit of wealth that takes advantage of that passion. Details of post-impressionist art and busting of myths around van Gogh (he wasn’t unknown as an artist during his life) are bonuses. A great accompaniment to this would be Mark Roskill’s Letters of Vincent van Gogh, as van Gogh’s correspondence with his brother Theo is often referenced by Santlofer.

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Review

Young Rich Widows

by Henrietta Thornton

Krystle, Meredith, Justine, and Camille are thrown together when their law-firm owning husbands, and in the case of Meredith, her girlfriend, are killed in a plane crash. The wives already knew and hated one another; the lone female partner in the firm was in the closet (it’s 1985), but is now firmly out, and Meredith joins in the animosity and puzzlement that’s freely flowing. Why were the partners on a plane back to Providence, Rhode Island from New York City, when they were supposed to be working in Providence that day? The reasons slowly become clear as the women are targeted by the town’s mafia for money that the deceased owed. Just when that danger wraps up, a twist hits the widows and readers as another…and another…perilous situation bears down on them. This book began life as an Audible original and its backbiting humor mixed with love and loathing makes it easy to see why it was such a hit and was brought to print. The authors’ note (there’s also a reading-group guide) explains that ‘90s humor-laden novels such as Married to the Mob and The First Wives Club provided inspiration; grab Young Rich Widows for some nostalgia, but it’s also just a fun romp for any thriller lover.

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Review

Extinction

by Jeff Ayers

Erebus is a resort for the extremely wealthy, and those who visit the sprawling grounds in the heart of the Colorado Rockies get to experience Earth’s distant past. Using cutting-edge technology, scientists have been able to de-extinct mammals like woolly mammoths and plant life from the Pleistocene era. A young couple pays for a camping trip in the sprawling complex and is kidnapped and killed by what appears to be a group of ruthless hunters. Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Frances Cash and county sheriff James Colcord lead the investigation. As the mystery creates national headlines, Cash and Colcord meet resistance from both the team at the resort and their own supervisors. What happened to the couple is only the beginning, and the shocking truth will threaten lives and the history books. Preston creates a Michael Crichton level of thought-provoking science and thrilling intrigue while avoiding writing a Jurassic Park clone. Extinction goes beyond the simple question of whether man should play God, and with a terrific cast of characters, Preston has a guaranteed bestseller.

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Review

The Princess of Las Vegas

by Henrietta Thornton

Though there’s a year between them, sisters Crissy and Betsy Dowling are so alike they could be twins. And they don’t only resemble each other, they also look very like one Diana Spencer, the late, lamented Princess of Wales. The resemblance is so strong that Crissy performs as Di in a long-running Las Vegas residency. The casino that hosts the emotional cabaret, the Buckingham Palace, or BP, has seen better days, as has Crissy’s relationship with her lookalike sister. Crissy claims that Betsy killed their mother, the circumstances around that a mystery for most of the book. But that doesn’t stop Betsy from re-entering her sister’s life by leaving her social worker job for her new boyfriend’s cryptocurrency firm that’s setting up shop in Vegas. When the owner of the BP is found dead, and Crissy doesn’t believe the police’s finding that it’s a suicide, it starts a chain of subterfuge and violence that makes the sort-of-royals wish that what happens in Vegas didn’t involve them. Bohjalian has intriguingly veered into a much more noir path than his usual, with the darkness complimenting his typical tight plotting and absorbing family drama. This is one for fans of campy fare mixed with family shenanigans and of Elle Cosimano’s Finlay Donovan.

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Review

The Best Way to Bury Your Husband

by Brian Kenney

It’s early into lockdown in the UK, and Sally can’t take any more physical and psychological abuse from her husband—thankfully the kids are grown and out of the house. So she does the only thing she can do: she fights back, smashing him on the head with her iron skillet. But killing is the easy part. It’s disposing of the body that’s the challenge. Fortunately, Sally soon discovers that she’s not the only woman in the neighborhood with a husband rotting away in the basement, packed in cat litter (did you know? It absorbs both odors and fluids). Slowly, these women come together and create quite the self-help group, dubbed the Lockdown Ladies’ Burial Club, which is tasked with disposing of four bodies…and getting away with it. As impossible as this may seem—these women aren’t exactly hooked up with organized crime—they revel in their newly created freedom, gaining the strength to take on seemingly any challenge. As Sally says, “For too long I let a small man steal my joy and potential.” What’s remarkable is how Casale—with a decade of experience in the field of male violence against women—succeeds at moving between the women’s experiences with domestic violence in the past and the dark humor of their present situation, tacitly giving us permission to laugh at times. Well-written with plenty of surprises, twists, and turns to keep readers engrossed. Pair it with Bella Mackie’s How to Kill your Family.

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