Fans willing to accept a big reveal that’s only medium-sized will revel in a superior thriller.
A rookie fellow in forensic pathology discovers a secret that turns her into her own most riveting case study.
Sloan Hastings has always known that Raleigh dentist Dolly Hastings and orthodontist Todd Hastings aren’t her biological parents. But it’s not until she submits a DNA sample to an online site in support of her assigned research in investigative genealogy that she discovers how closely it matches the DNA of Nevada photographer Nora Davies Margolis, who’s active on genealogical sites. In fact, Sloan learns, she herself is almost certainly Charlotte Margolis, who disappeared from Cedar Creek along with her birth parents, newlyweds Preston and Annabelle Margolis, nearly 30 years ago. Following the DNA trail Sloan’s now made publicly available, Cedar Creek Sheriff Eric Stamos—whose father, Sheriff Sanford Stamos, was found dead under highly suspicious circumstances back in 1995—comes east to convince Sloan that the vanishing of her infant self and her parents was the reason Sandy Stamos was killed and the true details of his decease suppressed by the all-powerful Margolis clan; that both mysteries are tied to the case Sandy was investigating when he died—the apparent hit-and-run death of Margolis law firm partner Baker Jauncey; and that Sloan’s search for her birth parents would make her the perfect candidate to go undercover in the Margolis closet and root out its skeletons. Zigzagging mercilessly between past and present, Donlea keeps up the tension long after you’ve decided that it really doesn’t matter who killed Baker Jauncey and Sandy Stamos as long as Sloan learns the truth and comes out of this lethal maze intact.
Fans willing to accept a big reveal that’s only medium-sized will revel in a superior thriller.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781496727183
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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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