Tag:

Thrillers

Review

Fog and Fury

by Brian Kenney

Lucky us suspense readers. If you don’t know Rachel Howzell Hall’s books, then this novel is one fantastic introduction. If you do know Hall, then you will be thrilled to learn that this is the first in a series, the Haven Thrillers series featuring Sonny, a former LAPD cop who has just moved to the idyllic community of Haven (along with her mother, who, with memory issues, is quite a handful). It was high time that Sonny got out of Los Angeles, and joining her godfather’s PI business in Haven—one vowel short of heaven—on the bucolic Northern California coast seems the perfect option. First job? Locating Figgy, a missing goldendoodle. In seeking out Figgy, Sonny comes across her ex-boyfriend, the super-rich Cooper Sutton, a powerful force in Haven. But it’s the discovery of 17-year-old Xander Monroe, one of only four African Americans in Haven, dead on a hiking trail, that really wakes up Sonny. Xander was a super-smart 17-year-old physics student and a star football player with a career at UCLA ahead of him. So why is no one paying attention to his murder? Sonny is one smart, tenacious, Black, woman with her own personal issues to fight against. Powerful social commentary and strong suspense make for one excellent novel.

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Review

The Lake Escape

by Jeff Ayers

An annual tradition goes horribly wrong at a lake retreat in Vermont in Day’s latest thriller. Three families have grown up, and lifelong friendships have developed from Julia’s, David’s, and Erika’s families spending time every summer together. So much so that when their children become adults, they continue meeting every year and bring their kids. The area gives off a Jason/Friday the 13th vibe, since a local legend has a young woman disappear every 30 years, and this reunion marks the 30th anniversary of the last disappearance. Tensions explode from the moment they arrive, and everyone appears to have secrets and hidden motives. Day takes characters who initially seem to dislike one another and slowly reveals the bonds and reasons for them to stay as close as siblings forever. When David’s new girlfriend disappears, and his new nanny seems to have ulterior motives for taking the job, the group’s bonds begin to fray. The revelations pile up, and by the end, the reader will be surprised and a bit overwhelmed, which is a good thing. Day perfectly delivers the awkwardness and obligation of family reunions while spotlighting the comfortability and love that makes it all worthwhile.

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Review

King of Ashes

by Henrietta Thornton

A gripping family story packed with tension, violence, and secrets that’s sure to enthrall Cosby’s legions of fans. It introduces the Carruthers clan of Jefferson Run, GA. The town, known to local kids and jaded adults as Jefferson Got the Runs, used to be prosperous, but “now all we make are orphans and widows.” In a gray area in that regard is Keith Carruthers, who might or might not be widowed. His wife hasn’t been seen for years; he’s the owner of a crematory; and locals think he killed and disposed of her himself. Now that he’s been the victim of a hit-and-run and is comatose, his grown children, Roman, Dante, and Neveah, may never know what happened to their mother. But that’s the least of their worries after rich, successful Roman returns from Atlanta to see his father and tries to help Dante, who’s in trouble with ruthless local gangsters. Roman is used to more than a little white-collar sleight of hand in his financial advising business, but is quickly far out of his depth in the evil underbelly of his hometown. “We all fall short of grace, but the beauty lives in the attempt,” says Cosby (All the Sinners Bleed, The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024), neatly summing up Dante’s increasingly bloody helping hand and the family’s striving to love one another even when the world gives them every reason to give up.

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Review

Love You to Death

by Brian Kenney

Zorie and Kayla, best friends since third grade, work as house cleaners in a so-so hotel, a position that allows them to engage in a bit of light stealing but not enough to keep them afloat. Which is how the two get involved in crashing weddings where they can pick up some major hauls (steal the money and pawn the goods) while not knowing a soul. Until one weekend they head off to work a rural wedding that they promise each other will be their last gig (“best friend’s honor” is their motto), only to discover that they are the only two Black women at an antebellum-themed wedding. Heading out of town as fast as they can, they are involved in an accident that sends them into temporary hiding as the news blares forth the story of the “Wedding Crash Killers.” Without any support from family, and no friends that can help, things start to escalate and the two head to New Orleans, leaving a trail of blood and bodies in their wake. Zorie and Kayla are forced to make tough decisions about their future and their friendship in this brilliant depiction of two young women who can barely keep alive financially. Completely compelling, full of dark humor, and providing a deep investigation into the nature of friendship, this book is high on my list for book discussions.

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Review

And the Lake Will Take Them

by Danise Hoover

This is not an easy time for Sheriff Red Hammergren. She’s a widow in the job her husband once held, with the purse strings held by a toxically masculine board. It’s January in Minnesota, snowing with more predicted, serious drug problems in the town, and the comic relief of an insulting new webpage done by a leading citizen’s nephew. An elderly man with dementia has wandered off without his coat, there is a missing teenage girl, and the snowplows can’t keep up with what’s coming down. Red locates the man, but Missy, the teen, has reasons for running that are unclear. The danger Missy is in comes not only from the weather but from some really bad individuals. Red has to connect all the pieces—information from cold cases of the past, secrets in the present—while trying to keep everyone safe from the weather and from the danger she senses but can’t define. Red is a wonderful character, fighting to save her town with loyal deputies and a group of retired nurses. She succeeds in the end by her ability to listen. It seems we will see more of Red, one would hope in a more pleasant season.

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Review

The Understudy

by Willy Williams

It’s loathing at first sight when trained opera singer Kit (stage name Katerina) Margolis meets her understudy, the sexually alluring Yolanda Archambeau, on the first day of rehearsals for Barbarella, a new opera based on the 1968 film. Kit, struggling to prove she is right for the titular role, her first leading part, is taken aback when her director introduces Yolanda to the cast, something not done until later in the rehearsal process. “I felt a flash of irritation, uncharitable yet valid. She didn’t need to be there. She shouldn’t be there.” Kit’s unease rises when Yolanda yawns during Kit’s big aria and later confesses her operatic ambitions, despite her lack of training. Regarding underhanded scheming, Eve Harrington (of the film All About Eve) has nothing on the ruthless Yolanda, whose weapons against Kit include poisoned tea and dead rats. But before her plotting can escalate to a deadlier level, Yolanda is fatally stabbed in her apartment. Kit, who briefly falls under suspicion because of a violent incident in her past, turns sleuth to uncover her late rival’s dark secrets and identify her killer. Offering an entertaining look at the backstage world of New York City opera, Richter’s second novel (after The Divide) skillfully mixes the tropes of a psychological thriller with the conventions of an amateur sleuth mystery. Especially compelling is Kit’s growing self-confidence as a singer and a woman as she pursues the truth.

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Review

Nobody’s Fool

by Jeff Ayers

Coben (Think Twice) brings back former Detective Sami Kierce from Fool Me Once (the book and the NetFlix series) as his past crashes into his simple life. Sami works as a private investigator, doing jobs that embarrass him. He teaches a true-crime class at night school and lives with his wife and year-old son. Sami might want answers from past events in his life, but thinks he will never learn the truth until a woman he recognizes arrives in his class. When Sami graduated from college, he met Anna on a trip to Spain, and for days their lives were bliss until she ended up dead. But the woman Sami sees in his class is Anna, and Sami stumbles into a larger mystery that seems unrelated to his time overseas. To add to the investigator’s increasing stress, the person responsible for killing his partner when he worked in law enforcement is released from prison and asks Sami to reinvestigate the case to prove his innocence. Then Sami’s wife, Molly, thinks she is being stalked, and the lurid texts proving she’s right begin popping up on Sami’s phone. Coben juggles several complex stories, each one of which would be compelling by itself but that together create a page-turning experience that will leave fans and newcomers to Coben enthralled. The twists are shocking, and Sami; his wife, Molly; and the supporting cast are so much fun. Coben would be foolish not to bring them back for another story.

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Review

6:40 to Montreal

by Brian Kenney

Kudos to Jurczyk (The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, That Night in the Library) for providing a closed circle mystery that avoids the tropes of the subgenre while still offering some charming nods to closed trains of the past. Here, bestselling author Agatha (albeit suffering a bit from writer’s block) is sent off by her husband on a roundtrip from Toronto to Montreal for the sole purpose of finishing her new novel. With a first class ticket in hand, and only a few residents in her car, Agatha is slightly optimistic, imagining the train as a writers’ retreat and with the hope of turning out a few pages. But then she discovers a woman lurking about the train—someone, it turns out, whom she knows all too well—who believes that Agatha stole her success. As the snow thickens, the train slides to a halt somewhere in the Canadian wilderness, and then the passengers discover the horrifying news: one of their own has died. It’s brilliant how much Jurczyk packs into the book, moving back and forth between the present and Agatha’s personal history, while always sustaining a steady pace. But by the time the 6:40 makes it to the Montreal area hours later, it’s pure carnage.

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Review

Kill Your Darlings

by Brian Kenney

Here are two people I certainly will never invite to Thanksgiving. Thom and Wendy Graves have been married for over 25 years. Academics, they’ve long been settled in Updike territory along the North Shore of Boston with a cat and a nearly full-grown kid. She’s barely published as a poet while he is an English professor and full-on drunkard. The two might seem a bit dull were it not for how sinister we slowly come to realize they actually are. Swanson (The Kind Worth Saving, Nine Lives) gradually unveils their marriage by going backwards, all the way back to the tragic incident the two plotted and committed in their early twenties. But years of secrecy have taken their toll, and not everyone is willing to keep up the original bargain. Swanson can always be trusted to deliver novels that are rich in intellectual suspense and provide a narrative that is refreshingly new. Here he delivers on both.

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Review

Plays Well With Others

by Brian Kenney

You won’t find any members of organized crime here. Nor are the characters locked on a Scottish island or seeking a cozy murderer who has their community petrified. In fact, men have practically no roles in this book. And who needs them? The small group of suburban women who populate this novel are terrifying enough. Let’s start out with Jake, who a year ago endured her then-bestie posting their most intimate correspondence on social media. The result? Jake lost everything: job, house, and, most importantly, her husband. After a bit of sulking and trying to live down her past, Jake is back—she settles into a charming bungalow—and gets ready to retaliate. But this time she has a new friend with her, Mabel, who has her own set of problems. The two join up to seek revenge, although the real victims turn out to be the kids, who find themselves in the cross-fires (for real!). Is anyone in this terrifying community without a grievance? A compulsive domestic thriller that is as dark as it is dangerous.

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