A top-notch mystery with ever escalating suspense and a satisfying payoff.
Old money is the target of a calculating stalker in this engrossing thriller.
The target in this mystery by Nordstrom (Reflections in Gold, 2009, etc.) is Amy Granville Fontaine, the heir to a Northwest lumber fortune. At the novel’s start, divorcée Amy is gaining a sterling reputation as a painter of seascapes in the greater Portland, Oregon, area. She soon meets art critic Harold Gorman, a widower whose wife died under mysterious circumstances. The two are soon discussing the nature of Amy’s work: “It’s a somber observation, but I wonder what direction your work might have taken had you not become so familiar with the tension between darkness and light,” says Hal. They quickly become close, to the dismay of Amy’s daughter, Monique; Monique’s boyfriend, Ralph; and Amy’s friend Diane Demaris, a gallery owner. All are concerned with Harold’s intentions toward the heiress. As Diane tells her, “You are a very eligible, and extremely desirable divorcée. For some men, there’s never ‘enough money.’ Think about it.” Shortly after the pair announces their engagement, strange things start to happen at Pelican Rest, Amy’s vacation home in coastal Oregon. At first, it’s a strange man’s face in her front window, but the incidents become increasingly violent, unsettling Amy. Since the stalker seems to know her every move, every male around her is a suspect. Amy eventually stops being a victim and goes on the offensive, leading to a terrifying climax. Nordstrom does an admirable job limning Amy’s rarified world and creates believably flawed characters. He slowly intensifies the suspense, so readers can well understand Amy’s mounting fear (it’s not paranoia if people are out to get you). One drawback is that the stalker’s identity becomes evident early, but while the reader may have a good idea what’s going on, none of the characters ever do until it’s too late. An element of doubt lingers right through to the end of this captivating thriller.
A top-notch mystery with ever escalating suspense and a satisfying payoff.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5114-6888-6
Page Count: 246
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Formulaic but fun.
Bad things are astir on the banks of the Big Muddy, hallmark territory for homeboy Iles (Mississippi Blood, 2017, etc.).
“Buck’s passing seems a natural place to begin this story, because that’s the way these things generally start.” Yep. This particular bit of mischief starts when a Scoutmaster, surrogate father, and all-around good guy gets his head bashed in and his body dumped into the Mississippi. And why? That’s the tangled tale that Iles weaves in this overlong but engaging yarn. Thanks to the back-room dealing of a bunch called the Poker Club, the little river-bluff city of Bienville has brought a Chinese paper pulp mill to town and, with it, a new interstate connection and a billion dollars—which, a perp growls, is a billion dollars “in Mississippi. That’s like ten billion in the real world.” But stalwart journalist Marshall McEwan—that’s McEwan, not McLuhan—is on the case, back in town after attaining fame in the big city, to which he’d escaped from the shadow of his journalist hero father, now a moribund alcoholic but with plenty of fire left. Marshall’s old pals and neighbors have been up to no good; the most powerful of them are in the club, including an old girlfriend named Jet, who is quick to unveil her tucked-away parts to Marshall and whose love affairs in the small town are the makings of a positively Faulknerian epic. Iles’ story is more workaday than all that and often by the numbers: The bad guys are really bad, the molls inviting (“she steals her kiss, a quick, urgent probing of the tongue that makes clear she wants more"), the politicians spectacularly corrupt, the cluelessly cuckolded—well, clueless and cuckolded, though not without resources for revenge. As Marshall teases out the story of murder most foul, other bodies litter the stage—fortunately not his, which, the club members make it plain, is very much an option. In the end, everyone gets just deserts, though with a few postmodernly ironic twists.
Formulaic but fun.Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-282461-5
Page Count: 752
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
Solid, satisfying thriller from the prolific Brown (Ricochet, 2006 etc.).
Fallen gridiron great, fresh out of prison, reluctantly agrees to impregnate the wife of a disabled millionaire.
After doing five years for throwing a game to settle a gambling debt with a crime syndicate, former Dallas Cowboy Griff Burkett knows his employment options are limited. A social pariah, the one-time hero quarterback is despised by the very public that once worshipped him. Still, he understandably balks when wheelchair-bound airline mogul Foster Speakman taps the ex-con for a most indecent proposal: knock-up his wife Laura; keep the baby’s real paternity a secret; walk away with millions. The gig sounds too good to be true, and the fact that Speakman insists on a “natural” conception rather than artificial means that something is not quite right. For his part, Griff does need the money, and Mrs. Speakman, while not exactly his usual type, is certainly easy on the eyes. The two have several meetings, and devoted wife Laura immediately finds herself torn with guilt over the infidelity, but also stirred by the feelings hunky Griff brings out in her. Meanwhile, Griff is being tailed by Detective Rodarte, a twisted cop who will stop at nothing (rape, murder) to see Griff back in jail or dead. After an especially passionate interlude with Griff, Laura conceives, but her joy is short-lived as her husband meets a sudden grisly end, with Griff implicated in his death. Griff is then forced to go on the run to find a witness to clear his name—before Rodarte does. He abducts the only slightly unwilling Laura to aid him in his plan, and is amazed when he realizes that staying off death row doesn’t seem to matter as much as protecting her and their unborn child. He’s a changed man, and Griff and Laura’s psychologically complex grown-up relationship is a pleasant surprise that sets the stage for the bloody finish.
Solid, satisfying thriller from the prolific Brown (Ricochet, 2006 etc.).Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7432-8935-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
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