Preposterous plot, unattractive characters, and crude dialogue make for a lackluster sequel to Lethal Seduction (2001). No...
Celebrity journalist Madison Castelli’s life is falling apart.
Her father, Michael Castelli, vanishes after being accused of a double homicide: Stella (Madison’s stepmother) and her live-in lover are shot, execution-style. And Madison’s boyfriend, ace photographer Jake, has gone missing while getting the scoop on a Colombian drug cartel. Undaunted, Madison heads straight for a trendy LA restaurant to be consoled by her gay personal trainer and TV-personality best friend. No sooner is the designer water brought than Uzi-toting bandits burst in, ordering Madison and her companions to hit the floor. Maybe someone has it in for Madison? Travel back (and forth) in time occurs as the sordid facts of her parentage are established. Her grandfather is shot and paralyzed in a staged hold-up by a jealous girlfriend, fatally wounding Michael’s sainted mother. The child enters the world as his mother expires, soon showing entrepreneurial promise selling hijacked cartons of cigarettes in his father’s grocery. Siring first Madison, then her half-brother Vincent and half-sister Sofia, Michael is a man of mystery with a heart of gold. Unbelievably handsome and pursued by amorous women wherever he goes, he makes a fortune in Las Vegas from various shadowy deals, though his jealous nemesis stalks him still. Meanwhile, back at the restaurant, Madison contemplates fighting back, manicure be damned. More time travel awaits and further complications unfold: Madison’s mother had escaped from a polygamous Mormon marriage as a virginal teenager, becoming a showgirl and conceiving her daughter in a one-night stand. Meanwhile, back once more at the restaurant, the Uzi-toting thugs get carried away and all hell breaks loose. Can it be that the old (very old by now) girlfriend, the menacing Mamie, is behind this staged hold-up, too?
Preposterous plot, unattractive characters, and crude dialogue make for a lackluster sequel to Lethal Seduction (2001). No razzle-dazzle, no Hollywood cameos, and, worst of all, no shopping.Pub Date: June 11, 2002
ISBN: 0-7432-1648-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
This anxiety-fueled stand-alone from Edgar nominee Gaylin (What Remains of Me, 2016, etc.) takes the gulf that naturally...
After a hit-and-run kills a high school student, the court of public opinion convicts a lonely outcast.
When Jackie Reed hears her 17-year-old son, Wade, sneaking out the night before the SATs, she knows she should stop him; instead, she pops a Xanax and returns to bed. At 4 a.m., Jackie’s 13-year-old, Connor, wakes to find a rain-soaked Wade hiding something in his closet; he considers tattling but promises to keep quiet. These seemingly innocuous decisions come back to haunt Jackie and Connor the next morning. While Officer Pearl Maze was working the graveyard shift at the Havenkill, New York, police department, Amy Nathanson burst through the door claiming to have been carjacked. According to Amy, her screams summoned 17-year-old Liam Miller, whom the thief ran over during his escape. The cops canvass the neighborhood for witnesses, and the Reeds are stunned to realize that Wade matches the suspect’s description. Evidence mounts against him, and the community ostracizes his family, but still Wade refuses to divulge his whereabouts at the time of the accident. The book opens with Wade’s suicide note, then flashes back five days and unfolds from the perspectives of Jackie, Connor, Pearl, and Amy. This narrative shift maximizes suspense by forcing readers to guess at Wade’s thoughts and actions, allowing Gaylin to insightfully explore the crime’s ripple effects.
This anxiety-fueled stand-alone from Edgar nominee Gaylin (What Remains of Me, 2016, etc.) takes the gulf that naturally develops between teenagers and their families and stocks it with sharks.Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-264111-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A chilling story set under a blistering sun, this fine debut will keep readers on edge and awake long past bedtime.
A mystery that starts with a sad homecoming quickly turns into a nail-biting thriller about family, friends, and forensic accounting.
Federal agent Aaron Falk is called back to his rural Australian hometown for the funeral of his best friend, Luke, who apparently committed suicide after killing his wife and 6-year-old son; he’s also called to reckon with his own past. Falk and his father were run out of town when he was accused of killing his girlfriend. Luke gave him an alibi, but more than one person in town knows he was lying. When Luke’s parents ask Falk to find the truth, long-buried secrets begin to surface. Debut author Harper plots this novel with laser precision, keeping suspects in play while dropping in flashbacks that offer readers a full understanding of what really happened. The setting adds layers of meaning. Kiewarra is suffering an epic drought, and Luke’s suicide could easily be explained by the failure of his farm. The risk of wildfire, especially in a broken community rife with poverty and alcoholism, keeps nerves strung taut. Falk's focus as an investigator is on following the money; nobody in town really understands his job, but his phone number turns up on a scrap of paper belonging to Luke’s late wife, a woman he’d never met. The question throughout is whether Luke’s death is something a CSI of spreadsheets can unravel or if it’s a matter of bad blood from times past finally having reached the boiling point. Falk struggles to separate the two and let his own old grudges go. A fellow investigator chastises him: “You’re staring so hard at the past that it’s blinding you.”
A chilling story set under a blistering sun, this fine debut will keep readers on edge and awake long past bedtime.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-10560-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
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