Tag:

Thrillers

Review

The Guest House

by Brian Kenney

Just take all those accolades used for thrillers—unputdownable, twisty, dark, chilling, vivid, explosive, intense—and heap them on. Because this book is that good. That credible. And that terrifying. Londoners Victoria and Jamie take a brief vacation in Cumbria. Victoria’s due to have a baby in a few weeks, and the trip is a last hurrah before parenthood consumes them. They’re booked into a remote guest house—what we’d call a B&B—and are absolutely charmed by the older couple that runs it. But when they wake up the next morning, the couple is missing, the doors and windows locked. Cell phones? Gone. Car keys? Ditto. Then Victoria realizes that the mild contractions she has been experiencing are becoming much more intense and that the baby is on its way. That’s all you’ll get out of me when it comes to plot, but be warned: as soon as you think you know what this story is about, Morgan-Bentley flips the narrative, providing an even scarier turn. Unusual for crime fiction, which rarely includes characters with disabilities, Jamie has cerebral palsy, and his challenges with movement and balance give the book an even greater realism. While this novel is perfect for fans of Ruth Ware, Emma Rowley, and Lisa Jewell, really, it’s in a class by itself.

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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

Good Husbands

by Henrietta Thornton

Bath, England strangers Priyanka, Stephanie, and Jess each receive the same letter telling them that their husbands together raped a woman decades before, with the letter writer, Holly, claiming to be the daughter of one of the men. The women think that confronting their husbands will be the end of the story. (That’s if they decide it’s true and if they can bring themselves to tell the men that they know about the rape, neither of which they find a given at all.) The husbands, too, think their troubles are over. They’re still members of the same upmarket social club where Holly says the crime took place, and still lead fine lives, unlike the victim and her daughter, with the mother now dead and the daughter near death from alcoholism. As the women meet one another and move from emotional paralysis to action, we’re brought to what seems like a definitive showdown. But it’s not the end at all. Ray’s U.S. debut reminds readers, through her storytelling and her portrayal of the women’s undulating emotions, that sometimes what we think will be the end might not even be the most significant part of the story; these women make their own ending, and it includes a startling closing twist. The sadness of lives destroyed is palpable here, but so is the healing force of friendship, not to mention determination. Psychological thriller fans who enjoy strong women characters should add this to their reading plans.

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Review

The Resemblance

by Henrietta Thornton

When a member of the Kappa Phi Omicron fraternity is killed when crossing an Athens, GA street, it at first seems like an unfortunate accident. Homicide Detective Marlitt Kaplan is first on the scene because she happens to be nearby, but it turns out that her murder-investigation skills might be needed after all, because witnesses all mention the same odd set of facts. The victim, Jay Kemp, appears to have been run over by…Jay Kemp. Although he didn’t have a twin, a person who looked exactly like him was driving the car that ran him over, and that person was smiling as he gathered speed while moving toward Jay. The victim’s fraternity is the first place Kaplan and her partner hit when gathering facts about Jay, and from the start, things don’t look right. Is the boys’ secretiveness just fraternity culture or a coverup? Nothing is clear, and it’s made even murkier by the intertwining of grudges and dramas with former fraternity members, current members who are on the outs, and the many, many girls in the wings. A slowly unfolding backstory concerning what Marlitt endured when her old friend joined a different fraternity adds to the mystery. This intriguing debut is one for fans of academia gone wrong, such as depicted in the TV series The Chair.

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Review

The Disinvited Guest

by Brian Kenney

Wondering where all the pandemic fiction is? Well here’s the antidote. It’s ten years since the end of the pandemic, when it looks like another one, but even worse, is on its way. Married couple Reed and Lucy, both thirty-somethings, assemble their five closest friends, including Reed’s sister and her girlfriend, and hide out at Reed’s family cottage—WASP code for a 12-room-estate—on an island off the coast of Maine. Blueberry pancakes, innovative cocktails, Scrabble, plenty of time for artistic projects, it’s like a Ralph Lauren ad come to life. Until things fall apart. In a big way. Part of it is brought on by novelist Lucy’s growing obsession with the island’s past—in the 1840s, Irish immigrants with typhoid were quarantined here—and a diary she discovers, written by one of Reed’s ancestors, recounts those horrible days. But you needn’t go so far back to be terrified. Reed’s parents died here on Fever Island—yes, that’s the name—in the last pandemic, along with his girlfriend, whose presence Lucy senses everywhere. Goodman does a great job of blending the present and the past—each with their own rising tensions—with the past spilling over into the present. But best of all, this book offers readers a chance to reflect on the pandemic, the choices we made, the impact it had on us, and what’s left as the waters finally recede.

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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

Dirt Creek

by Henrietta Thornton

Searing heat and searing pain pulse off the pages of Scrivenor’s debut novel, which brings to mind the colonially forged dysfunction described by her Australian countryman David Malouf. The sad tale, in which awful events take on an air of near-inevitability, is narrated by Ronnie, a 12-year-old girl whose best friend, Esther, vanishes one day after school. Esther wears her name “like a queen wearing her crown at a jaunty angle” and even on a normal day exudes a kind of magic, says Ronnie; it’s impossible to her that anything bad could have happened. Still, nighttime comes and Estie’s not home, and the search is on. While the girls’ movements take center stage in Ronnie’s mind, to the reader, there are three centers of gravity here. Yes, there’s Ronnie and Estie. But also starring are their mothers and other weary, disappointed women of the dilapidated town. Finally, there’s a Greek chorus of disembodied children’s voices whose chillingly detached versions of what happened alternate with the more conventionally delivered story. Brace yourself, this is something.

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Review

Reputation

by Henrietta Thornton

Reputation is so valued that one way of damaging it, bearing false witness against your neighbor, is one of the 10 commandments. It certainly commands the life of Emma Webster, a member of Britain’s parliament who puts up with abuse online, and sometimes in person, after she takes a stand for women’s rights. Despite gaining a menacing stalker, she maintains a stiff façade and moves on with work. Then two events threaten to explode not just Emma’s reputation but her life: her teenage daughter commits a crime when seeking revenge on a bully, and a man who knows about that event is found by Emma inside her home, with injuries that see the last part of the book portraying a murder case. Underneath Vaughan’s nuanced look at the performances necessary to create and maintain a reputation, there is much to explore: the pressure that social media adds to our lives, what family members owe each other, and what women in the public eye endure. The murder trial is tense and reader opinion will vacillate numerous times among those who could have set up the crime, but they still likely won’t settle on the answer before the satisfying, surprising ending. The many fans of Vaughan’s Anatomy of a Scandal and Little Disasters won’t be disappointed.

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Review

Outside

by Henrietta Thornton

With friends like this, who needs enemies? Four buddies from college, now into early middle age, decide to get together for a mini-reunion and hike. They choose remote east Iceland—in the winter—not perhaps the most sensible decision. But Ármann, one of the group, owns a tourist company and seems to know his way around. So when they head off on the hike, with little food and no other supplies, then get caught in a blinding storm, it’s Ármann who is able to lead them to an emergency hut. But what greets them when they open up the hut is shocking, unsettling the small group. As they shelter in place and secrets are revealed, one old friend turns against another. This standalone from the best-known author of Icelandic noir makes for a fast read with as many terrifying twists and turns as the luge

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