Phony mix of thrills, chills, and touchy moments about a family finding itself.
A second novel (after Boys Still Missing, 2001) strains painfully to shock and move as it details the consequences of a teenager’s death in a prom-night car accident.
In suburban Pennsylvania, Melissa Moody, Ronnie Chase’s date for the prom, still cherishes all the mementoes of their romance—photographs, even the bloodstained dress she was wearing the night she was badly scarred and Ronnie was killed. Ronnie’s father has subsequently married a younger wife; meanwhile, Charlene, his mother and a former librarian, is bingeing on pills and food; and older brother Phillip, a would-be poet who fled to New York, is back home and spending his days reading the biography of Anne Sexton. One evening five years after the accident, Melissa suddenly turns up pregnant and announces that she has a message from Ronnie: the child is his, and Ronnie wants Philip to go on writing poetry. Philip is skeptical, but Charlene, desperate for any shred of comfort, tries to finds out whether any of Ronnie’s semen could have been kept frozen in a lab. As Charlene makes tentative moves to recovery, Melissa, who lives in a shack owned by former policeman Bill Erwin and his wife Gail and is due to deliver any day, is asked by Gail to move out, as she’s behind in her rent. Gail has her reasons: she’s discovered that Bill may have sexually assaulted a number of young women by drugging them with pills Gail found in the basement. Philip and Melissa’s recollections of their pasts—more set pieces than credible insights—pad out the story, which soon becomes violent. Bill, who realizes that Gail suspects the truth about his past, attacks her—and then Phillip, searching for Melissa, sees black birds pecking at something in the nearby woods. The tension is as predictable and contrived as the happy ending.
Phony mix of thrills, chills, and touchy moments about a family finding itself.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-688-17571-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
A soapy and fun woman-centric thriller.
The enigmatic founder of an exclusive female-only co-working space suddenly disappears, stirring up a maelstrom of secrets in Bartz’s (The Lost Night, 2019, etc.) new thriller.
The Herd, emphasis on “her,” is the hottest, most sought-after co-working space in New York City—there’s even a waiting list. Founder Eleanor Walsh prides herself on her exclusive yet inclusive safe space for “women and marginalized genders” and seems genuinely dedicated to nurturing and inspiring creativity and joy. She’s hired her most trusted friends to keep the wheels turning, including publicist Hana Bradley, whom Eleanor has known since their Harvard days. Now Hana’s sister, Katie, a journalist, has come to New York after a failed book deal and a yearlong stint caring for their sick mother. Katie would love to score a spot at the Herd with Hana’s help, but Eleanor won’t hear of Katie jumping the waitlist, and meanwhile someone has been defacing the Herd offices with misogynistic (to say the least) graffiti. While Eleanor and Hana juggle that crisis, Katie sells her agent on a book about Eleanor, but everything blows up when Eleanor disappears. It turns out that Eleanor is hiding a closetful of skeletons which soon come tumbling out. But, of course, Eleanor isn’t the only one with secrets. Katie, who is white, and Hana, who is adopted and is described as having dark skin, have a fraught history, which is revealed via alternating narratives. This tension fractures them at a time when they need each other the most, adding a heavy dose of angst to the central mystery. Bartz whips up a fast pace and adequate suspense, though character development suffers a bit in the process. However, once the dominoes begin to fall in the twisty finale, readers will likely be turning pages too quickly to mind.
A soapy and fun woman-centric thriller.Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-984826-36-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PROFILES
Even readers who figure out the ringleader long before Tessa and Wyatt will get behind on their sleep turning pages to make...
A team of hard-nosed professionals interrupts a troubled couple’s tentative reunion by kidnapping them both, along with their teenage daughter, in Gardner’s latest kitchen-sink thrill ride.
Ever since Libby Denbe caught her husband, Justin, a handsome and wealthy Boston construction czar, cheating on her, their marriage has been on life support. Their experimental night out turns into a nightmare when they return to find three masked men in their Beacon Hill home terrorizing their 15-year-old daughter, Ashlyn. Swiftly overpowered and driven off in the kidnappers’ van, the family can only wonder why they’re being held in an unused prison in northern New Hampshire. At the same time, corporate investigator Tessa Leoni, whose firm had been hired by Denbe Construction to handle security problems, and New Hampshire county cop Wyatt Foster wonder why all three of them were kidnapped when Justin is clearly the one worth the most money—and why long hours pass with no ransom demand. The clues point to an inside job masterminded by one of Denbe Construction’s top brass: chief financial officer Ruth Chan, chief operating officer Anita Bennett, or construction manager Chris Lopez. Alternating, as in Catch Me (2012), between third-person installments of the search for leads in the case and the beleaguered heroine’s first-person accounts of her torment at the hands of the bad guys, Gardner generates such irresistible momentum that most readers will forgive the combination of cool-eyed professional investigation and heavy-breathing domestic soap opera as a family even Libby describes as “three mere clichés” begins to disintegrate still further under the grueling pressure.
Even readers who figure out the ringleader long before Tessa and Wyatt will get behind on their sleep turning pages to make sure they’re right.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-525-95307-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
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