The principal joy of reading Lustbader is in seeing how over-the-top he goes. Alas, here he gives his imagination, his...
This patchy, illogical, curiously unmelodramatic novella sits art forgery expert Tess Chase down at a cafe across from the Empire State Museum of Art just as Howard Lenz leaves the building to become a hit-and-run victim, and a thin man with an El Greco face scoops up his briefcase and takes off. Tess follows him, of course, watches him die as well, bashes his murderer, and snatches up that briefcase, which turns out to contain a Raphael painting. Wait, there’s more: Two goons arrive and escort Tess and the painting to the Bravanno compound on Long Island, where she and the beauteous Jacqueline exchange sultry glances while the lady’s husband appropriates the paintings and spews lies. Back in the city, Jacqueline’s brother turns up to enlist Tess in his battle for the Raphael. But Tess retreats to the Island, where soon she and Jacqueline are sprawled across lust-heated sheets. A swap of the painting for megabucks is arranged, but a double-crosser is on hand in Central Park to kill a couple of the participants before Tess is rescued by the feds and the tale screeches to a halt—along with any trace of common sense.
The principal joy of reading Lustbader is in seeing how over-the-top he goes. Alas, here he gives his imagination, his kinkiness, his purple-prose bravura a day off. There’s not even enough excitement to generate a really big yawn.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7867-0889-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
A grim and unbearably tense debut chiller with an unexpected and utterly fitting finale.
A lonely British schoolteacher falls for an American man incarcerated for the murder of a young woman. What could possibly go wrong?
Samantha, 31, is still reeling from a bad breakup when she discovers Framing the Truth: The Murder of Holly Michaels, an 18-year-old true-crime documentary about the killing of a young girl by then-18-year-old Dennis Danson, aka the suspected Red River Killer, who’s still on death row in Florida’s Altoona Prison. Sam writes to Dennis, and soon they’re declaring their love for each other. Sam flies to the U.S. to meet him, and although they’re separated by plexiglass, she knows that she’s found the love of her life. The chirpy Carrie, who co-produced and directed the first documentary, is Sam’s guide while she’s there, and Sam accompanies her while they film a new series about Dennis, A Boy from Red River. Sam and Dennis quickly marry when new evidence comes to light and Dennis is exonerated and released. Amid a whirlwind of talk shows, celebrity attention, and the new series premiere, married life isn’t quite what Sam had hoped for: intimacy is nonexistent, the already self-loathing Sam feels unloved and unwanted, and the appearance of Dennis’ clingy childhood friend Lindsay Durst sends Sam into a jealous fit. After Dennis’ father dies, they move into Dennis’ childhood home, and Sam begins to suspect he may be hiding something. After all, what actually happened to all those other missing girls? Refreshingly, Lloyd seems absolutely unconcerned with whether or not her characters are likable, and although a few British sayings ("round," “in hospital”) make their way into the dialogue of the American characters, her research into the aftereffects of long incarceration is obvious, and her portrait of an emotionally damaged woman feels spot-on.
A grim and unbearably tense debut chiller with an unexpected and utterly fitting finale.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-335-95240-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
An engrossing and haunting psychological thriller.
A young newlywed's life is upended, and a picturesque neighborhood is shattered, when she is suspected of a savage murder.
At the beginning of a new year, Joey Mullen moves back to England from Ibiza with Alfie, her husband, whom she hastily married out of grief over the death of her mother. Jack, Joey’s older brother, invites the young couple to move into his painted Victorian house in the upscale Bristol neighborhood of Melville Heights so they can get on their feet financially and help with the baby that Jack and his wife, Rebecca, are expecting. Joey quickly becomes infatuated with their neighbor Tom Fitzwilliam, a new headmaster charged with improving the local school. Her crush only intensifies when Alfie suggests having a baby, and Joey begins to suspect her marriage was a mistake. Meanwhile, Tom’s wife, Nicola, struggles to fill her days and remains oblivious to their son, Freddie, who regularly spies on his neighbors and the village's teenage schoolgirls, taking their photos and keeping a detailed log of everyone's activities. This surveillance exacerbates the paranoia and mental illness of another neighbor, the mother of 16-year-old Jenna, one of Tom’s students. Jenna’s mother is convinced that she knows the Fitzwilliam family from a vacation incident years earlier (and that the family is now stalking her), but Jenna is more concerned that Tom may be having an inappropriate relationship with her best friend. After several months, tension in the neighborhood explodes, and Joey is suspected of a brutal murder. However, as the police gather evidence, it becomes clear how many secrets each family has been hiding. Jewell (Then She Was Gone, 2017, etc.) adeptly weaves together a complex array of characters in her latest thriller. The novel opens with the murder investigation and deftly maintains its intensity and brisk pace even as the story moves through different moments in time over the previous three months. Jewell’s use of third-person narration allows her to explore each family’s anxieties and sorrows, which ultimately makes this novel’s ending all the more unsettling.
An engrossing and haunting psychological thriller.Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9007-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
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