by Dete Meserve ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 24, 2018
A labyrinth of plot and character motivations makes for a thoroughly enjoyable novel.
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In Meserve’s (Perfectly Good Crime, 2016, etc.) mystery, a scientist looks for her missing husband but may not like what she finds.
Astronomer Dr. Sarah Mayfield returns from her NASA presentation in D.C. only to discover her husband, Ben, isn’t at their LA home. There’s a chance he worked late at his popular restaurant, Aurora, but no one, including the couple’s 14-year-old son, Zack, knows where Ben is. His legal team is immediately concerned; he was set to testify against his allegedly thieving Aurora partners, who may have wanted to keep him quiet. Detective James Dawson, however, has another theory: Sarah is behind Ben’s disappearance, as she stands to inherit his family fortune and collect on a primo life insurance policy. Sarah, meanwhile, realizes someone has intentionally wiped footage from their home security system. Believing Ben is hiding something, she keeps the system’s hard drive from authorities and asks Aaron, a co-worker at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, to recover the data. Evidence slowly trickles in, from the drive as well as the FBI, which soon joins the case. Unfortunately, none of it disputes the implication that absent Ben is guilty of a recent murder. Meserve churns out a stirring mystery that rarely lets up. The three main theories regarding Ben’s fate, for example, all have merit and aren’t easily debunked. These are complicated by the characters. Sarah, who narrates, is withholding a few details from authorities, like her restrained attraction to Aaron. At the same time, others are concealing info from Sarah. Chiseled prose gleefully weaves the protagonist through bombshells (where did that handgun in the drawer come from?) and dangers (an unknown intruder creeping onto the Mayfields’ property). A later plot turn puts readers ahead of Sarah, but watching her untangle the mystery remains gripping until the end.
A labyrinth of plot and character motivations makes for a thoroughly enjoyable novel.Pub Date: July 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5039-0140-7
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Karin Slaughter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 29, 2015
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
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Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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by Sandie Jones ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 21, 2018
Melodramatic yet wildly entertaining, with a smashing twist.
A woman meets her dream guy, but his mother is something out of a nightmare in Jones’ debut thriller.
Emily Havistock is immediately attracted to the handsome Adam Banks when they meet each other’s eyes across the room at a networking event for her London consulting firm, and even though she wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, it doesn’t take long before they’re seeing each other every night. Emily’s last relationship ended in disaster, but she feels a true connection to Adam, although he’s not forthcoming about his past. A couple of months into the relationship, he invites her to meet his mother, Pammie, and assures Emily that Pammie will love her. On the way, when Emily makes a light joke about his mom’s taste in music, Adam snaps at her. One would think that Emily might have considered cutting her losses then and there. But, no, Emily is enamored with Adam, so she vows to make it work. What follows is a hellish sequence of passive aggressive nastiness on the part of Pammie that would bring any woman to her knees, begging for mercy. Emily doesn’t feel like she can confide in Adam since he treats his mother like a saint, but she does have the support of her flatmate, Pippa, and best friend Seb. It doesn’t help that Emily feels undeniable sparks with Adam’s younger, very attractive brother, James. Things with Pammie eventually come to a head in a spectacular way, and Emily begins to realize that Adam may not be as perfect as she thought. Emily, who narrates, is relatable even if readers will root for her to put the fiendish, and fiendishly clever, Pammie in her place and smack Adam for not sticking up for her. Jones ratchets up the tension to the breaking point and throws in a curveball that will make readers’ heads spin.
Melodramatic yet wildly entertaining, with a smashing twist.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-19198-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
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