Tag:

Suspense

Review

City Under One Roof

by Brian Kenney

How’s this for a setting: a 205 unit high-rise building in rural Alaska that houses the entire town’s population as well as stores, offices, and more. Welcome to Point Mettier, a pretty creepy village to begin with that only gets worse when body parts—a foot, a hand—wash up on the frozen shore. The local cops seem ready to shrug off the remains—lots of tourists fall off those cruise ships!—when they’re joined by Anchorage detective Cara Kennedy, who takes the matter a whole lot more seriously. What was meant to be a quick visit becomes a much longer excursion as the first brutal storm of the season moves in, closing off the tunnel, the one way in and out of town during winter. With time to spare, Cara digs deeper into the community, only to discover that almost everyone in Point Mettier has a secret to hide. A simmering romance with one of the other officers provides Cara with much needed distraction, but soon enough a violent gang, hanging out in a nearby Native village, takes center stage. This is a successful, well-paced first novel that juggles a range of cultures, a handful of strong characters, and a nuanced protagonist, delivering a very satisfying ending. And get this: Point Mettier pretty much actually exists. Check out Whittier, Alaska.

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Review

Such a Good Mother

by Henrietta Thornton

Rose O’Connell’s never been confident. At her downmarket English school, she was bullied as “Rotten Rosie” after her father was publicly disgraced. While her life has since improved, her husband struggles to find work and they’re deep in debt. Then she gets her son, Charlie, into The Woolf Academy, an exclusive school in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood she grew up in. In fact, it’s her old school, but it’s now completely unrecognizable, as is the house she grew up in, where Amala Kaur, the CEO of the new school, lives. Woolf Academy seems too strict with Charlie yet indulgent of the other children, and while Rose is determined to do whatever it takes to help her son, she quickly finds that the mean girls she faced years ago have nothing on the circle of snooty women in charge here. It’s complicated and confusing when things begin to thaw and Rose is invited into the inner circle after the mysterious death of one of its members; slowly readers will begin to wonder if there’s anything she won’t do to please Amala and her ice-queen clique. By the time Amala wants something that made me gasp out loud—just the first of several gut-punching twists—it seems too late for Rose to salvage her marriage, her career, and even her sense of self. For readers of mean-girl titles and those who enjoyed The Hawthorne School by Sylvie Perry.

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Review

The Perfect Crime

by Brian Kenney

An anthology of 22 short stories that are selected to witness, as Maxin Jukubowski writes in the introduction, “an explosion of crime and mystery writing by writers of all colours and ethnic backgrounds, winning awards and enjoying critical acclaim, as well as opening up a whole new readership in the process.” And this marvelous collection certainly doesn’t disappoint, with crime stories from diverse cultures, featuring works by S.A. Cosby, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Rachel Howzell Hall, Sanjida Kay, Walter Mosley, and so many more. It’s fun to encounter authors you think you know trying out something entirely new, such as Abir Mukherjee, who leaves behind 1920s India for a very contemporary tale of crime that ends in a most pleasing way. In fact, many of the stories are full-blown mysteries, just boiled down to their essence, with the shocking, O. Henry-like twists that readers love. Oyinkan Braithwaite’s “Jumping Ship,” a brilliant recounting of a love affair that goes way, way off the rails is so surprising it demands the reader give it a second, or even third, reading. A surefire way to introduce readers to authors, The Perfect Crime is a required purchase for all public libraries.

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Review

Someone Had to Do It.

by Brian Kenney

Publishers: Wondering how to keep crime fiction relevant, cutting edge, and appealing to younger millennials and older Gen Z? Then take a page out of the impressive debut Someone Had to Do It. Brandi may have landed her dream job unpaid internship at the fashion house Simon Van Doren, but she wasn’t planning on the microaggressions and reminders that as a young, Black woman she doesn’t fit into the culture (“code for we-can’t-handle-your individuality but-since-we-don’t-want-to-seem-racist-we’ll-invent-this little loophole”). But Brandi’s tenacious—she’s also putting herself through fashion school—and with a little help from dreamboat boyfriend Nate, an up-and-coming football star, she manages to hang in there. When Nate offers to put in a good word with Taylor Van Doren, Simon’s daughter—they go back to prep school—Brandi can’t say no. Taylor’s an it-girl, a model and fashionista who has it all and then some. While Brandi hopes that friendship with Taylor will help launch her career, the opposite happens. Taylor—the absolute best villain I’ve read this year—sets Brandi up for a fall where she risks losing everything she’s worked so hard to achieve. This is one smart, hot, bingeable read that’s got Attn: Netflix stamped all over it.

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Review

Bottled Lightning

by Henrietta Thornton

The catalyst for this fast-moving, Tokyo-set thriller is the invention of a way to chemically produce lightning, which creates an enormously efficient way to generate electricity. As in John Marr’s recent The One and The Passengers, for which this is a good readlike, the human side of the technology overtakes the invention itself, complicating relationships and putting all involved in peril. When the book opens, the danger hits the road, literally, as lawyer Torn Sagara and his client Saya Brooks, the lightning box’s inventor, are attacked on a Tokyo highway, first by men on motorcycle and then by others in a car. Were these separate attacks? Was Torn or Saya the intended target? All the while, Weeks (like Torn, born in Alaska and now a lawyer in Japan) creates an immersive view of the strange life of his protagonist, a half-Japanese, half-American man who shrugs off the slights and outright discrimination he faces from fellow Japanese. Readers will also find themselves voyeurs of the mental gymnastics it takes for the lawyer to sustain two affairs and even start a third before the book is over (physical gymnastics may also come to mind as Torn and one of his mostly ignored girlfriends take advantage of an airplane bathroom). As well as taking on many interesting details of Japanese culture, including its funeral rites, by the end readers will also be well acquainted with the flawed but lovable Torn and will hope for more visits to his between-worlds life.

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Review

All the Dark Places

by Brian Kenney

Part police procedural, part domestic suspense, All the Dark Places provides mystery fans with the reading experience they crave. It’s psychologist Jay Bradley’s 40th birthday, and Molly, his wife, has planned a small get together in their suburban Boston home. By midnight, the other couples have left, Molly has teeter-totted off to bed, and Jay has checked into his stand-alone office in the backyard to work on his book. But when Molly wakes up, Jay isn’t in bed, the scent of coffee isn’t permeating the house, and the door to Jay’s office is wide open—with him dead on the floor, his neck horribly slashed. Enter Boston PD Detective Rita Myers, who leads the investigation and is convinced that Jay has been murdered by someone in their close circle. But why would one of their friends—affluent, happy, and seemingly complacent—murder everybody-loves-Jay? Parlato skillfully moves the story between Rita and the present day inquiry and Molly and what we discover is her horrible past. She also imbues the book with plenty of humanity—60-ish Rita has a bit of a love interest, Molly adopts a lovely dog to help keep her safe—and never once does the brisk narrative veer into the unbelievable. For fans of Shari Lapena and Mary Kubica.

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Review

The Shadow Lily

by Henrietta Thornton

Everyone’s battling extremes in Mo’s latest Sweden-set psychological thriller-slash-police procedural. Thomas Ahlström loves his toddler son, Hugo, but has a daughter he abandoned when she was the boy’s age. That daughter, Lykke, starves herself for days on end just to have something she can control, but tenderly cares for the shadow lilies growing her in garden. Detective Hanna Duncker, back in her second installment in the series (after The Night Singer), is as determined a cop as they come but is sick of the job’s endless “death, lies, and families.” More of that is on the cards, though, when she and her partner must investigate the disappearance of Thomas and Hugo. Suspects and secrets abound, as do red herrings, and readers will be rapt as one by one, the innocent—of this crime, anyway—drop away and Hanna and Erik face danger over and over to get to the heart of a violent puzzle. At the same time, Hanna is tantalized by possible new details on an old killing; her father was convicted, but now a contact in that case wants to talk. We end on a cliffhanger—bring on #3!

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Review

Hokuloa Road

by Brian Kenney

Grady Kendall has lived his whole life in Maine. An out-of-work carpenter—we’re in the third month of the pandemic—28-year-old Grady is living with his mother, with his one sibling in jail and his girlfriend long gone. So when the opportunity comes along to work as a caretaker in Hawaiʻi for billionaire Wes Minton, Grady jumps at the chance. But as beautiful as Hawaiʻi might be, there’s an unsettling undertow. With tourism on hold, more people are without homes, sleeping rough on the beach. Drugs, opiates especially, are everywhere. A shocking number of people are missing, their names memorialized on a wall. And Hokuloa Road, a remote part of the island, is said to be dangerous—for many reasons. When Grady learns that Jessie, a young woman he met on the flight to the island, is among the missing, he makes it his job to find her. Eventually this takes him even deeper into the wilderness, facing fears both man-made and mythological. This is a strong, unsettling narrative that manages to stay centered on Grady while he roams in search of the truth. Clear writing, a brisk pace, and a growing sense of dread make for an excellent work of crime fiction.

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Review

The Dinner Guest

by Brian Kenney

I’m hard pressed to recall a crime novel with a more despicable group of characters yet a more compelling premise. Matthew and his husband, Charlie, lead the perfect life. Rich, well-connected, with a fabulous London flat, access to a wonderful country home, and an absolutely charming tween son, Titus, adopted by the couple after the death of Matthew’s sister. But slowly, things start to fray. Nearly always, the problems stem from Rachel, a stranger the couple met in a bookstore and whom Matthew befriended against Charlie’s instincts. Matthew invites Rachel to join their book group, giving her a wedge that she could drive into their personal life. So when the police are called and arrive to find Matthew at the dinner table stabbed to death, Charlie in shock, and Rachel holding the murder weapon—this isn’t a spoiler, trust me—we aren’t exactly surprised. What is shocking is the complex but gripping backstory that gets us to this point. This novel is very, very British. Class issues abound, class signifiers—schools, stores, real estate, and the like—are everywhere, and some things inevitably get lost in translation. But one thing remains certain: this plot will leave you twisted, and quite a bit disturbed.

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Review

Cougar Claw

by Henrietta Thornton

This is one of those thrillers that opens with a full view of the crime—in this case, two men ambushing a Savage, Minnesota CEO and attacking him with real cougar claws and teeth. There was recently a sighting of one of the big cats in the area, so it’s easy for investigators to believe the businessman became a meal. The local sheriff who’s running for re-election has no objection to chalking the death up to wildlife rather than crime stats….but then Sam Rivers shows up to complicate his life. Sam, special agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, doesn’t care for bureaucracy or the sheriff, and persists in finding out what’s behind this event that looks suspicious to his expert eye. Just what looks off to Sam will teach readers about things like the structure of all cats’ paws, which parts of a person a cougar would eat, what one of the creature’s teeth embedded in a person’s spine should look like, and other juicy tidbits. In the human world that Sam deals with somewhat reluctantly, things are more complicated, as his investigation is a tangled web of an about-to-be-very-rich widow, her nosy neighbor, a journalist who’s also Sam’s love interest, and always that blustery sheriff. Sam Rivers is akin to Emily Littlejohn’s character Gemma Monroe—a likable, steadfast investigator whose work takes readers into the outdoors and the crimes it hides. He’s a character worth getting to know.

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