Fans of this long-running series (The Deepest Grave, 2018, etc.) will revel in the insights into their favorite characters’...
Religion and politics prove to be a volatile combination for Crispin Guest.
London, 1394. Guest, disgraced knight and clever detective—a man lucky to escape with his life, though not his property or station, when he backed the Duke of Lancaster, in whose home he was raised, to become king over his nephew, the volatile Richard II—has been making ends meet by taking on any case that promises payment. Sitting in his favorite tavern, he’s approached by a man who gives him a book and says that he’ll know what to do with it. The leather-bound book is obviously very old, but Crispin can’t read its language, so he and his longtime apprentice, Jack Tucker, who shares Crispin’s small house along with his wife and children, go to a book dealer who tells him it’s a papyrus written in Coptic. His next stop is a goldsmith, who suggests he try the barber surgeon Peter Pardeu, a learned rabbi who’s stayed hidden in England since the expulsion of the Jews. Pardeu identifies the codex as the gospel of Judas, one of several rejected by the Council of Nicaea. Crispin knows the volume is dangerous but can’t bring himself to destroy it. While he’s still pondering his options, he literally runs into Lancaster, who takes him to the palace to make sure the queen’s death was not murder. Meantime, all the men he’s consulted about the book are killed and Crispin himself is attacked several times. When Richard discovers him in the palace, their conversation, a revelation to Crispin, leaves him in greater favor with the king but still a traitor. Back in London, he must escape those who want the codex and deal with an imposter using his name while trying to solve three murders.
Fans of this long-running series (The Deepest Grave, 2018, etc.) will revel in the insights into their favorite characters’ lives while enjoying the historical background and a challenging mystery.Pub Date: June 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7278-8875-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
An addictive psychological thriller.
When a mysterious novel appears on her bedside table, a successful documentary filmmaker finds herself face to face with a secret that threatens to unravel life as she knows it.
Catherine Ravenscroft has built a dream life, or close to it: the devoted husband, the house in London, the award-winning career as a documentary filmmaker. And though she’s never quite bonded with her 25-year-old son the way she’d hoped, he’s doing fine—there are worse things than being an electronics salesman. But when she stumbles across a sinister novel called The Perfect Stranger—no one’s quite sure how it came into the house—Catherine sees herself in its pages, living out scenes from her past she’d hoped to forget. It’s a threat—but from whom? And why now, 20 years after the fact? Meanwhile, Stephen Brigstocke, a retired teacher, widowed and in pain, is desperate to exact revenge on Catherine and make her pay for what happened all those years ago. The story is told in alternating chapters, Catherine's in the third-person and Stephen's in the first, as the two orbit each other, predator and prey, and the novel moves between the past and the present to paint a portrait of two troubled families with trauma bubbling under the surface. As their lives become increasingly entangled, Stephen’s obsession grows, Catherine’s world crumbles, and it becomes clear that—in true thriller form—everything may not be as it seems. But how much destruction must be wrought before the truth comes out? And when it does, will there be anything left to salvage? While the long buildup to the big reveal begins to drag, Knight’s elegant plot and compelling (if not unexpected) characters keep the heart of the novel beating even when the pacing falters. Atmospheric and twisting and ripe for TV adaptation, this debut novel never strays far from convention, but that doesn’t make it any less of a page-turner.
An addictive psychological thriller.Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236225-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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