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
This thriller’s eerie mood is deflated by a plot with more holes than a Halloween sheet.
Could making a movie about the disappearance of five women from an island reawaken an evil presence there?
Five dresses hang from the topmost limbs of an oak on a remote island in a Vermont lake. That memorable image marks a mystery from a century ago, when five women believed to have been part of a commune vanished forever. As this novel opens, another group gathers on the island to make a movie based on that tale. Marin Keane, the narrator, is surprised but thrilled to find herself cast as one of the leads; she’s a struggling actor whose biggest part so far has been “Bridesmaid with Eczema” in a drug commercial, so playing Daisy Rue, whose haunting diary is the basis for the movie’s script, could be a career-making move. Ronan Peters, the writer-director, is talented and, Marin notes, hot. His reason for gathering the cast on the island is a kind of boot-camp rehearsal: They’ll spend a week living there, wearing period clothes, and managing without internet or phone service. Oh, and holding séances. What could go wrong? Marin quickly meets the other women in the cast: regal character actor Julianne Brown, cool and competent Heather Benchley, bratty former Disney star Susie Hutchinson, and, striking awe in all of them, Violet Wright, a much-awarded Meryl Streep-ish figure who will play the woman who brought the others to the island, which she owned. They get to work, but soon enough someone disappears. The book’s plot, like the movie’s script, largely follows Daisy’s journal, and since the reader is supplied with pages-long sections of that journal, there’s not much suspense about what will happen next. There are some effective set pieces, such as the group’s first séance. But in its last quarter, the plot collapses into a muddle of #MeToo vengeance, improbable secrets, and jarring character reveals that is, as Marin says, “the most Scooby-Doo thing I’ve ever heard.”
This thriller’s eerie mood is deflated by a plot with more holes than a Halloween sheet.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2026
ISBN: 9798217044092
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2026
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
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