Crime fans will like this one.
Delaware and Sturgis team up again to investigate a trio of murders in Los Angeles.
A woman has been found strangled to death, homicide detective Milo Sturgis tells forensic psychologist Alex Delaware, who consults for the LAPD. The victim’s sleazebag ex-boyfriend is an obvious suspect. And then another woman’s body is found in a freezer, her arms severed, her appearance grotesque, because “death was a sadistic stylist.” Milo is shocked to learn her identity—she was a retired detective he used to work with. Another cop speculates on the manner of the murder, but Alex does not. “Two whodunits,” Milo says. “What deity have I offended?” But then two murders become three as a young woman dies from blunt force. She had been living in Safe Place, a repository where rich people house their developmentally disabled children. Given three different killing methods, the search is on for a common thread. In this 41st Alex Delaware novel, the most fun as always is in the easy relationship between Alex and Milo. “The worst in people brings out the best in Milo and me,” Alex says. He’s white, straight, intelligent, and handsome. He and his partner, Robin, delight in each other’s company both in and out of bed. Milo is gay, intelligent, not so great-looking, and loves to eat. In particular, he enjoys exploring Alex and Robin’s refrigerator to make huge sandwiches. They are all amiable and devoid of problems like alcoholism or troubled lives that other sleuths often face. So they aren’t heavily layered personalities and don’t go in for navel-gazing. “Introspection’s the enemy of getting the job done,” Alex says. Meanwhile, an analysis of the second victim’s dismemberment focuses on the type of tool the killer may have used. Milo suggests that it was a jigsaw because of the marks made on the bones. The plot moves at a steady pace and ends with a grace note that highlights Alex’s decency.
Crime fans will like this one.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9780593497715
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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