Tag:

Psychological

Review

The Shadow House

by Brian Kenney

If you arrived at your new house and found a package at the entrance, containing not some welcome brownies from a neighbor but a grotesquely mutilated bird, what would you do? If you’re anything like me, you’d head for the hills. But Alex, a single mother-of-two, is made from tougher stuff. Escaping from an abusive partner in Sydney, she’s trying out Pine Ridge, an ecovillage out in the boondocks. She’s committed to making it work, especially for her teenage son, who got up to some nasty behavior online. But the bird is only the beginning, as the creepiness includes more horrifying presents, vandalism, and surveillance. It turns out that Alex’s experiences aren’t all that different from those of another family six years ago, but unlike many a thriller protagonist, she’s no victim, and sets out to confront the evil before it destroys her and her family. This is a wonderfully written work of suspense that succeeds in being both completely terrifying and totally believable—no easy feat. For fans of Lisa Jewell and Ruth Ware.

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Review

The Secrets We Share

by Brian Kenney

A bold, ambitious novel with a big, multigenerational story line, a busload of characters, and a smart balance between mystery and suspense. Natalie Cavanaugh and Glenn Abbott are sisters, but not the least alike. Natalie is a tough-as-nails Boston cop, while Glenn is a food blogger and now a book author. What they have in common is what they never talk about: the murder of their father, who was bludgeoned to death in the woods behind their house. But through a series of incidents in Glenn’s life today, the women are drawn back into their shared past, and the story line opens up to include Glenn’s husband, her tween daughter, Natalie’s colleagues on the police force, and many more. It’s remarkable that Hill can keep so many subplots afloat while at the same time creating such a level of suspense that the reader feels as though they are being catapulted to the knock-out conclusion. Hill is the author of the more cozy-ish Hester Thursby series, and librarian Hester makes a few delightful cameos in this book. For fans of Robert Bryndza and Karin Slaughter.

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Review

My Darling Husband

by Henrietta Thornton

Get ready to care far more than you thought you could about fictional strangers. The three in question are Jade, the busy, pampered wife of Atlanta celebrity chef Cam Lasky; and her children, Beatrix and Baxter. This book wastes no time on background, and we get to know these characters as they enter a domestic horror scene. Arriving home from violin-prodigy Beatrix’s music lesson, they are met in the garage by a masked gunman who takes them hostage for a day of psychological terror. He wants $734,296, an odd demand that Jade gives her flashy husband when she can get a word in over the phone, starting him on a desperate quest. The overextended, secretly broke businessman, who’s not the most sympathetic character, is brought to his knees while his family’s love and strength are pushed to the limit. Each character is meticulously drawn, and presented from multiple angles, as the story plays out from the alternating viewpoints of Jade, Cam, and for a short time, the kidnapper. In a clever device, much of Cam’s narrative involves him answering questions in a post-event sensationalist TV interview, which allows Belle (Dear Wife, The Marriage Lie) to parcel out information bit by tantalizing bit. Read something mellow after this, you’ll need it.

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Review

The Darkest Game

by Brian Kenney

One of the most fascinating detectives to have come along in years, Tully Jarsdel isn’t your typical cop. He abandoned a doctoral program to attend the police academy. He was raised by two dads, one of whom escaped Iran as a refugee. And he’s a brainiac—with so much trivial knowledge that his partner, detective Oscar Morales, calls him Rain Man. But he’s perfectly suited to investigate the death of Dean Burken, who was violently murdered in his own home. Burken, it turns out, was a registrar at The Huntington, a museum, library, and garden. Registrars can be powerful people, and Tully is quick to realize that Burken was abusing his position—in a big way. From deep inside The Huntington to Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles, Tully and Jarsdel pursue a narrative of fraud, corruption, and greed. Fortunately, the detective work is offset with family issues, as one of Tully’s parents has a serious health crisis and the other struggles to deal with his past in the Iranian revolution. Throughout, Tully remains introspective, elusive, and unsettled—making the prospect of a fourth book all the more compelling.

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Review

The Anomaly

by Henrietta Thornton

As well as offering a peculiar and captivating story, this winner of France’s Prix Goncourt prize, for the “”best and most imaginative prose work of the year,” stands out as wonderfully French. Le Tellier describes his characters in gutting detail while maintaining a distant nonchalance, inviting readers to share in his weariness at how emotionally finished these people are. Among them is Victor Meisel, who resembles “a healthy Kafka who made it past forty” and is writing a book called The Anomaly; André, an architect who’s desperate to hold onto the love of his much-younger girlfriend, and Lucie, that girlfriend, who’s drifting away; David, who’s facing a deadly illness; and Slimboy, a famous singer who spends all his energy maintaining the facade that he’s straight. Their shredded emotions are on display in the lead up to a Paris-New York trip, with each then depicted as one of a handful of strangers on, and the pilot of, a flight that experiences near-lethal turbulence with a bizarre aftermath. Emotions are just one of the problems faced by the survivors, who find themselves captive in a situation that involves not only the CIA and FBI but even the President of the United States (“a fat grouper with a blond wig”). Viewers of Netflix’s hit series Manifest will recognize some elements of this story, but the book and the show are unrelated and the aftermath of the flight is different enough to enthrall fans of the show and to keep them reading to the end.

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Review

Unmissing

by Brian Kenney

Ten years ago, Lydia was kidnapped, then spent the subsequent decade locked in a hunting cabin, subjected to torture and abuse. Miraculously, she managed to escape—feigning death—and after several months of homelessness made it to the coastal town where her husband, Luca, and Merritt, his second wife, live. At first glance, Luca and Merritt, who married a couple of years after Lydia disappeared and was declared dead, have it all: homes, cars, several restaurants that they own, a beautiful child, another on its way. How will Lydia’s resurrection rock Luca and Merritt’s world? With chapters alternating between Lydia and Merritt’s points of view, we watch the tentative relationship between the two women grow. Merritt tries to help Lydia while Lydia charts her own course, deciding how she wants to be helped. Kent does a terrific job of creating suspense—we know a bomb is about to go off, just not which one—and when it does, we’re totally spun about. But the book doesn’t end there, as two more revelations upturn everything we know. Credible? You’ll be too terrified to care.

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Review

The Village

by Brian Kenney

Every few weeks I get a hankering to visit the scariest place on earth: A British country village. And this standalone from Caroline Mitchell—the author of several series, including DI Amy Winters—more than does the trick. Naomi, a London journalist, is making the move to the rural village of Nighbrook along with her new husband, Ed, a filmmaker; and Ed’s daughter Morgan, the teenager from hell. Except Naomi has a secret. She’s long been obsessed with the story of the infamous Harper family, the members of which mysteriously disappeared from their Nighbrook cottage a decade ago, leaving the TV on, the stove ready for a batch of cookies, and no sign of a struggle. Now, not only is Naomi moving her family to Nighbrook but she’s bought Ivy Cottage, the Harper family’s old home, which has been empty this past decade. No one in her family knows its background, but what, after all, can go wrong? Let’s start with the villagers, who could teach a master class in glaring and whispering, and are united in withholding all information. Add to this the police who are in cahoots with the villagers, creeps from the Internet, a dangerous snowstorm, and so much more. Naomi will be lucky if she can get her family out alive, while readers will be happy to read this book in one, terrified, sitting.

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Review

Catch Her When She Falls

by Brian Kenney

After college and a stint in Chicago, Micah Wilkes returns to her hometown of Calvary, PA. She ends up settling down with Ryan, a former high-school classmate, and opens Stomping Grounds, a coffee shop. All is well, except Micah can’t quite get past the murder of Emily, her best friend back in high school, especially since the murderer was Alex, Micah’s boyfriend, who’s now in jail. Then Micah receives a threatening text—“It should have been you, not Emily”—which propels her into the past, and slowly her well-constructed world starts to crack. She gets drawn into true-crime blogs and forums that rehash the murder and speculate about Micah’s motives. Her house is broken into, and remnants of Emily’s diary are left behind. Ryan, it turns out, has been in touch with Alex this whole time, visiting him in jail. No matter which way she turns, something or someone pops up, forcing her to question the night Emily was murdered, her own role in the crime, and who could have murdered her friend. In the end, Micah—totally unhinged—heads off to confront the one person who can help her understand that night ten years ago. A real slow burn, this book will please readers who appreciate deep character development, little violence, and plenty of suspense.

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Review

The New Neighbor

by Henrietta Thornton

Aidan Marlowe—an Irish immigrant to the U.S. who is known by his last name—is lost in a life he never planned. At his young wife’s funeral, he finds out that he won millions in the lottery, and he can’t adjust to life without Holly and with the money. He and his seven-year-old twins move to a huge and forbidding house in Bury, New Hampshire, a move prompted by a voice in his head repeating “bury,” just one of the psychological oddnesses he endures. People in affluent Bury soon let him know that his decision was a bad one: the house was formerly home to a family that’s now missing four members who simply disappeared. And soon after Marlowe and his children move in, he begins receiving threatening letters that make his neighbors’ misgivings seem right but also force him to investigate the neighbors themselves. Marlowe is an unreliable narrator, so that even as readers feel for his turmoil, they are left wondering what’s really going on with this troubled character. Some truly frightening scenes lead to a gripping and satisfying conclusion, but not before a twist that will leave readers’ heads spinning. Marlowe is memorable —single dads in thrillers aren’t that common—but mainly he will stay with readers because of his offbeat vulnerability and the determination that shines through his grief. Wilson’s (The Dead Girl in 2A) unusual psychological thriller is one for fans of Stephen King who are open to reading mysteries.

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Review

A Flicker in the Dark

by Brian Kenney

A brilliant debut, as well written as it is well-conceived. No one should have 12-year-old Chloe Davis’s childhood. In the course of one summer in her small Louisiana town, six teen girls go missing. As terrifying as that is, it gets worse: the murderer, it turns out, is her father, who is promptly tried and sent to prison. Two decades later, Chloe is an adolescent psychologist in Baton Rouge, living with Daniel, her handsome and loving fiancé. The horror of the past seems to be behind her, happiness is in her grasp, when a teen girl goes missing. And then another. These are no random killings. They bear an uncanny resemblance to the murders of 20 years ago, and it turns out that both girls have a connection to Chloe—in fact, one is her patient. Willingham’s genius is the ability to keep so many balls in the air. From Chloe’s intense relationships with Daniel, her brother Cooper, her institutionalized Mom, a New York Times reporter, to ricocheting between the past and the present yet still keeping the narrative moving briskly ahead, this book is so much more than your typical serial-killer novel. Fans of Karin Slaughter, Harlan Coben and Gillian Flynn will love this novel, which has been optioned by actress Emma Stone for a limited series.

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