Readers who relish the aftershocks of cult exploitation will turn every page with keen anticipation.
A corpse at the foot of a waterfall leads a newly isolated cop into a thicket of atrocities rooted in a 20-year-old women's cult.
At first Detective Lindsay Jackman, who must investigate the case on her own because her mentor and partner, Detective Alan Sharpe, has just killed himself, finds few clues in the death of Western Washington University student Sarah Baker, who was strangled, stripped, and dumped below Maple Falls. But her persistent questions eventually link Sarah’s murder to that of Calista Sullivan, whose body was found on the beach of Lummi Island 20 years ago. The link between the two dead women is Marnie Spellman, the self-help guru whose community on Lummi Island Calista had joined and whom Sarah was writing a story about for her student newspaper. Hard-selling a message of female empowerment through self-actualization and naturally sourced foods and cosmetics, Marnie styled herself the queen bee of a hive including Calista, actress Dina Marlow, nurses Greta Swensen and Trish Appleton, and Heather Jarred, who emerged from the hive to become a Washington congressional representative now running for the U.S. Senate. After setting up the central situation, Olsen methodically reviews each hive member’s history through extended flashbacks. The effect is both scarifying and repetitious, and Olsen has to reach deeper and deeper into his bag of tricks to keep up the momentum. Along the way, though, the characters, most of them familiar types, spring to vivid life, even the people whose only job is to find dead bodies are deftly sketched in three dimensions.
Readers who relish the aftershocks of cult exploitation will turn every page with keen anticipation.Pub Date: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1646-9
Page Count: 475
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
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
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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