Tag:

Thrillers

Review

You’re Invited

by Brian Kenney

Murder at the wedding of one of Sri Lanka’s one percent? I initially imagined this to be a cozy affair, with lots of chatter about couture, gossip about affairs, and the body of one of the bridesmaids—the one no one likes—being discovered in the shrubbery, poisoned. Boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Yes, no extravagance is spared or undocumented—Vuitton is the bag of choice—but this crime novel is far darker, far more terrifying than I had ever imagined. It’s super-perfect Kaavi’s wedding—she of the billionaire family, the foundation devoted to girl empowerment, the perfect blow-out—and she’s invited her former best friend, Amaya, to the wedding. Not only were the two besties all throughout childhood, they were college roommates in the U.S., until an epic falling out involving Amaya’s boyfriend—whom Kaavi is now set to marry. Though they haven’t spoken in five years, Amaya flies to Colombo with one goal: stop the wedding, by any means necessary. Jealous much? Oh, if only it was mere jealousy in this nothing-is-what-it-seems narrative. Perfectly paced, rich in Sri Lankan culture, witty in its descriptions, and well aware of gender and class disparities, Jayatissa’s creation is that rare bird: the perfect thriller. By the author of My Sweet Girl, this book will appeal to fans of Julie Clark, Samantha Downing, and Lucy Clarke.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

An Affair of Spies

by Henrietta Thornton

It’s 1943, and U.S. Army Sergeant Nathan Silverman is preparing to head back to Germany, his homeland, to fight the Nazis and, he hopes, find his close-knit Jewish family still alive. He’s one of the “Ritchie Boys,” members of a real WWII army unit made up of Germans and Austrians who were trained in intelligence and sent back to Europe as spies. But his days at Camp Ritchie are interrupted when Uncle Sam orders him to New York City to prepare for a different mission. Nathan has a valuable connection: his father is a physicist with the Nazi equivalent of the Manhattan Project, and the allies can use Nathan to find out how close Germany is to building a nuclear bomb. One problem: Nathan knows little about physics, but the army has taken care of this. His partner on the trip will be an American physicist, Dr. Fisher, whom Nathan is surprised to find is a young woman rather than the aging male academic he expected. The setup is absorbing on its own, with Balson (winner of the National Jewish Book Award for The Girl from Berlin) providing actual details about the race on both sides of the Atlantic to make a devastating weapon. Once the pair heads off, the action doesn’t disappoint either, at one point involving the most audacious plan imaginable to trick the enemy. There are sad moments and romantic ones here, but overall this is one nailbiting espionage scene after another, and perfect for fans of the large World War II spy genre.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Jackal

by Henrietta Thornton

Liz Rocher hasn’t been to her hometown of Johnstown, PA, in 14 years, but now her childhood best friend is getting married and it’s time. She’s got her bridesmaid dress and one other outfit, just enough to attend the event and then get the hell out. Liz faces s two main problems back home: her strict Haitian mother, who doesn’t hide her disappointment about her daughter’s single lifestyle, and the woods behind the wedding venue, where a little girl vanished years ago. While the wedding is in full swing, history seems to repeat itself, and soon Liz is fighting Johnstown’s racism-tinged apathy as she discovers that many of the area’s Black girls have gone missing over the years, each one vanishing on the summer solstice. Haitian American Adams’s thoughtful language first drops us into the private phobia of a damaged young woman and slowly pulls back to reveal wider horrors: the sudden taking of the girls and the lingering physical and social markers of the infamous Johnstown flood, which largely killed poor Black families in the valley while white residents lived in the hills. Adams’s exciting conclusion finds us in the grip of supernatural terror that makes this debut novel a great recommendation for horror fans who like a side of mystery.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

All the Dangerous Things

by Henrietta Thornton

Isabelle Drake hasn’t been able to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time for the past year. Night and day, she’s obsessed with who stole her baby son, Mason, and where he is now. She’s barely functional, but pushes on with her investigation, hounding the police for news and harassing those she finds suspicious. Her husband has had enough and taken off, leaving Isabelle to ruminate on how their romance, which started when he was her married boss, had such promise but became “like peeling back expensive wallpaper and finding black mold underneath.” Attending a true-crime conference to find more suspects, she meets a podcaster who becomes pivotal to the case, investigating alongside the distraught mother as she spirals further down into sleeplessness and murky flashbacks to a childhood of sleepwalking and family dysfunction. Willingham (A Flicker in the Dark, 2022) draws readers through dark depths into what is much more than a kidnapping tale, with a love that can push its way through even the toughest barriers. Fans of the movie “Memento” will enjoy this unstable main character and her stubborn push for the truth.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Innocent One

by Henrietta Thornton

When a child is tried for killing another child and is found not guilty, what’s next? For Sebastian Croll, English law means he’s anonymous and allowed to go on with his life. When he’s wanted for questioning in another killing years later, Daniel Hunter, his solicitor in this case and the earlier one, and the main character here, promises Sebastian that so much time has passed that even the police won’t be able to access records of the previous accusation. Whether they know about that past event or not, the police aren’t dropping their suspicions easily, leading Daniel and readers into the ethical quandary regarding how much a child can be responsible for their actions and how much those past actions should matter if their adult behavior goes off the rails. Ballantyne (The Guilty One, 2022) juxtaposes the paths of two troubled boys’ lives here, with Sebastian’s the more dramatically bad version but Daniel’s own hell—the foster-care system—on display through flashbacks and his current erratic, self-destructive behavior. Can Daniel save himself and his marriage while he fights for a client he can’t believe? Ballantyne’s crisp writing makes getting to the answer a fast, absorbing trip through what happens when self-loathing and love collide.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Death in Heels

by Brian Kenney

Irish drag queens may not get much sunlight, but they can still throw plenty of shade. Centered on a drag family that performs at the Dublin dive bar TRASH, the novel follows Fiona (Fi) McKinnery and her best friend and roommate Robyn/Mae B as Mae B makes her debut on the TRASH stage, lip-syncing to Julie London. She’s a huge success, until Eve, a nasty little queen, does a parody of Mae B’s act, ruining the night. When, later that evening, Eve is found dead, face down in an overflowing gutter, is anyone surprised? While everyone, from the gay community to the Gardaí (police), is willing to accept the death as an accident, Fi—who discovered the body on her way home from the club—is convinced it’s murder. When she speculates about Eve’s murder on her blog, she draws the ire of the queens who would rather forget about the whole thing and quickly turn their misogyny on Fi, dubbing her “Hagatha Christie.” Unfortunately, ensuing incidents only support Fi’s speculation. A charming novel about growing up and growing apart, the power of family—both your own and the one you create—and the danger of repression.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Cloisters

by Brian Kenney

A wonderfully dark novel rich in characterization. After Ann Stillwell graduates from college, she doesn’t waste a minute more in Walla Walla, WA, and heads to New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met), where she has secured a summer position as curatorial associate. But there’s a mix up, and Ann ends up at the Cloisters, the Met’s museum and garden devoted to medieval art, located at the remote northern tip of Manhattan. Here she ends up working with Rachel Mondray, who is everything Ann isn’t: Yale educated, Harvard bound, immensely wealthy. Will they be friends, enemies, or frenemies? Friends, it turns out, providing they stick to Rachel’s terms. Under the tutelage of Patrick, the curator-in-charge, they research early Renaissance tarot cards in preparation for an upcoming exhibit. But the cards aren’t just visually beguiling. They are powerful in ways that go well beyond art history, capable of inspiring evil today. Hays does a wonderful job of opening up the lives of both Ann and Rachel, who forge an alliance—like the contestants in a Survivor-like TV show—that will see them safely through the summer. Or will it? Fans of Shapiro’s The Art Forger, Perez-Reverte’s The Flanders Panel and Santlofer’s The Last Mona Lisa will love this book.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

The Local

by Henrietta Thornton

Hartstone’s debut draws on the real-life town of Marshall, Texas: a quarter of all patent cases in the country are heard there. In the 1990s, Judge T. John Ward made his courtroom in the Eastern District of Texas, or EDTX, a kind of patent-trial machine, using timers when lawyers spoke and limiting the number of pages they could file. In addition, Marshall’s juries award unusually high amounts in damages, all making EDTX attractive to those suing for patent infringement. Judge Ward is called Gardner here, but the practices are the same. Appearing in his court is Amir Zawar, whose rideshare app may have stolen another product’s design. Representing Zawar is James Euchre, a lawyer who tells himself he’s quit smoking…he only has a few per day, after all…and is trying to limit himself to three drinks a day. His resolve is tested when his client is, shall we say, reluctant to go along with court decorum. It’s not a great idea to hit your lawyer and threaten the judge’s life, but it’s even worse when the judge is later found dead. Euchre has never worked on a criminal case before, let alone one that could involve the death penalty, but Zawar insists he stay in the lead counsel seat, with both characters, along with Euchre’s love-interest coworker in the trial, taking readers on a tension-filled ride to justice. Lawyers, such as one Mr. Grisham, have long written compelling legal thrillers; this book, by an experienced TV writer, stacks up favorably against the legal greats.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

We Knew All Along

by Henrietta Thornton

Jewelann Jordan attends her high-school reunion to nonchalantly run into her former, sort-of-boyfriend, Christian Campbell, and dump him later that night as revenge for his behavior when they were teens. Christian, who reveals that he’s now a surgeon, and who takes more than one reunion attendee back to his hotel room, doesn’t take well to rejection. A few days later, Jewelann’s controlling husband, Ken, announces that he’s renting out their carriage house, has already found a tenant, and by the way he’s here already. You can guess who it is. Thus begins a fraught game. Jewelann believes Ken’s business trips are covering an affair, but she’s scared to confront him. And what if he knows about what Jewelann and Christian used to get up to in that carriage house, activities that Christian wants to continue and is threatening to reveal? The maelstrom of emotions and abuse boils over in the most shocking way, and readers will not be ready for the whoa-that’s-way-out-there ending. Hardy is a pseudonym for author Megan Hart, whose just released Coming Up for Air also opens with reunion shenanigans.[‘

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Review

Are You Sara?

by Brian Kenney

A complex tale centered around law student Saraswati “Sara” Bhaduri, who’s struggling financially to put herself through law school. One of her side gigs is bartending at a dive bar, which is how she meets up with Sarah Ellis, who’s passed out in the women’s room one closing time. Oddly, they hit it off as they wait for their Ubers, which arrive at the same time. Sara jumps in and in seconds is asleep—only to wake up miles from home in the rich part of town. There’s only one explanation: they mixed up their cars. When she makes it home, it’s to find her building a crime scene and Sarah dead. Is Sara in some way responsible? Sara’s guilt may seem odd at first, but as the novel expands—and we learn more about her life—the pieces start to fall into place. It’s fun to see Sara take even greater charge of her life as she fights to learn what happened to Sarah and what might be her own fate. A fresh and powerful new voice, this is a crime writer to watch.

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail