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Mystery

Review

Detour

by Jeff Ayers

BOOK OF THE WEEK

Police officer Ryan Crane rescues a billionaire from an assassination attempt, and that act of kindness gives him the chance of a lifetime in Rake and Hart’s first collaboration. Three astronauts, a lottery winner, and a scientist join Crane on the first trip to Saturn’s moon, Titan. The plan is for them to go around the moon, drop off a reconnaissance satellite, and come back. This two-year journey will demonstrate that it’s feasible to create a future settlement there rather than on Mars. The thought of being away for that long rips family-man Crane apart, but the money and the chance to make a difference have him agreeing to be part of the crew. Right before launch, the billionaire gives Crane an envelope and tells him not to open it, but to give it to him upon their return and not tell anyone on the crew that the package even exists. As the ship blasts off, Crane does not realize that he’s not the only one harboring a secret for a rich man with presidential aspirations. The book begins in a similar vein to Gene Wilder’s version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but then dives into Andy Weir and Rod Serling territory, making this a blast from the first page to the last. I’m a fan of Rob Hart’s novels and Jeff Rake’s television series Manifest, and Detour exceeded my already-high expectations.

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Review

Gaslight

by Henrietta Thornton

Life inside a cult, and the uncertainty after escape, are chillingly chronicled in Shepard’s latest psychological suspense. At first, high schooler Danny is scornful of Infinite Spiritual Being, or ISB, the self-help group that her friends are so enamored of. But its narcissistic leader, Ben, knows just the right ways to manipulate a lonely teen into joining his band of acolytes. The young women, and some men, who are gaslit by Ben into eating very little—so as to gain more control over themselves—are over time convinced to leave their families and join Ben in a rural Oregon compound. Accounts of that life alternate with looks at the current day, nine years later, when Danny shows up at her ISB friend Rebecca’s house unannounced. Rebecca’s now living with her husband, Tom, and children in much more pleasant circumstances and is stricken to see Danny, as Tom knows nothing of her old life. Danny’s appearance puts Rebecca and her family in terrible danger, and as readers move back and forth in time, and secrets and terrible abuse, including of pregnant women, are revealed, the story ramps up to a tense-as-can-be ending. The legions of fans of Shepard’s Pretty Little Liars will read anything by her and will be well rewarded here; those new to the author will also race through this riveting tale.

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Review

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles

by Brian Kenney

Whenever you love a book—that would be me and the first book in this series, The Mimicking of Known Successes—you can only approach the next installation with some trepidation. So I’m happy to report that this book more than lives up to my expectations—although it’s important to read the books in order. It’s set against a rather simple mystery: 17 students and staff members are missing from Valdegeld, the Oxbridge-like university where Pleiti is a professor. This is a space opera and a detective story, a romance and a cozy mystery, with the investigation led by Mossa, Pleiti’s lover and a detective, who in this story explicitly asks Pleiti for her help. Set in part on Giant, the huge rings that surround Jupiter and where many humans have settled, this narrative includes a lengthy trip to far-off Io, one of Jupiter’s moons. The pleasures in this book are many. There’s the growing relationship between the two women, especially Pleiti’s worries that Mossa may not have feelings as strong as she does. There’s the brilliant world-building, with special attention to the far-off settlements the two women seek out, revealing the fascinating means of travel and the many smaller, human communities scattered across the vast planet. Finally, there are ruminations from Pleiti about the aim of returning to Earth, her research area, and the hints of political dissent. Brilliant on all counts.

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Review

Exit Black

by Jeff Ayers

A floating space station, the Imperium, was once a laboratory but has been crafted into a hotel for the extremely wealthy in Pitkin’s thriller. The first group arrives, and the team onboard is ready to show off the unique features of a stay, including a view of Earth and a supervised spacewalk. Chloe, a biophysicist who misses having her work be the focus of the station, assists in making the visitors feel welcome. It doesn’t help that her boyfriend, the CEO of the hotel, can’t make it at the last minute. She quickly learns that something sinister is happening and that some of the staff she thought she could trust are part of a global terrorist group called The Reckoners. While Chloe remains in hiding, the visitors are taken hostage, and the demand is eight billion dollars. With no hope of rescue and no way to communicate with anyone on Earth to send help, Chloe takes matters into her own hands. This mashup of the films Die Hard and Gravity is an action-adventure reader’s dream. The pacing is relentless and claustrophobic, making it impossible to stop turning the pages. Pitkin has written a winner.

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Review

Relentless Melt

by Brian Kenney

A supernatural mystery—part Stranger Things, part Enola Homes, but very much itself—set in 1909 Boston. Young Artie Quick, a Filene’s basement “shopgirl” by day, is fascinated by criminal behavior and signs up to study Criminal Investigation at the YMCA’s Evening Institute for Men. One problem? Artie is a young woman, and to pass, she has to adopt male drag and attempt to alter her voice. While she still lives with her working-class family, most of her time she’s at well-off Theodore’s digs—her charming if awkward best friend. Theodore is as obsessed with magic as Artie is with crime, and the two take on a case: the investigation into unnatural screams heard at night in the Boston Common by homeless men and petty criminals. What seems like a minor quest ends up taking the two on a sojourn that reveals the abduction of young women, a cover-up by city officials, and the existence of a spirit underneath the city, ready to wield even greater destruction. This book is way, way over the top—and is sure to delight its intended audience. Artie grows to love her menswear, and seems to love women as well, and her embrace of her queerness is just one of the many transformations in the book. For young adults on up.

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Review

Ukulele of Death

by Brian Kenney

I hesitate to review this novel—which is quite fantastic in every sense of the word—for fear of giving away one iota of the plot. Fran and Ken Stein (get it?) are a Manhattan-based brother and sister duo, in their mid-twenties, who operate a private-investigation firm. Having lost their parents when they were babies—or did they?—they focus on helping adoptees find their birth parents.

Whether their mom and dad are alive or not, the two have good reasons to be obsessed with their parentage, since they’re not exactly 100 percent human (let’s just leave that alone for now), stand well over six feet tall, and have the physical prowess of junior superheroes. The real delight is our narrator, Fran—equal parts snarky, witty, and loving—who agrees to find a client’s missing father, with only a rare ukulele for a clue. Ken is more of a bro, a frat boy who’s packing major muscle. But as trying as he might be, the siblings stick together because, well, there’s no one quite like them in the world.

The little ukulele caper becomes so much more, and before you know it, the two are running all over New York City, whether in pursuit or in hiding. This book is a total delight. But more than that, I’m obsessed with the storyline (it ends on a big of a cliffhanger) and if the next volume in the series isn’t released soon, I’m heading to New Jersey and downloading it from the author’s computer myself.

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Review

Waste of a Life

by Brian Kenney

What do you remember most about a Simon Brett novel? The characters. Brett, a genius at writing traditional mysteries, has created several series over the years, all based on personalities that draw readers back again and again. These days, Brett has two series in the works, the long-standing Fethering mysteries—featuring two sort-of best friends in a very English village—and a newer series featuring professional declutterer Ellen Curtis. Having a declutterer as your protagonist is inspired: they allow for easy access into other people’s lives—through their stuff—whether those people are dead or alive. Here, Ellen has been hired to work with Cedric Waites, an octogenarian who hasn’t left the house since his wife died years ago. Yes, there are mountains of empty frozen-dinner containers, but Ellen is slowly making headway with Cedric. Only to find him, one day, dead. And not just dead, but likely murdered, with Ellen one of the suspects. The novel goes deeply into Cedric’s past, marriage, and his dealings with his awful son and even worse daughter-in-law. But more compelling is Ellen and her relationships with her two adult children, both of whom are deeply troubled, and both of whom end up moving home at some point. The publisher describes this as a light-hearted mystery. It’s not. It’s actually a darn good novel about families—the good, the bad, and the ugly—set against a murder inquiry.

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Review

Self-Portrait with Nothing

by Henrietta Thornton

There’s strange and then there’s this bizarre-in-the-best-way, thought-provoking debut. It opens with a missing-person case. The subject is artist Ula Frost, who’s known for A) being reclusive and B) painting portraits that allow another version of the subject to appear from another world. At least, that’s the rumor; there have long been investigations of whether the phenomenon is real, and stories of those who have been found dead with their portrait in tatters nearby, adding a tinge of horror to the rumors. Either way, Ula is now missing, which sets in motion legal proceedings she arranged to give her possessions, including her paintings, to a forensic anthropologist named Pepper Rafferty, who didn’t know Ula and wasn’t expecting this. Now, Pepper is the focus of attention from both Ula’s cult-like following and the frightening Everett Group, quasi-corporate thugs who want a particular painting that’s very much not for sale. Pepper, who normally goes through her life quietly wondering if another Pepper in another world likes her husband better and is more satisfied overall, is thrust into danger and science-fiction-tinged partnerships in her quest for a way out of the predicament she’s been dropped into. By the end, readers will have been treated to both a quirky love story and a great philosophical debate (what if you could produce other yous?). In other worlds, there might be other Ettas who are reading longer versions of Pokwatka’s fascinating puzzle, but in this world, I’m so sad this book is over.

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Review

The Anomaly

by Henrietta Thornton

As well as offering a peculiar and captivating story, this winner of France’s Prix Goncourt prize, for the “”best and most imaginative prose work of the year,” stands out as wonderfully French. Le Tellier describes his characters in gutting detail while maintaining a distant nonchalance, inviting readers to share in his weariness at how emotionally finished these people are. Among them is Victor Meisel, who resembles “a healthy Kafka who made it past forty” and is writing a book called The Anomaly; André, an architect who’s desperate to hold onto the love of his much-younger girlfriend; Lucie, that girlfriend, who’s drifting away; David, who’s facing a deadly illness; and Slimboy, a famous singer who spends all his energy maintaining the facade that he’s straight. Their shredded emotions are on display in the lead up to a Paris-New York trip, with each then depicted as one of a handful of strangers on, and the pilot of, a flight that experiences near-lethal turbulence with a bizarre aftermath. Emotions are just one of the problems faced by the survivors, who find themselves captive in a situation that involves not only the CIA and FBI but even the President of the United States (“a fat grouper with a blond wig”). Viewers of Netflix’s hit series Manifest will recognize some elements of this story, but the book and the show are unrelated and the aftermath of the flight is different enough to enthrall fans of the show and to keep them reading to the end.

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Review

The Harbor

by Brian Kenney

When 15-year-old Oscar Dreyer-Hoff goes missing on his way home from school, the Copenhagen police assume he’s yet another teenager who’s run off and is likely at a friend’s house. But his well-connected, affluent family thinks otherwise. They’re art dealers with a somewhat shady past and a history of receiving threats. In fact, they receive an ambiguous message the day after young Dreyer-Hoff disappears. Time to bring in detectives Jeppe Kørner and Anette Werner, who pursue Oscar’s disappearance as though it were a kidnapping. Kørner and Werner encounter a wonderful range of characters—from pouty, insolent teens to engineers in a recycling plant and the caretaker of an island in the harbor—and we learn about Copenhagen in the process. Engberg is a genius at balance, going deep into the lives of Kørner and Werner, as well as some of the suspects, while never forgetting that this is a murder mystery, and the clock is ticking. The third in a series that just keeps getting better, this book also succeeds as a standalone. For wherever Nordic noir is appreciated.

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