Memorable characters drive an atmospheric thriller.
In this mystery set in 2002, a Manhattan lawyer joins his sheriff brother’s murder investigation in the siblings’ hometown.
Tom Morgan’s plans for a relaxing beach vacation change at the last minute. The attorney returns home to Coldwater, an upstate New York town, to help care for his recently injured mother. But on the day he arrives, a body surfaces in the community’s eponymous lake, which shares its shoreline with Quebec. As Tom’s family doesn’t want him on his phone all week, his younger brother, Joe, the town sheriff, suggests he occupy his time by helping solve the murder. The lawyer may have a further incentive as well—he knew the victim, Billy Pearce, the brother of Tom’s high school sweetheart, Susan. The Morgans quickly zero in on a local bio-research company where Susan works. The company is in the same building Billy supposedly broke into mere weeks ago. It’s not long before Tom reconnects with Susan as well as others from his past, including a thuggish man he scuffled with at a high school dance. After a mysterious illness shockingly sidelines Joe, Tom is on his own, no longer under the protection of his brother who carries a gun and has hefty muscles. It seems several people had a motive to want Billy dead, and almost as many were willing to make it happen. As Tom draws closer to unmasking a killer, he has run-ins with dangerous individuals who may put the attorney in the line of fire. Complicating matters further is the possibility that people in Coldwater harbor startling secrets—including Tom’s brother.
Ross fills his mystery with realistically flawed characters. For example, the Morgans’ mother, though she unquestionably loves her sons, mercilessly criticizes Tom—for being single, childless, and a workaholic as well as not visiting often enough. Setting this novel in the protagonist’s hometown gives the story a rock-solid foundation; though Billy had been a troubled man, Tom remembers him as the little boy who would “tag along” on his dates with Susan. At the same time, a gloomy history burdens Tom and Joe—their father also held the job of sheriff, and his life ended in a brutal homicide. Narrative tension gradually rises; along with his solo investigation, Tom has problems back at his law firm, as his link to a decade-old construction project may cost him his job. He’s moreover surrounded by deceitful people, most of whom seem quite capable of murder. This dodgy cast couples nicely with the moody ambience; as it’s October in a town just south of Canada, a perpetual chill affects everyone and renders Coldwater Lake a dark, icy crime scene. Fortunately, Tom’s dry wit offers welcome relief from the generally serious tone. His initial interrogations are hilariously blunt: “My little brother wants to know where you were on Saturday night.” Even after becoming a more skilled investigator, he’s still cheeky; responding to someone asking if he has an ID, Tom says: “None that would mean anything to you.” Though revealing the murderer involves copious theories and prolonged explanations, the story never lingers as it forges ahead to a gratifying conclusion.
Memorable characters drive an atmospheric thriller.Pub Date: April 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-953789-54-9
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Level Best Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.
A violent attack hijacks a woman’s memory in this novel of domestic suspense.
McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from men who have betrayed them. That formula perfectly fits Dr. Charlotte McKenna, a 37-year-old dermatologist who isn’t looking for love until the most handsome man she’s ever seen begins to woo her. There are warning signs about Clark Douglas and Charlotte overlooks them to her detriment—but is he a killer? The novel has dual timelines split between events leading up to the day Charlotte barely survives a head wound meant to kill her and the months afterward, when she struggles to reclaim her memory and her mobility. In real life, McFadden is a physician trained to treat brain injuries. Her expertise gives Charlotte’s rehabilitation authenticity, and her writing talent makes it interesting and engaging. As good as that timeline is, readers will yearn to get back to the alternate timeline about who wants Charlotte dead. It’s only a matter of time before Charlotte starts to remember who tried to kill her, and the clock is ticking toward their next attempt. McFadden dishes up plenty of suspects: Charlotte’s secretive husband, Clark; a former patient turned stalker who confronts Charlotte on her honeymoon; and the angry husband of a patient who blames Charlotte for his wife leaving him. Though the story is delicious and dark, McFadden brightens things up with a possible love interest for Charlotte and a surprise ending sure to please the author’s many fans.
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249617
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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