Intriguing characters people a challenging mystery fraught with peril.
A Glasgow police detective whose chaotic life has pushed her to her limits catches a case that will change her forever.
Health problems prevent Christine Caplan’s husband, Aklen, from working. Her son, Kenny, has dropped out of university. Only her daughter, Emma, seems to be on track. Already demoted from DCI to DI for mishandling evidence, Christine, who lands in more trouble when she’s accused of causing the death of a purse snatcher, suspects she’s being targeted. She’s supported only by her friend Lizzie, with whom she’s bonded over their dislike of “The Bastard,” Lizzie’s ex-husband and Christine’s ex-lover. When DCI Bob Oswald vanishes after viewing the scene of what seems to be mass murder, Christine is sent off to the Highlands to help with the shocking case. Two young troublemakers have broken into Otterburn House and come upon the long-dead bodies of five members of the wealthy McGregor family in a Satanist setting. One of the troublemakers is so traumatized that he has to be hospitalized. Christine doesn’t exactly get a warm welcome from the team led by DI Kinsella, who seems over his head and bent on proving the youngsters guilty. A search is launched for the renegade youngest McGregor son, now the only heir to a large fortune. He may be hiding on the island of Skone, which is owned by the liberal Allanach Foundation. A lot of Christine’s best information comes from disrespected local DC Craigo, but she quickly learns that she can’t trust her own colleagues when her investigation turns up both a drug operation and the body of the missing DCI.
Intriguing characters people a challenging mystery fraught with peril.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4483-0974-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.
A sequel to The Grey Wolf (2024) that begins with the earlier novel’s last line: “We have a problem.” And what a problem it is.
Now that Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his allies in and out of the Sûreté du Québec have saved Canada’s water supply from poisoning on a grand scale, you might think they were entitled to some rest and relaxation in Three Pines. No such luck. Don Joseph Moretti, the Sixth Family head who ordered the hit-and-run on biologist Charles Langlois that nearly killed Gamache as well, is plotting still more criminal enterprises, and Gamache can’t be sure that Chief Inspector Evelyn Tardiff, who’s been cozying up to Moretti in order to get the goods on him, hasn’t gone over to the dark side herself. In fact, Gamache’s uncertainty about Evelyn sets the pattern for much of what follows, for another review of one of Langlois’ notebooks reveals a plot so monstrous that it’s impossible to be sure who’s not in on it. Is it really true, as paranoid online rumors have it, that “Canada is about to attack the U.S.”? Or is it really the other way around, as the discovery of War Plan Red would have it? As the threats loom larger and larger, they raise questions as to whether the Black Wolf, the evil power behind them, is Moretti, disgraced former Deputy Prime Minister Marcus Lauzon, whom Gamache has arranged to have released from prison, or someone even more highly placed. A brief introductory note dating Penny’s delivery of the uncannily prophetic manuscript to September 2024 will do little to assuage the anxieties of concerned readers.
Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781250328175
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.
What should be a rare horror—a woman gone missing—becomes a pattern in Kubica's latest thriller.
One night, a young mother goes for a run. She never comes home. A few weeks later, the body of Meredith, another missing woman, is found with a self-inflicted knife wound; the only clue about the fate of her still-missing 6-year-old daughter, Delilah, is a note that reads, "You’ll never find her. Don’t even try." Eleven years later, a girl escapes from a basement where she’s been held captive and severely abused; she reports that she is Delilah. Kubica alternates between chapters in the present narrated by Delilah’s younger brother, Leo, now 15 and resentful of the hold Delilah’s disappearance and Meredith’s death have had on his father, and chapters from 11 years earlier, narrated by Meredith and her neighbor Kate. Meredith begins receiving texts that threaten to expose her and tear her life apart; she struggles to keep them, and her anxiety, from her family as she goes through the motions of teaching yoga and working as a doula. One client in particular worries her; Meredith fears her husband might be abusing her, and she's also unhappy with the way the woman’s obstetrician treats her. So this novel is both a mystery about what led to Meredith’s death and Delilah’s imprisonment and the story of what Delilah's return might mean to her family and all their well-meaning neighbors. Someone is not who they seem; someone has been keeping secrets for 11 long years. The chapters complement one another like a patchwork quilt, slowly revealing the rotten heart of a murderer amid a number of misdirections. The main problem: As it becomes clear whodunit, there’s no true groundwork laid for us to believe that this person would behave at all the way they do.
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-778-38944-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Park Row Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
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