by Allison Dickson ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 16, 2019
A Hitchcock-ian thriller from a new voice worth noting.
When Phoebe Miller spots a mysterious vehicle parking on her Chicagoland street every day, the silhouette of the driver sitting there for hours at a time, she has no idea the mayhem that's about to be set loose.
After all, Phoebe already has enough to worry about. Her late father, the infamous Daniel Noble, may have left her financially set for life, but he also saddled her with his notoriety. Exposed as a womanizer and rapist, he’s left her little choice but to hunker down inside her mansion to escape the glare of public shame. Her husband, Wyatt, with his incessant harping on babies—whether gotten by fertility treatments or adoption—isn’t helping. Phoebe can barely wait for him to leave for work each day. What’s an heiress to do but drink away her days? That is, until the new neighbors arrive, offering distractions. Despite her volatile and alcoholic husband, Vicki Napier may turn out to be Phoebe’s new best friend. But Phoebe isn’t just an overly privileged woman who likes her cabernet sauvignon a little too much: Like her father, she gets what she wants when she wants it. And Vicki’s 18-year-old hunk of a son, Jake, catches Phoebe’s sensual attentions immediately. Soon, the little cul-de-sac at the end of a Lake Forest road is writhing with passion and intrigue—all ominously surveilled by the driver of the mysterious car. Dickson’s debut novel swoops and swirls through startling plot twists and multiple perspectives, opening doors into the dark secrets lurking in her characters’ pasts. Adept at crafting unlikable characters who make despicable decisions, Dickson also manages to make us care about these potential villains, because they, too, have been wronged. So when someone ends up murdered, fingers point in multiple directions, and every suspect has reason to chill our bones or break our hearts.
A Hitchcock-ian thriller from a new voice worth noting.Pub Date: July 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-53924-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
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by Karin Slaughter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 29, 2015
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
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Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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by Leigh Bardugo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2019
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
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Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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by Leigh Bardugo ; illustrated by Dani Pendergast
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