A whodunit that effortlessly navigates a complex plot and deepens its narrator’s characterization.
The murder of a friend’s postdoctoral researcher draws Dr. Brad Parker and Agent Karen Richmond into a decades-old scientific mystery.
Early on in this story, Brad remembers how he was asked to volunteer—“or, more accurately, voluntold”—to temporarily move from Boston University to the Maine Translational Research Institute and ended up staying on as director after he and Karen uncovered a scandal there. This nod to the previous entry in Cooper’s series, BadMedicine (2021), comes after he discovers Ellen Turner, a postdoctoral student of faculty member Carolyn Gelman, a character in that book, was murdered during an alleged break-in. Carolyn explains the crime occurred after Ellen received a cryptic email and a letter from her scientist uncle, John Lowell, regarding a mysterious, long-ago “sin against science and truth” that apparently drove fellow scientist Frank Carlisle out of academia. Brad agrees to ask Karen to help him investigate the matter; the pair soon find Frank’s body, an apparent suicide, which leads them to a botched raid on a home where Brad kills a suspect, which he finds very hard to handle. In this fourth series installment, the author again presents a first-person mystery in a style that’s reminiscent of classic noir, and its conversational, moderately sarcastic tone makes Brad a relatable narrator. However, it also extends into darker territory; for example, Brad’s PTSD after the shooting—which includes a vision of the suspect “falling to the ground with my bullets in his chest…dying in front of me, again and again”—reveals him as a vulnerable human being who mourns for someone who might have killed him without hesitation. Cooper also continues to effectively emphasize the complexities of the academic world; here, he disentangles the mystery of Lowell’s connection to Frank’s, Ellen’s, and Carolyn’s lives at a satisfying pace, offering moments of outrage along the way.
A whodunit that effortlessly navigates a complex plot and deepens its narrator’s characterization.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 249
Publisher: Maine Authors Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.
Following the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a struggling London novelist journeys to a remote Scottish island to try to get his mojo back—but all, of course, is not what it seems.
Grady Green hits the pinnacle of his publishing career on the same night that his life goes off the rails—first his book lands on the New York Times bestseller list, and then his wife, Abby, goes missing on her way home. A year later, Grady is a mere shadow of his former self: out of money and out of ideas. So, when his agent, Abby’s godmother, suggests that he spend some time on the Isle of Amberly, in a log cabin left to her by one of her writers, it seems as good a plan as any. With free housing for himself and his dog and a beautiful, distraction-free environment, maybe he can finally complete the next novel. But from the very beginning, Grady’s experiences with Amberly seem weird, if not downright ominous: As a visitor, he’s not allowed to bring his car onto the island; the local businesses are only open for a few hours at a time; and there are no birds. At all. Not to mention the skeletal hand he finds buried under the floorboards of the cabin, the creepy harmonica music in the woods, and the occasional sighting of a woman in a red coat who’s a dead ringer for Abby. As Grady falls deeper and deeper into insomnia and alcoholism, he begins to realize his being on the island is no accident—and that should make him very afraid. Through occasional chapters from before Abby’s disappearance, told from her point of view, we learn that Grady is not necessarily a reliable narrator, and the book’s slow unfolding of dread, mystery, and then truth is both creative and well-paced. Every chapter heading is an oxymoron, like the title, reminding us of the contradictions at the heart of every story.
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781250337788
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
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