The mother of all stories about women who unwittingly marry charming sociopaths and gradually awaken to their peril.
Iles’ pioneering psychological thriller, filmed by Alfred Hitchcock as Suspicion, returns from its first publication in 1932 to confront its myriad offspring.
When she first catches sight of Johnnie Aysgarth, youngest son of an impoverished aristocrat, Lina McLaidlaw is instantly swept off her feet by his playful insouciance and his exclusive focus on her to the neglect of everyone else on the scene. After a whirlwind courtship, they wed and enjoy a blissful honeymoon. It’s not till the couple returns to Dellfield, the spacious home Johnnie’s rented in Dorchester, that Lina, who stands to inherit £50,000 on her father’s death, learns that Johnnie doesn’t have a penny of his own or any idea how to make a living. She seeks to stem his endless cycle of borrowing greater and greater sums from anyone who’ll lend them by persuading him to take a job managing the estate of his distant relative Captain Melbeck, but then learns that he’s continued to gamble despite his promises to stop. In fact, Lina slowly comes to realize, she can’t believe a single word from her alluring, solicitous husband’s mouth. The pseudonymous Anthony Berkeley Cox (1893–1971) paces the rising false notes with surgical precision, revealing Johnnie as a liar, a cheater, a gambler, a thief, and ultimately a murderer. The most telling development here is not of Johnnie, who smilingly declines to change, but of Lina, who evolves from his target to his victim to his accomplice. Modern readers may well shudder at her willful obliviousness, but fans who recognize the persistence of this formula to the present will acknowledge the power of this indispensable template for three generations of brides-in-distress that followed.
The mother of all stories about women who unwittingly marry charming sociopaths and gradually awaken to their peril.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781464237614
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.
A woman fears she made a fatal mistake by taking in a blood-soaked tween during a storm.
High winds and torrential rain are forecast for “The Middle of Nowhere, New Hampshire,” making Casey question the structural integrity of her ramshackle rental cabin. Still, she’s loath to seek shelter with her lecherous landlord or her paternalistic neighbor, so instead she just crosses her fingers, gathers some candles, and hopes for the best. Casey is cooking dinner when she notices a light in her shed. She grabs her gun and investigates, only to find a rail-thin girl hiding in the corner under a blanket. She’s clutching a knife with “Eleanor” written on the handle in black marker, and though her clothes are bloody, she appears uninjured. The weather is rapidly worsening, so before she can second-guess herself, former Boston-area teacher Casey invites the girl—whom she judges to be 12 or 13—inside to eat and get warm. A wary but starving Eleanor accepts in exchange for Casey promising not to call the police—a deal Casey comes to regret after the phones go down, the power goes out, and her hostile, sullen guest drops something that’s a big surprise. Meanwhile, in interspersed chapters labeled “Before,” middle-schooler Ella befriends fellow outcast Anton, who helps her endure life in Medford, Massachusetts, with her abusive, neglectful hoarder of a mother. As per her usual, McFadden lulls readers using a seemingly straightforward thriller setup before launching headlong into a series of progressively seismic (and increasingly bonkers) plot twists. The visceral first-person, present-tense narrative alternates perspectives, fostering tension and immediacy while establishing character and engendering empathy. Ella and Anton’s relationship particularly shines, its heartrending authenticity counterbalancing some of the story’s soapier turns.
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781464260919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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
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