Crosby (The Champagne Conspiracy, 2016, etc.) continues to explore the privileged world of the Virginia hunt country with a...
A woman’s determination to keep a promise puts her in a killer’s cross hairs.
Ten years ago, Lucie Montgomery’s boyfriend, speeding down a country road, smashed his car into a pillar, leaving Lucie badly injured. Now engaged to winemaker Quinn Santori, Lucie runs a winery on her family’s Virginia estate. In a horrible moment of déjà vu, Lucie’s run off the road by her friend Jamison Vaughn, who crashes into the same pillar that almost took her life. As she struggles to get him out of the car, he says, “Tell Rick I need him to forgive me.” Her former lover Mick Dunne drags her away just as the car bursts into flames. Lucie thinks Jamie, who’d just lost an election for U.S. president, deliberately drove into the pillar, and she’s determined to find Rick—whoever he is—and pass on the message. The only other clue is a medical alert bracelet Lucie stuffed in her pocket after Jamie dropped it. Jamie’s wife, Elena, insists that Lucie let the family handle the press, which is hounding Lucie for more details. Depressed after losing the election and burdened by huge debts, it seems plausible enough that Jamie was suicidal, but the family is determined to get an accident verdict. In order to shut Lucie up, they give her expensive tickets for a dinner entitling her to a taste of a rare, old, locally produced wine. Meanwhile, Jamie’s daughter Sasha, whom Lucie’s brother is dating, suggests she go see her mother, Vanessa Pensiero, Jamie's ex-wife, who may know about Rick and the bracelet. The tale she tells goes back to college days when Vanessa, Jamie, Mick, Elena, and a professor were all briefly involved in the murder investigation of one of their friends. Although Taurique Youngblood was convicted and is still on death row, he may be innocent, as Lucie, against her friends' wishes, resolves to prove.
Crosby (The Champagne Conspiracy, 2016, etc.) continues to explore the privileged world of the Virginia hunt country with a fine mystery, solid characterization, and a shocking finale.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-07662-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
Gardner tacks on so many twists that even the most astute reader will be confused, and even the intriguing resolution, when...
A New Hampshire cop tries to piece together a mysterious woman’s life following a car accident and discovers nothing is as it seems.
Gardner (Fear Nothing, 2014, etc.) puts Sgt. Wyatt Foster front and center in this overly complicated thriller, while corporate security expert—and Foster’s new girlfriend—Tessa Leoni, from the 2011 Love You More, plays a distant second fiddle. When Foster is called to a single-car accident on a rural road, it seems like driver Nicole Frank simply drank too much Scotch and drove off the road. But Nicole, who miraculously survives the crash, insists that her daughter, Vero, is still missing. Foster and his team launch a massive search until Nicole’s husband, Thomas, arrives at the hospital and tells the police that there is no child: Nicole suffered a traumatic brain injury (actually several), causing her to conjure an imaginary daughter. As the details of Nicole’s original injury—she suspiciously fell down both her basement and front stairs within the span of a few months—emerge, Foster and the reader become more, rather than less, confused. Nicole’s history unspools in calculated sound bites, with each episode ending in an artificial cliffhanger. According to Nicole—who claims to be “the woman who died twice”—she escaped a horrific childhood in a brothel known as the Dollhouse, a place that’s the nexus of the mystery surrounding Vero, who may or may not be a figment of her addled brain.
Gardner tacks on so many twists that even the most astute reader will be confused, and even the intriguing resolution, when it finally comes, doesn’t answer all the plot’s unnecessary questions.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-525-95456-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
Chilling.
A glaciologist seeks refuge in Antarctica.
A nearly two-year stint at the British Antarctic Survey’s base on South Georgia Island, halfway between the Antarctic mainland and the Falklands, seems like the perfect job for Cambridge graduate Felicity Lloyd. The landscape is breathtaking, the wildlife like no other in the world, and ever changing glaciers provide vital opportunities to investigate the effects of climate change on humankind’s future. But Felicity has another secret reason for choosing to pursue her professional passion in what may be the most remote place on Earth. She hopes that Freddie, who’s stalked her nearly her whole adult life, will never find her there. The trouble is, she can’t remember much about Freddie or the reason for his obsession with her; her memories are jumbled and distorted, with chunks of time missing from her consciousness the size of the icebergs she studies. Dr. Joe Grant, the psychologist she sees in Cambridge, tries to help her recover her lost moments, but just when he seems to be getting close, Felicity shuts him down, preferring to work out her problems alone in the frigid south. Leaving Felicity to handle her issues on her own, however, may no longer be an option for Joe once his mother, DI Delilah Jones, begins to connect the deaths of some of Cambridge’s homeless to Felicity’s blackouts. Bolton (The Craftsman, 2018, etc.) provides her readers with shivers worthy of her setting, although true aficionados of the psychological thriller may find the secret of Felicity’s illness a bit too easy to recognize.
Chilling.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-30005-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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