Tag:

Psychological

Review

Bad Men

by Brian Kenney

This is the year in which British women are taking up arms—or knives, poisons, or other instruments—and knocking off the bad men in their lives, from abusive husbands to rapist uncles to misogynistic politicians. Saffy Huntley-Oliver—socialite, thrice an heiress, and a devoted serial killer—loves nothing more than eliminating such men. “Killing bad men is my private hobby, my passion project, the thing that makes me tick. It’s my own humble attempt at smashing the patriarchy.” She got her start early on by drowning her stepfather, who was abusing her and about to move on to her younger sister, and she hasn’t stopped since. Until she crosses paths with famed podcaster and big-time crush Jon Desrosiers, who has made a career out of tracking down serial killers, often aiding the police. Can opposites attract? It’s rough at first, as Jon is going through his own troubles—like a divorce—and is ready to give up his obsession with serial killers (is he glamorizing them?) in the hopes of winning his wife back. It’s one part rom-com and two parts crime fiction as the story expertly ricochets between Saffy and Jon. Every detail is absolutely perfect, from Saffy’s posh wardrobe and lavish apartment to Jon’s rescue dog, Girl, and the annoyance of fandom. Humorous? Totally. Dark? Absolutely. A debut? Impressive. For more feminist murderers, try How To Kill Men and Get Away With It, How to Kill Your Family, and The Best Way to Bury Your Husband.

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Review

Kill for Me, Kill for You

by Brian Kenney

Amanda and Wendy meet on Manhattan’s west side at a bereavement group for parents. They’ve both lost young daughters to horrific deaths, and believe that the cops, who have identified the perpetrators but lack the evidence to arrest them, are moving way too slowly. Primed for revenge—no mother should go through what they’ve experienced—they’re ready to take matters into their own hands. But if they kill their perps, they know the cops will be all over them, viewing them as prime suspects. What if they help each other out and switch murderers—I’ll kill yours, you kill mine—a plan that will provide them with air-tight alibis? Just as I was ready to sit back and enjoy a new take on Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train (and the subsequent Hitchcock film), the narrative suddenly veers off-road—way off-road—introducing another character whose story helps catapult the novel into something even darker, more terrifying, and totally gripping. Thriller fans will absolutely love being taken on this wild ride, where nothing is what it seems and no one can be trusted. Brilliant and sharp, ingenious and disturbing. For fans of The Silent Patient and The Girl Who Was Taken.

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Review

Two Dead Wives

by Henrietta Thornton

This sequel to Woman Last Seen (2022) publishes the day after Christmas, but it’s far from your traditional holiday read. It does, however, provide more than ample entertainment for days off and/or fuel for thinking away interminable events. The main thought provoker is: how does a woman manage to be married with kids in one family while also married to someone else? How are the two husbands and the kids supposed to feel now that Kylie, also known as Kai and Leigh, the bigamist whom they thought they hated, has gone missing? And what’s the second husband to do, accused as he is of Leigh’s murder, when he knows he didn’t do it and nobody even knows if she’s actually dead? Leave this one up to the kids, who are sick of the media firestorm around them, not to mention tired of their mother’s best friend who has moved in just a little too quickly and whom they know visits Dad’s room at night. Philosophical questions quickly give way to a thrilling investigation and final pages that will keep readers on edge and rooting for justice.

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Review

The Last Applicant

by Henrietta Thornton

This novel takes place in the social black hole that sucks in (very) rich New York City parents: admission to the kind of private elementary school that costs the same as college. These institutions usually seem to be named with an eye toward Beatrix Potter characters attending—St. Bernard this, country that. This one’s called Easton but is nevertheless The School to attend. That’s why admissions director Audrey Singer is only surprised by the casual tone of a begging email from a mom who didn’t realize the application pool would be capped. Sarah Price is desperate, devastated, disconsolate, not to mention a little drunk, and fears she has “completely derailed” her son, Eli’s, future. Audrey makes the mistake of allowing an exception to the rules, and that’s all it takes: Sarah now begins to stalk the gatekeeper of her dreams for Eli, with her antics growing ever more unhinged as decision day grows closer. Fans of psychological thrillers and mysteries will lap up the tense moments created by the power imbalance between Audrey and Sarah; emotional ups and downs that stem from the women’s private lives add to the roller coaster effect. As the novel is episodic, cliffhangers will thrill readers at points, and there’s a completely unpredictable ending twist. Pick up this one if you enjoyed Chandler Baker’s Cutting Teeth or Sylvie Perry’s The Hawthorne School.

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Review

You Know What You Did

by Henrietta Thornton

“Her mother’s approval was everything, her rejection absolute annihilation.” A daily does of annihilation is Anh Le’s lot as the child of a Vietnamese immigrant mother who is “from the ‘I criticize because I care’ culture.” Today, Mẹ, the mother, lives in the carriage house next to her artist daughter, now called Annie, who’s married with a sullen teen daughter, whom Mẹ calls a whore. After Annie finds Mẹ dead, things start to get even more difficult. Despite her OCD related to cleanliness, Annie must clean out the carriage house where her mother refused to throw out anything, even rotten food. At the same time, she takes on a new commission for her local benefactor, an elderly lady who doesn’t acknowledge Mẹ’s death (“China dolls needn’t have troublesome backstories”) and who promptly goes missing. At first, the police refuse to believe there’s any issue, but as further crimes come to light, they and Annie herself, who’s once again crippled by her compulsions, begin to wonder if she’s to blame. Nguyen delves deep into the trauma caused by war and the generations-spanning destruction it can unleash, but anyone who grew up feeling othered will recognize themselves here. A debut to remember, and what a gripping ending.

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Review

The Princess of Las Vegas

by Henrietta Thornton

Though there’s a year between them, sisters Crissy and Betsy Dowling are so alike they could be twins. And they don’t only resemble each other, they also look very like one Diana Spencer, the late, lamented Princess of Wales. The resemblance is so strong that Crissy performs as Di in a long-running Las Vegas residency. The casino that hosts the emotional cabaret, the Buckingham Palace, or BP, has seen better days, as has Crissy’s relationship with her lookalike sister. Crissy claims that Betsy killed their mother, the circumstances around that a mystery for most of the book. But that doesn’t stop Betsy from re-entering her sister’s life by leaving her social worker job for her new boyfriend’s cryptocurrency firm that’s setting up shop in Vegas. When the owner of the BP is found dead, and Crissy doesn’t believe the police’s finding that it’s a suicide, it starts a chain of subterfuge and violence that makes the sort-of-royals wish that what happens in Vegas didn’t involve them. Bohjalian has intriguingly veered into a much more noir path than his usual, with the darkness complimenting his typical tight plotting and absorbing family drama. This is one for fans of campy fare mixed with family shenanigans and of Elle Cosimano’s Finlay Donovan.

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Review

Bye, Baby

by Henrietta Thornton

New Yorker Billie has never wanted children. But the series of hurts chronicled over the course of this frenemies story find her standing in the apartment below her former best friend, Cassie’s, place, holding Cassie’s baby while her friend upstairs wails that there’s been a kidnapping. Most of this absorbing tale takes place in the present, when lonely Billie tries over and over to regain the closeness she had with Cassie when they were teens. But Cassie, who’s now a famous Instagram mommy, wants little to do with her. We also flash back to those teen years, when a incident involving Billie’s stepfather, whose sexual abuse of the girl is graphically described, has been kept a secret by Billie and Cassie, leaving them emotionally tied but perhaps also causing their estrangement. As in her Can’t Look Away (2022), Lovering nails the bizarreness of obsessive love—Billie’s for Cassie and Cassie’s for Internet fame—and its twisted outcomes. This book will be a hit with fans of that previous work as well as of Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love.

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Review

The New Couple in 5B

by Brian Kenney

Everything is creepy about the Windermere, a ritzy, historic New York City apartment building with Rosemary‘s Baby vibes to spare. But at first, Rosie, an author; and Chad, her husband and an aspiring actor, hardly notice. They’re too busy taking care of one of the residents, Chad’s uncle, who has died as the book opens, and who leaves the apartment to the broke young couple—and not his own daughter. Why? And while the residents couldn’t be more welcoming, Rosie—who’s writing a book about the history of the Windermere, focusing especially on the many murders—can’t contain her suspicions. What’s up with the doorman, who seemingly works around the clock? And the child she would swear she saw crouching in the basement? Why are there cameras absolutely everywhere? And, most importantly, why is Chad acting so weird, disappearing for huge stretches of time? Unger’s novels are textbook examples of perfect suspense fiction, and this title is no different. As we race through the narrative, we watch in terror as “something dark is on the horizon” becomes something dark that is right next to you. And we are helpless to stop it. Love New York? Then this super accurate portrayal of the City is doubly fun.

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Review

Geneva

by Henrietta Thornton

This fast-paced debut takes on the world of biotechnology, focusing more on the attendant politics and celebrity than the tech itself. The celebrity in question is Professor Sarah Collier, who’s retired after winning a Nobel Prize. She’s so reclusive that she didn’t even pick up her Nobel in person, but her husband is desperate for her to get back out there and help his faltering neuroscience career. He’s increasingly frustrated by her unwillingness to travel with him to Geneva, where a mysterious new technology will be unveiled at the Schiller Institute, with, the institute hopes, Sarah’s endorsement. The promise that the new technology could help Sarah’s newly diagnosed Alzheimer’s makes the endorsement tempting, but steely pressure from the institute’s directors and its frightening head of security is exhausting. As Sarah becomes ever more forgetful and disoriented, the risks to her marriage and even her life multiply while the billions of dollars on the line make malevolent forces ruthless. For fans of actor-author Armitage and of John Marr’s biotech-infused thrillers.

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Review

While We Were Burning

by Henrietta Thornton

Elizabeth is in a rut. Her job isn’t so satisfying, and her marriage is on the rocks. Her every move seems to trigger a report by her husband, David, to their therapist. She feels ganged up on and adrift, which is bad enough. That descends into depression, which others believe is paranoia, when she finds her neighbor Patricia dead. Others say it’s suicide, but Elizabeth is sure it was murder and is determined to find the culprit. She has a willing sidekick in her sleuthing in Brianna, the assistant that David insists his wife take on to help out at home. Brianna, who is Black, is all too willing to be white Elizabeth’s new best friend, Watson to her Sherlock, and de facto therapist, given that Brianna has a strong motivation to insert herself into her employers’ upscale Memphis neighborhood: someone there called the cops on her son and they killed him. As the plot twists and turns, deceptions build, and though readers have the benefit of a birds’ eye view of the story, surprises are in store. This is reminiscent of Elizabeth Day’s Magpie, with its suburban setting and overcrowded marriage; the effects of gentrification and racism also loom large. For fans of Magpie Murders and novels that pack in the psychological drama.

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