It’s hard to say who’s more manipulative, the narrator or her creator, but TV’s Desperate Housewives would feel right at...
In this psychological mystery from McGovern (Eye Contact, 2006, etc.), a former librarian is exonerated after serving 12 years in prison for a neighbor’s murder and returns to her suburban Connecticut neighborhood to find the real killer.
Betsy explains that she confessed to murdering Linda Sue, not because she remembered committing the crime but because she didn’t. When she found blood on her nightgown she assumed that she had bludgeoned Linda Sue to death during one of the sleepwalking episodes she’d been suffering ever since her troubled childhood. She was assured she would be found innocent on psychological grounds, but incompetent counsel and neighbors’ unwillingness to testify in her defense sunk her case. Once she was in prison, the unexpectedly satisfying life she made for herself, complete with friends and a beau from the men’s facility next door, showed her how hollow her marriage to husband Paul had been, and she divorced him. Now DNA evidence proves her innocence. With no home waiting, she accepts an invitation from her one loyal neighbor, Marianne, to revisit Juniper Lane. Trying to solve Linda Sue’s murder on her own, Betsy is soon swamped by a plethora of secrets and possible lies. Is Paul gay? Why did Marianne’s daughter Trish run away, and what experiments is Marianne’s husband Roland conducting in Marianne’s basement (where he and Betsy once shared a passionate kiss)? Why did Geoffrey, Paul’s childhood friend—a flirtatious, award-winning author whose affair with Linda Sue was cited by prosecutors as one cause for Betsy’s murderous jealousy—undermine her case? But as Betsy dribbles out pieces of information, it becomes clear that she is not exactly a reliable narrator. Not only is the extent of her pathologies troubling, she has always known more facts about that fatal night than she’s let on.
It’s hard to say who’s more manipulative, the narrator or her creator, but TV’s Desperate Housewives would feel right at home on creepy Juniper Lane.Pub Date: June 14, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-670-02203-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2010
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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