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THE FIFTH STUDENT

A zippy, tricky academic murder mystery.

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A university cheating scandal leads to murder in Cooper’s thriller.

Penny is having a stellar freshman year at Maine State University until she is accused of cheating on an exam. She swears she is innocent, but the powers that be don’t believe her. She has an ally in Brad Parker, one of her professors—Brad believes Penny is innocent. But he’s up against a recalcitrant dean who is eager to close the case. He has friends in the right places, though, and he gets the university police involved in the investigation. The situation takes a wild turn when one of the students accused of cheating is found dead just before she is scheduled to talk to the police. Her death looks like a suicide but also seems suspicious (“ ‘I’m sorry, Ron,’ Karen said. ‘We’re all fighting this crazy opioid epidemic and there’s nothing sadder than seeing a young person die of an accidental overdose.’ Conway closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘It wasn’t accidental’ ”). Then the professor who accused the students of cheating is found dead, too. The story takes intriguing twists and turns as Brad, his FBI agent girlfriend, Karen Richmond, and the university police try to track down the murderer. A subplot about Brad and Karen possibly finding new jobs and moving to a new place doesn’t seem very compelling at first, but it ends up being tied to the central mystery. Much of the book goes this way—seemingly mundane details end up becoming important later. It stretches the reader’s credulity a bit to accept that the response to being caught cheating could include murder, but there’s a broader mystery at play that the characters uncover by the end of the novel. The details of the academic setting ground the story’s fleet narrative and surprises, and the author does a great job tying the complex plot threads together. This is the sixth book in the Brad Parker and Karen Richmond series, but the novel works well as a stand-alone.

A zippy, tricky academic murder mystery.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 229

Publisher: Manuscript

Review Posted Online: June 1, 2023

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HERE ONE MOMENT

A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.

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  • New York Times Bestseller

What would you do if you knew when you were going to die?

In the first page and a half of her latest page-turner, bestselling Australian author Moriarty introduces a large cast of fascinating characters, all seated on a flight to Sydney that’s delayed on the tarmac. There’s the “bespectacled hipster” with his arm in a cast; a very pregnant woman; a young mom with a screaming infant and a sweaty toddler; a bride and groom, still in their wedding clothes; a surly 6-year-old forced to miss a laser-tag party; a darling elderly couple; a chatty tourist pair; several others. No one even notices the woman who will later become a household name as the “Death Lady” until she hops up from her seat and begins to deliver predictions to each of them about the age they’ll be when they die and the cause of their deaths. Age 30, assault, for the hipster. Age 7, drowning, for the baby in arms. Age 43, workplace accident, for a 42-year-old civil engineer. Self-harm, age 28, for the lovely flight attendant, who is that day celebrating her 28th birthday. Over the next 126 chapters (some just a paragraph), you will get to know all these people, and their reactions to the news of their demise, very well. Best of all, you will get to know Cherry Lockwood, the Death Lady, and the life that brought her to this day. Is it true, as she repeatedly intones on the plane, that “fate won’t be fought”? Does this novel support the idea that clairvoyance is real? Does it find a means to logically dismiss the whole thing? Or is it some complex amalgam of these possibilities? Sorry, you won’t find that out here, and in fact not until you’ve turned all 500-plus pages. The story is a brilliant, charming, and invigorating illustration of its closing quote from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (we’re not going to spill that either).

A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.

Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024

ISBN: 9780593798607

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024

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IDENTITY UNKNOWN

Expert, but unsurprising.

The death of an old friend who was more than a friend sends Dr. Kay Scarpetta down her latest rabbit hole.

If every body tells a story, the corpse of 7-year-old Luna Briley sings the blues. On top of the many signs of ongoing physical abuse, there’s the fatal gunshot wound to her head. Ryder and Piper Briley, the wealthy and powerful parents who didn’t call the police until after their daughter died, insist that Luna’s death was an accident, or maybe a suicide. Scarpetta doesn’t think so, and her refusal to release the body to the Brileys’ hand-picked mortician moves them to legal action against her as Virginia’s chief medical examiner. You’d think it would be a relief to put this case aside for another when Scarpetta’s niece, Secret Service agent Lucy Farinelli, calls her and ferries her by helicopter to an abandoned Oz theme park owned by Ryder Briley, but this one’s even more heartbreaking. Scarpetta is there to examine the body of astrophysicist Sal Giordano, her close friend and former lover, who was evidently kidnapped, held in captivity for several hours, and tossed out of an unidentified aircraft. The leading suspects are the Brileys; Carrie Grethen, Lucy’s sociopathic ex-lover, with whom Scarpetta has repeatedly tangled in the past; and the UFO that dumped Giordano’s body without leaving the usual traces for air-traffic technologies to pick up. The multiple rounds of physical examinations Scarpetta conducts on both victims are every bit as meticulous and gripping as fans would expect; the killer’s identity is neither surprising nor interesting, but Cornwell juggles her trademark forensics, and the paranormal hints she’s become increasingly invested in, more dexterously than usual.

Expert, but unsurprising.

Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024

ISBN: 9781538770382

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024

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