A thrilling religious murder mystery that affirms conservative LDS values.
Chamberlin (The Valkyries Book 1: Choosers of the Slain, 2014, etc.) departs from her usual historical fiction to offer a twin tale of murder and the Mormon faith set at a Utah ski resort.
Helen Snow comes from a conservative family deeply involved in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Helen is visiting with her bishop to discuss her taking over the role of Relief Society president for her parish when she receives a phone call from her niece, Brittany. Brittany, who is like a daughter to Helen, has stumbled upon a grisly corpse, the wealthy, handsome bachelor David Jaramillo, while cleaning a condo in Park City, Utah. Helen rushes to Brittany’s aid and finds the police already cleaning up the scene. But while the authorities are ready to report the incident as an accidental death, Helen, and only Helen, notices something suspicious. She proceeds to explore a knot of relationships; Jaramillo, whose family owns the ski resort where the murder occurred, lies at the center. Helen ably navigates the convoluted plot threads, some of which stretch believability; the most intriguing is Helen’s tenuous relationship with her faith. While her sister, Brittany’s mother, is a paragon of religious devotion, Helen harbors certain doubts. These arose from the church’s callous response to Helen’s daughter Wizzy, who died young due to complications from Down syndrome. Wizzy serves as Helen’s moral and crime-solving compass. She hears her deceased daughter humming certain songs at crucial moments throughout the book. While this device is tryingly sentimental at times, it’s ultimately heartwarming and leads Helen to a satisfying affirmation of faith and self.
A thrilling religious murder mystery that affirms conservative LDS values.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-942756-70-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: Penmore Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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This one has it all: sexual predation, financial skulduggery, reluctant heroism, even the power of social media.
A compelling, complex thriller as modern as tomorrow.
Mina (The Long Drop, 2017, etc.) leaves historical Glasgow and sets this crackling tale in the very moment. Sophie Bukaran is living as Anna McDonald; she's hidden herself in Glasgow, in marriage to a lawyer, in being mother to two girls. Then one November morning, between episodes of a true-crime podcast called Death and the Dana, her life "explode[s]." Her best friend, Estelle, is at the door, and Anna's husband reveals that he and Estelle are lovers and they're leaving with the girls. Anna considers suicide, but the podcast distracts her. Leon Parker and his family have died aboard the Dana, and the ship's cook has been convicted. The podcast asserts that the cook could not be guilty and the deaths were the result of a murder-suicide committed by Parker. But Anna knew Leon Parker and feels he could not be the culprit, so she decides to try to learn more about his fate. When Estelle's anorexic and feckless husband, Fin, a minor rock-and-roll celebrity, appears at her door, he is caught up in her decision, and they eventually create a companion podcast that details their explorations. But in the process Anna and Fin are photographed and the pictures posted online, so Anna's quest becomes entwined with threats to Sophie Bukaran's life. Years earlier Sophie was raped by members of a beloved football team, and her accusations threatened the team's reputation and value. When the only corroborator of her testimony was silenced, Sophie was discredited in the usual manner: Her morals were questionable, she was possibly drunk, she was seeking money. Dismissed and subjected to public vilification, Sophie disappeared. But a new witness has come forward and could confirm Sophie's accusations, and her reappearance again threatens a financial empire. As Fin's podcast becomes wildly popular and he and Anna begin to unravel the mystery of Leon Parker's death, the assassins seeking Sophie close in.
This one has it all: sexual predation, financial skulduggery, reluctant heroism, even the power of social media.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-52850-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
One of those rare thrillers whose revelations actually intensify its suspense instead of dissipating it. The final pages are...
A perfect wife’s disappearance plunges her husband into a nightmare as it rips open ugly secrets about his marriage and, just maybe, his culpability in her death.
Even after they lost their jobs as magazine writers and he uprooted her from New York and spirited her off to his childhood home in North Carthage, Mo., where his ailing parents suddenly needed him at their side, Nick Dunne still acted as if everything were fine between him and his wife, Amy. His sister Margo, who’d gone partners with him on a local bar, never suspected that the marriage was fraying, and certainly never knew that Nick, who’d buried his mother and largely ducked his responsibilities to his father, stricken with Alzheimer’s, had taken one of his graduate students as a mistress. That’s because Nick and Amy were both so good at playing Mr. and Ms. Right for their audience. But that all changes the morning of their fifth anniversary when Amy vanishes with every indication of foul play. Partly because the evidence against him looks so bleak, partly because he’s so bad at communicating grief, partly because he doesn’t feel all that grief-stricken to begin with, the tide begins to turn against Nick. Neighbors who’d been eager to join the police in the search for Amy begin to gossip about him. Female talk-show hosts inveigh against him. The questions from Detective Rhonda Boney and Detective Jim Gilpin get sharper and sharper. Even Nick has to acknowledge that he hasn’t come close to being the husband he liked to think he was. But does that mean he deserves to get tagged as his wife’s killer? Interspersing the mystery of Amy’s disappearance with flashbacks from her diary, Flynn (Dark Places, 2009, etc.) shows the marriage lumbering toward collapse—and prepares the first of several foreseeable but highly effective twists.
One of those rare thrillers whose revelations actually intensify its suspense instead of dissipating it. The final pages are chilling.Pub Date: June 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-58836-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
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