There's a strong idea here, and the damaged heroine has potential, but the novel into which they’re thrust doesn't do them...
Still reeling from her husband's and daughter's deaths in a car accident, journalist Mercer Hennessy accepts an assignment to write a book on the “Baby Boston” trial, but the line between guilt and innocence isn’t as firm as she initially thought.
It’s been more than a year since Mercer’s husband, Dex, and their 3-year-old daughter, Sophie, died—Mercer keeps track of the days on her post-shower foggy bathroom mirror. She’s still deep in the throes of depression and hasn’t worked since, but now her former editor Katherine Craft calls out of the blue with a proposal that’s both cruel and perfect: Cover the hottest trial in town and turn it into a sure-to-be-bestselling true-crime book. The emotional punch is that Mercer will be reliving another mother’s pain in losing her daughter, but in this case Ashyln Bryant is on trial for murder, accused of having killed 2-year-old Tasha Nicole, whose body washed up in a garbage bag in Boston Harbor. Katherine needles and goads Mercer until she agrees to the project. Ryan (Say No More, 2016, etc.) does little to disguise the parallels to the Casey Anthony case, and she makes it clear from the start where Mercer stands on Ashlyn: She's sure the woman is 100 percent guilty despite the lack of forensic evidence tying her to the crime. Mercer simply doesn’t like Ashlyn, and readers, who may agree in theory, might find themselves repelled by the strength of Mercer’s convictions. Then a surprise verdict forces Mercer to write a very different book, one with Ashlyn’s own input. It’s at this point that Ryan enters a quagmire of what ifs from which there is no return.
There's a strong idea here, and the damaged heroine has potential, but the novel into which they’re thrust doesn't do them justice.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7653-9307-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
The secrets of the past refuse to keep quiet in this disquieting, taut thriller.
Thirty years ago, Seattle Police Capt. Edward Shank put down a serial killer dubbed the Butcher. Edward’s bullet ended Rufus Wedge’s sorry life. But did the killings end?
Hillier’s (Freak, 2012, etc.) third thriller fairly shudders with tension. Edward is ready to retire to an assisted living facility and give his grandson, Matt, the family home, a beloved Victorian in a posh neighborhood. An up-and-coming chef, Matt has parlayed his successful food-truck business into Adobo, the hottest restaurant in town, and the reality show networks are calling. The only trouble is that his girlfriend, Samantha, can’t understand why Matt hasn’t invited her to move in, too. After all, they’ve been together for three years. Pressuring Matt, though, isn’t getting her anywhere, and even their friend—well, really Sam’s friend—Jason is a little mystified. Certainly, Matt’s history of anger management trouble gives Jason pause. While Matt renovates the house and works late, Sam turns back to researching her latest true-crime book. This time, she has a personal investment. She’s convinced that her mother was killed by the notorious Butcher. Bored at the retirement home, Edward has become an invaluable sounding board. Like the Butcher’s other victims, Sam’s mother was raped, strangled and left in a shallow grave. Unfortunately for Sam’s theory, her mother was killed two years after Rufus Wedge’s death. Meanwhile, Matt’s contractor has unearthed a crate filled with gruesome artifacts. As Matt investigates the crate’s contents and Sam questions a mysterious informant, their romance unravels and the body count begins to rise. Hillier sends her reader into a labyrinth of creepy twists and grotesque turns. There’s no escape from the brutal truths exposed.
The secrets of the past refuse to keep quiet in this disquieting, taut thriller.Pub Date: July 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3421-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
No wonder Scarpetta asks, “When did my workplace become such a soap opera?” Answer: at least 10 years ago.
Happy birthday, Dr. Kay Scarpetta. But no Florida vacation for you and your husband, FBI profiler Benton Wesley—not because President Barack Obama is visiting Cambridge, but because a deranged sniper has come to town.
Shortly after everyone’s favorite forensic pathologist (Dust, 2013, etc.) receives a sinister email from a correspondent dubbed Copperhead, she goes outside to find seven pennies—all polished, all turned heads-up, all dated 1981—on her garden wall. Clearly there’s trouble afoot, though she’s not sure what form it will take until five minutes later, when a call from her old friend and former employee Pete Marino, now a detective with the Cambridge Police, summons her to the scene of a shooting. Jamal Nari was a high school music teacher who became a minor celebrity when his name was mistakenly placed on a terrorist watch list; he claimed government persecution, and he ended up having a beer with the president. Now he’s in the news for quite a different reason. Bizarrely, the first tweets announcing his death seem to have preceded it by 45 minutes. And Leo Gantz, a student at Nari’s school, has confessed to his murder, even though he couldn’t possibly have done it. But these complications are only the prelude to a banquet of homicide past and present, as Scarpetta and Marino realize when they link Nari’s murder to a series of killings in New Jersey. For a while, the peripheral presence of the president makes you wonder if this will be the case that finally takes the primary focus off the investigator’s private life. But most of the characters are members of Scarpetta’s entourage, the main conflicts involve infighting among the regulars, and the killer turns out to be a familiar nemesis Scarpetta thought she’d left for dead several installments back. As if.
Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-232534-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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