A well-plotted mystery to curl up with.
Traymore’s suspenseful mystery novel, the second in a series, pits one stalker against another.
Victoria Mancusio’s life is at a precarious pass. After her husband, Nick, had an affair and faced a murder trial (he was acquitted), the marriage bond is very tenuous. The national publicity of the trial drew the attention of former art professor Timothy Sutton, a sexual predator who attacked Victoria when she was an undergraduate. She fought him off, and he was even forced out of his university position. So now, 10 years later, this narcissist may be out for revenge (he’s sending Victoria threatening texts), and he knows where she lives. She flies from her art gallery in New York to Arizona, deducing that he might be there. Indeed, she spots him and also finds and enlists Jenna Williams, another woman who survived his attacks, as a reluctant ally in trying to get this menace off the streets. Victoria is also attracted to hunky Scottsdale Police Department detective Randy Ramirez. Sutton winds up in “ankle monitor” custody but cuts it off and slips away, whereabouts unknown; likewise, Jenna, whom Victoria had bankrolled to move east, takes off. Now it’s cat and mouse, with Sutton and Victoria each both the cat and the mouse, leading to a surprising and violent conclusion. Traymore is a very competent writer (“There was enough guilt in this family to fill purgatory”) and very good with plotting and suspense. Another strong element is that everyone—even the good guys—harbors secrets. It began with Nick’s infidelity and is echoed in the flirtation between Victoria and Randy. And those are just a few examples. For the very best reasons (she tells herself), Victoria is playing it close to the vest, while Nick finally admits that he was not totally truthful about certain details, even after he confessed to the infidelity. There is even a grace note of deception, as it were: Victoria may have been the result of her mother’s early-on extramarital dalliance. The novel reads like a primer on tangled webs, and Traymore is clearly having fun with it.
A well-plotted mystery to curl up with.Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2022
ISBN: 9781956806779
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Indie Pub Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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