Tag:

Thrillers

Review

The Mistletoe Mystery

by Brian Kenney

Are you one of the many fans of Molly the maid? Then you’ll love Prose’s latest work, a novella—this reader finished it on the flight from Boston to New York—centered on the holidays. Since Molly’s much-quoted grandmother has died, the holidays just haven’t been the same. This year, though, boyfriend Juan Manuel is determined to bring joy to Molly every day of Advent. But when a few shadows pass over Molly’s work life in the Regency Grand Hotel, she’s suddenly doubting Juan, love, and their future. What a perfect stocking stuffer!

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Review

Out in the Cold

by Jeff Ayers

The luxury yacht Aurora has a stellar group of diplomats and bigwigs enjoying the amenities and view of the Mediterranean when an attack turns the serenity to chaos. Possible targets include a diplomat from Finland and Special Agent Alex Martel’s former boss at Interpol, Celeste Clicquot. Alex helps save the day, but questions linger regarding the reason for the assault. It’s also clear that this was just the beginning. Someone does not want Finland to join NATO, and they are willing to risk World War III to achieve their goal. When things get personal for Alex, she goes against orders to take matters into her own hands. She must tread lightly with the few people she can trust to save the day again. This follow-up to Perfect Shot proves that Alex Martel and her cohorts lead one of the better special-ops series out there. Alex and Caleb, her current boss and possible love interest, are characters readers will follow anywhere. Fans of these novels should have Urszenyi on their mandatory reading pile.

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Review

The Business Trip

by Henrietta Thornton

Get ready to root for two women, strangers to each other, in this fast moving thriller. Madison, WI waitress Jasmine has readers on a knife edge as she sneaks out of her so-called boyfriend’s trailer in the middle of the night to escape his belittling and violence. Stephanie, news director at a TV station in Madison, has things easier, but is lonely. When she goes to San Diego for a conference she doesn’t return to work. Instead she texts her neighbor that she’s met a great man and tells her job she needs unexpected time off…go, girl! But the trip isn’t as it seems. When the two women’s paths cross each other and that of an odious man, things take very unexpected and thrilling turns, right up to an exciting ending twist. There could be less telling and more showing here, but readers will relish following Jasmine and Stephanie as they take the roads less traveled in this absorbing, tightly plotted debut.

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Review

Clever Little Thing

by Henrietta Thornton

Most of this book takes place in the past, when Londoner Charlotte; her American husband, Pete; and their eight-year-old daughter, Stella, await the arrival of a new baby. Charlotte is mainly focused on Stella, but she resists a diagnosis for her while a mom friend with an autistic child urges her to confirm why their children are so alike. The only person Stella seems to get along with is her odd—bordering on sinister, if you ask Charlotte—babysitter, a young Armenian woman named Blanka. She’s not very attentive to Stella, plays odd games, and will only respond “oh, yes,” to every suggestion Charlotte makes, while never once following through. Things take a turn for the stranger after Blanka dies suddenly. Now Stella seems exactly like her former caregiver, craving her strong meat stew (though the family is vegetarian), speaking like her, and in all ways seeming to channel the strange young woman. Readers will be rapt as the family members each retreat to their different corners of the house, literally and mentally; Charlotte’s beliefs are torn apart; and terrible danger looms ever closer. An unusual debut; readers will certainly be on the lookout for more from Echlin and her brilliant portrayal of doubt, fear, and fractured families.

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Review

The Specimen

by Henrietta Thornton

Fans of Philadelphia’s Mutter Museum and of unsettling fiction are ideal audiences for Fixsen’s “STEMinist” latest. The author introduces Isobel Tait, a desperate nineteenth-century Edinburgh mother. Her only child, a sweet boy named Thomas, is sickly, out of breath at the least exertion. When Isobel finally gets him to see an expert, the renowned Dr. Burnett, the boy’s condition is confirmed to be dire: his heart has a damaged valve and his life will be short. Then Thomas disappears. Frantic Isobel tries everything to find him, but it’s all futile and the police have no leads. When she gives in to a ladies excursion to Dr. Burnett’s display of medical oddities, a tiny, preserved human heart emits—to Isobel’s hearing only—the distinct rhythm that Thomas’s did (the music teacher in Isobel would know it anywhere). What follows is an absorbing and expanding mystery around what happened to Thomas and others like him, as well as an in-depth look at the work of resurrectionists—those who procured and used dead bodies to teach and learn anatomy, with competition for bodies fierce and lucrative. The story is based on real events detailed in an afterword by the author. This is ripe for a bookclub discussion on medical ethics.

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Review

The Sequel

by Brian Kenney

Yes, in nearly every way The Sequel is The Plot Redux, but don’t let that stop you for a minute. In most regards, The Sequel is more fun, more sardonic, and much darker—although this is one of the few series in which reading the first book before the second pays enormous dividends. We are back in the world of Anna Williams-Bonner, whose late husband, novelist Jacob, died by suicide. His novel The Plot found its way to the top of the Times bestseller list, leaving Anna doing everything she can to succeed as a literary widow—including touring across the country in Jacob’s stead. Anna gets so into the publishing groove that she actually authors her own debut novel. If only the story could end there. Anna undergoes harassment from someone who knows all too much about her life, her husband, and even her brother. But this anti-hero isn’t one to go down easily. I have no doubt Anna will be kicking her way into #3, to the delight of her many fans.

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Review

Listen to Your Sister

by Henrietta Thornton

Calla, 25, has carried her family forever—they’re a “collectively forked tongue, sharp and dangerous”—and their endless needs drag her from the better life she was building. She’s now a fretful, parenting-advice-reading mom to her lovable but wayward younger brother Jamie, 16. Their father is dead; their mean, drunken mother took off; and middle child, Dre, is no help, despite swearing that if Calla became Jamie’s guardian, he’d be there for them. “Redneck Amish Mormons would be better guardians than you,” says Jamie, in one of the book’s many grimly funny moments, and the pinnacle of his unthinking rejection is driving to a Black Lives Matter protest with a group of friends—when he promised Calla he’d stay home—to give the protesters some illicit help. Jamie has been experiencing bizarre moments, such as when his hand dissolves into a girl’s face and he can feel her insides; more of the same happens at the protest, but no excuses can help Jamie with the law when he’s Black and the protest gets violent. Things are simultaneously going monumentally wrong for Dre, who now must also dodge the police; Calla is once again on the hook to save her brothers from themselves. This is where fear and body horror meet hope and love, the siblings’ lengthy battle for one another stretching their emotional and physical limits and revealing their true selves in all their fury and strength. Debut author Viel really brings the horror here, it’s not for the squeamish at all, but those who can brave this epic fight will be rewarded with a story to remember.

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Review

Beautiful Ugly

by Brian Kenney

Novelist Grady Greene can’t wait to share his good news with his wife, Abby: he’s just made the New York Times bestseller list. He calls her, she’s driving home and not far from their house, only to hear her slam on the brakes, telling him that someone is lying on the road. Then silence. Grady heads out to find her and discovers that the car is empty, the door wide open, her cellphone abandoned, and Abby gone. So begins Grady’s year of mourning for his disappeared wife. To break his melancholia, and kick-start his work on his next book, his agent offers a little cabin on a barely habited Scottish isle. Grady takes her up on the offer, only to discover that there is, you guessed it, no way off the island—what ferry schedule?—and the two dozen or so female-only residents are a bit beyond odd. But oddest of all? The quick glimpses he has of a woman who is the spitting image of his wife. The creepiness, the occasional bursts of humor, the horrendous history, and of course the inevitable twists, all of which layer over one another, make for one terrifying ride.

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Review

Someone in the Attic

by Henrietta Thornton

Talk about domestic suspense. Julia has moved back to Dublin from San Diego with her kids, who hate their new environment, and her ex-husband, Gabe, who trades time at home with her. Weekends she’s in the house with the children and he’s in a nearby apartment; weekdays the opposite. It’s all very pally, but there’s one big problem: their family seems to be a victim of a social media prank that involves people hiding in attics and jumping out to terrify the residents. Repeated Tik Tok videos, not made by the family, show views of their home as though made by someone inside. And wasn’t there that case, her kids insist, where someone lived in an attic and came out at night to wander the house? Her son is especially terrified—the depth of his fear is clear when his mom tells him not to be afraid to be alone, and he says his fear is that he isn’t alone—prompting Julia to investigate. Weird neighbors and the family’s recent and more distant past offer multiple possibilities for who’s terrorizing them, and readers will enjoy Mara’s taut plotting and believable family dynamics (especially the eye-rolliness of the teen daughter). Julia and her children’s fear comes through so palpably that you’ll be ready to help them move again while silently cursing the useless authorities and blithe Gabe. A gripping read.

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Review

A New Lease on Death

by Brian Kenney

Having left behind her life in Baltimore, 20-year-old Ruby Young has settled in a so-so apartment in a so-so Boston neighborhood. The previous tenant who rented her apartment, Cordelia Graves, died just a few months ago, reportedly by suicide. But now another neighbor has died, murdered in an apparent mugging, and Cordelia—she’s become the building’s ghost-in-residence—is determined to keep Ruby safe. But Ruby is one tough cookie herself, with zero fear of the supernatural, and as much as they may be opposites, eventually the two women settle on refrigerator magnets to (sort of) communicate. Hearing each woman’s interior monologue is a hoot, as their relationship as roommates grows and they head out into the world to investigate if Jake was actually murdered…and did Cordelia really die of suicide? Droll, a touch maudlin, and featuring two outstanding characters. Readers are going to be eager for a sequel to this story.

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