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Thrillers

Review

Privacy

by Brian Kenney

Dr. Laina Landers is the sort of shrink anyone would want. She’s super smart, wonderfully compassionate, and completely devoted to her patients. So when the husband of a couple she is working with holds his wife hostage at gunpoint—an incident broadcast on live TV—Laina quickly gets to the scene. She saves them both, while also meeting investigative journalist Cal Murray. Empathetic? Check. Handsome? Oh, yes. Reliable? Totally. Which comes in handy, as Laina really needs a friend/lover she can depend on as her patients are receiving deeply unsettling “presents,” like a plastic fetus in a bottle of fluid, each with the same message: Watching you. More disturbing, the gift giver is relying on knowledge about the patients that can only be found in Laina’s notes from her sessions. But who would want to destroy Laina and kill her practice in the process? As Laina and Cal search for the possible culprit, the stakes get higher as the therapist herself is targeted. The I-didn’t-see-that-coming conclusion is guaranteed to make your head explode.

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Review

Nameless Acts of Cruelty

by Henrietta Thornton

Returning from vacation to London with his family, Jeremy, or Jez, Horton sees from the plane a figure running in a field. Without knowing why, he’s suddenly in the grip of a panic attack, certain that it’s a girl being pursued and she’s in terrible danger. Back home, he remains obsessed with the strange sighting and what could have happened to the girl, stressing himself and his wife as he retreats further into dark thoughts. His slide into an abyss of fear accelerates when he visits his dying mother, a cruel woman who’s treated him terribly, especially since his young sister’s death. As he returns to the family home that he’s now inherited, a place he hasn’t been since the tragedy, murky memories and renewed contact with boyhood friends force Jez to confront his past and deal with odd, dangerous characters who are all too present. Cameron masterfully develops those around Jez even as we are stuck in his increasingly frantic thoughts and actions. Her depiction of a tired, scared mind grasping for childhood memories is immersive and affecting, with the psychological suspense matched by a continuous ramping up of real-life drama. Fans of Helen Monks Takhar’s Precious You should add this to their TBR stash.

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Review

The Ghosts of Paris

by Brian Kenney

Part historical fiction, part mystery, this sweeping novel picks up the reader and transports them on a whirlwind trip from Sydney to London to Paris, where the long and compelling search finally comes to an end. It’s 1947, and the Second World War has been over for two years, although its impact remains enormous. Detective Billie Walker is hired by a well-to-do woman to find her husband, who’s been missing in Europe these past two years, and before you can say Qantas, Billie is up in the air, accompanied by Sam, her handsome assistant. Funny thing is, Billie also has a husband lost in Europe—a wartime photographer—providing the story with a double plot. But the greatest pleasure in this book comes from all the rich history and social commentary: the experiences of the Australian Aboriginal peoples with the police, the legal persecution of Australia’s gay men, Dior’s new look, London as it climbs out of from the Blitz, Paris as it tries to recoup, and so much more. The author has done her research, and it shows—in the best possible way. Moss does slam on the brakes, and the book rattles to a quick close, but that’s O.K. We’re happy where we’ve landed, and would follow Billie Walker anywhere.

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Review

What Can’t Be Seen

by Henrietta Thornton

What’s stranger than an eight-year-old Gretchen White standing over her murdered Aunt Rowan holding a knife dripping with blood? That child growing up to be a sociopath who works for the Boston police department and uses her access to investigate the crime, which she can’t remember. There’s a lot to learn here, and part of it is Dr. White’s lesson that her sociopathy is a neurodivergence, not a moral failing. Its core element—the inability to empathize with others—makes Gretchen an unlikely but effective psychologist, as her feelings don’t get in the way, as well as an oddly endearing villain. She’s highly aware of her emotional shortcomings, but others are too, and her vulnerability to the possible machinations of those surrounding this crime keeps the psychological twists coming. From the warped, rich family to the local woman desperate to find who murdered her sister—a separate crime that might be related to Aunt Rowan’s death—everyone’s a mess here, and everyone has motives and history that are painstakingly revealed and entwined. One for fans of Dexter and other characters we should loathe, but don’t.

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Review

The Perfect Neighborhood

by Henrietta Thornton

On the surface, Oak Hill, New Jersey, is, yes, a perfect neighborhood. Perfect lawns, perfect homes, perfect families. A crack appears when we see local high-schooler Cassidy on a clandestine outing, running late to meet Billy, the kindergartener she babysits for when he walks home from school. He doesn’t show, and his disappearance reveals the hurt, deception, and toxic boredom lurking behind many of the tony town’s facades. Billy’s mother, Rachel, is overprotective; his father resents his younger wife for trapping him in this second marriage by becoming pregnant; his older stepbrother, a small-time drug dealer, barely acknowledges Billy. Cassidy, reviled in the papers as The Babysitter, is having an affair with a much older man. The local celebrities, has-been musician Chris and his actress wife, Allison, have just split up and she’s moved away with no explanation. As the investigation into Billy’s disappearance continues, his shattered family is the nexus of a town in turmoil, allowing Alterman to show how pressure and desperation can manifest in very different ways and result in vastly different outcomes. Billy’s disappearance isn’t the only crime, and the interpersonal stories as well as the crime-centered mysteries will keep readers shaking their heads in disbelief as they keep the pages turning, hoping for justice.

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Review

The Self-Made Widow

by Brian Kenney

After Andie Stern’s debut in Suburban Dicks—in which she solved a shocking murder in her New Jersey town—you’d think the former FBI employee would be ready for a little R&R. Or at least as much relaxation as a mother of five can get. But when the husband of Molly, a member of her mom’s group—which Andie secretly calls The Cellulitists—unexpectedly dies, Andie strongly suspects Molly is to blame. The hard part, but also the fun part, is proving it. Helped out by disgraced journalist Kenny Lee, a buddy from Suburban Dicks and the only man in the book who isn’t a complete, well, dick, along with new friend Sathwika, Andie follows the many leads, which eventually bring her and Kenny far too close to home. Nicieza, the co-creator of Deadpool, is a wonderful satirist, and the friction brought about his women characters’ multiple lives as mothers, wives, professionals, and even criminals is pure pleasure and more than just a little bit realistic. Towards the end there’s the hint that Andie and Sathwika may set up their own detective agency. Pray God this is so.

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Review

Stay Awake

by Henrietta Thornton

Goldin’s (The Night Swim) startling work immerses readers in the disorientation and vulnerability that is amnesia. Every time Liv Reese wakes up, she has no memory of the previous two years. Notes that she writes on her hands and Post-its on her doors and walls guide her to contact friends who can help and to find the precious journal that details each vanished day. She repeatedly learns afresh that she was injured two years ago, leading to her memory problems, while other terrible events from that time are slowly revealed. In the present, the awakening that opens the book sees her running from an apartment with a bloody knife. Did she hurt someone? Whose apartment was that? Why does it seem like a different season? Then the point of view switches to a dead body being found, and a chase is on that sees us switching back and forth in time from before the injury, when Liv was a nightlife-loving young New Yorker who worked at a high-status magazine, to a few days before the bloody-knife incident, when the past catches up to her with a vengeance. The displacement caused to Liv by her condition is visited on readers to fast-paced and thought-provoking effect here; the story is gripping too, all adding up to a top-shelf psychological thriller for fans of Alice LaPlante.

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Review

Magpie

by Henrietta Thornton

hen London couple Marisa and Jake rent their spare room to Kate, the three get along fine at first, even if things are a little awkward. The extra money is certainly helpful when Marisa becomes pregnant with a longed-for baby. But soon things turn weird and then sinister as unpregnant Kate shows up at Marisa’s prenatal yoga class and, in other ways, seems to be pushing her way into their lives far too much. Marisa fears that the interloper might even be having an affair with Jake. Then we switch to Kate’s point of view, to encounter the same events, even the same conversations, from a very different perspective. Day’s (The Party) story (while not recommended to those facing the pain of infertility, a major plot point) is fascinating because of the individual stories and the novel’s upside-down turn halfway through. The portrayal of Jake’s snooty mom, Annabelle, a wicked-witch-type mother-in-law, is the icing on the strange cake. Devotees of unreliable-narrator tales, snap this one up!

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Review

The Darkest Web

by Henrietta Thornton

A fast-paced, perplexing mystery plus the main suspect’s heavy past combine to make Wright’s second in the series (after The Darkest Flower, 2021) one to remember. Throughout the book, there are two stories. In the public one, beautiful—so beautiful it’s problematic—workaholic lawyer Jane Knudsen is accused of murdering her tyrant boss and is defended by her former college roommate, lawyer Allison Barton. Then there’s the private tale, in which it’s slowly revealed why Jane never lets anyone get close and finds taking the fall for a murder preferable to telling the truth. Child sexual abuse is a prominent theme here, and Wright manages to keep those crimes off-screen while their emotional and practical repercussions are sensitively explored. In the process, readers are given two relationships to root for: Jane’s fledgling one with a coworker she dares to fall for, and Allison’s as a single mom who’s trying to balance romance with a promising man with raising a child who wants her mother all to herself. There’s a lot to ponder here, and before you know it, a twist shatters the story. Try this after Wanda M. Morris’ All Her Little Secrets, which also features a woman lawyer accused of murder.

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Review

Blackout

by Henrietta Thornton

It’s 1939 and a vicious serial killer is pursuing his bloody wont in Berlin’s trains. Assigned to these cases, which his superiors in the Kriminalpolizei, or Kripo, think are unrelated accidents, is Inspector Horst Schenke, a former racecar driver who’s embarrassed that injuries related to his old career have kept him from the front. He’s not one to rock the boat but quietly resists the ridiculous bureaucracy, lawlessness, and brutality of “the party,” even as his thuggish superiors hint and then state outright that he won’t get ahead without a Nazi badge. Glamorous dates (or as glamorous as nightly blackouts, rationing, and lack of fuel allow) with his resistance-leaning girlfriend keep the moral quandaries from eating Schenke up too much, but when the killer goes after a Jewish woman, Ruth Frankel, a surviving witness whom the inspector feels compelled to save, the pressure is on. Nazi higher-ups feel the woman can be used as bait and force a bootlicking rule-follower to shadow Schenke’s every move so he’ll comply. At the same time, the killer continues his spree while attempting to cover his tracks, an effort that puts Ruth and her protector in grave danger. The close calls and chases in this novel are truly scary, and the unusual perspective ramps up the intrigue. Fans of serial-killer mysteries who are looking for something a little different are the audience for this one.

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