A thrilling mystery with surprises and a lot of heart.
In Gernhaelder’s debut horror novel, the arrival of a mysterious man in a small town leads to the revelation of old secrets.
In 2011, journalist Jenny Maysure is having dinner with her boyfriend, Larry Hirsch, in the only diner in her small town of Traders’ Point when a drifter comes in from the rain. Upon seeing Larry, the man grabs him and asks him if he’s a man named Heis; he’s not, and it’s soon revealed that no one in town seems to know anyone by that name. The drifter, who calls himself Maverick Dunn, gets a room at the Hunters’ Lodge, where he meets Hank and Sue, the latter of whom takes a shine to him, but Hank is suspicious. Maverick asks Dr. Ike Sindell about Heis as well before purchasing guns and a knife from Brusard’s Sporting Goods. Meanwhile, Jenny, who works for the local paper, starts to look into who this Heis person could be. After the drifter disappears from Hunters’ Lodge, multiple murders strike the area. Sheriff JayChow is hesitant to say they’re the work of a serial killer, so it’s up to Jenny to sniff out the truth, using information from her cousin in the FBI and clues the killer left behind; along the way, she finds out who Maverick really is and what Heis did so many years ago. However, the investigation strains her relationship with Larry, who already struggles with his distant father, Stan. Overall, this is a fast-paced and exciting thriller with many unexpected twists, which, in turn, highlight and support the character development. The large cast and brisk storyline make it a bit hard to keep track of everyone at times, but every major player receives detailed characterization. Jenny’s determination to get the full story feels authentic and important given her connections to seemingly everyone in town; Gernhaelder makes clear just how much Jenny cares about them all. Larry’s relationship with his dad is also handled well, and the many plot strands eventually weave together in a believable way.
A thrilling mystery with surprises and a lot of heart.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-03-913156-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.
Dexter meets Killing Eve in Wallace’s dark comic thriller debut.
While accepting condolences following her father’s funeral, 30-something narrator Claire receives an email saying that one of her paintings is a finalist for a prize. But her joy is short-circuited the next morning when she learns in a second apologetic note that the initial email had been sent to the wrong Claire. The sender, Lucas Kane, is “terribly, terribly sorry” for his mistake. Claire, torn between her anger and suicidal thoughts, has doubts about his sincerity and stalks him to a London pub, where his fate is sealed: “I stare at Lucas Kane in real life, and within moments I know. He doesn’t look sorry.” She dispatches and buries Lucas in her back garden, but this crime does not go unnoticed. Proud of her meticulous standards as a serial killer, Claire wonders if her grief for her father is making her reckless as she seeks to identify the blackmailer among the members of her weekly bereavement support group. The female serial killer as antihero is a growing subgenre (see Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, 2018), and Wallace’s sociopathic protagonist is a mordantly amusing addition; the tool she uses to interact with ordinary people while hiding her homicidal nature is especially sardonic: “Whenever I’m unsure of how I’m expected to respond, I use a cliché. Even if I’m not sure what it means, even if I use it incorrectly, no one ever seems to mind.” The well-written storyline tackles some tough subjects—dementia, elder abuse, and parental cruelty—but the convoluted plot starts to drag at the halfway point. Given the lack of empathy in Claire’s narration, most of the characters come across as not very likable, and the reader tires of her sneering contempt.
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780143136170
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.
The loss of her police officer father and the discovery of an abandoned car in a local lake raise chilling questions regarding a young woman’s family history.
When Hazel Sharp returns to her hometown of Mirror Lake, North Carolina, for her father’s memorial, she and the other townspeople are confronted by a challenging double whammy: As they’re grieving the loss of beloved longtime police officer Detective Perry Holt, a disturbing sight appears in the lake, whose waterline is receding because of an ongoing drought—an old, unidentifiable car, which has likely been lurking there for years. Hazel temporarily leaves her Charlotte-based building-renovation business in the capable hands of her partners and reconnects with her brothers, Caden and Gage; her Uncle Roy; her old fling and neighbor, Nico; and her schoolfriend, Jamie, now a mother and married to Caden. Tiny, relentless suspicions rise to the metaphorical surface along with that waterlogged vehicle: There have been a slew of minor break-ins; two people go missing; and then, a second abandoned car is discovered. The novel digs deeper into Hazel’s family history—her father was a widow when he married Hazel’s mother, who later left the family, absconding with money and jewels—and Miranda, a consummate professional when it comes to exposing the small community tensions that naturally arise when people live in close proximity for generations, exposes revelation after twisty revelation: “Everything mattered disproportionately in a small town. Your success, but also your failure. Everyone knows might as well have been our town motto.”
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781668010440
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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