Two women risk everything to leave their troubled lives behind.
In just a week, Claire Cook’s husband, Rory, will announce his campaign to be a U.S. senator from New York. No surprise there, since his family is chock full of high-profile politicians. As Rory’s wife, the poised and beautiful Claire seems to lead a charmed life, but it’s getting harder to hide the bruises under a carefully cultivated veneer of elegance. Claire tried to leave him once, an attempt that ended with cracked ribs. But this time, she’s ready. She’s been squirreling away cash, she’s secured a fake ID and passport, and a trip to Detroit will provide the perfect opportunity to make her escape. However, before Claire leaves for the airport, Rory decides to send her to Puerto Rico to meet with a humanitarian group instead of going to Detroit. Even worse, Rory goes to Detroit in her place and intercepts the package containing her cash and papers. At JFK, Claire, seemingly by chance, meets Eva, a grieving woman looking to make a new start after her husband’s death. Claire suggests that Eva take her flight to Puerto Rico, and Claire will head to Eva’s home in Berkeley, where she’ll attempt to slip into Eva’s life. After touching down, Claire learns that Eva’s plane crashed and Claire is presumed dead, but she’s not out of the woods yet. Claire cleverly set up a way to keep track of Rory’s messages to his head honcho, and when evidence suggests that Eva might not have actually been on that doomed plane, Claire's plans take on a new urgency and it’s revealed that Eva’s story masked a dark truth. Propulsive prose drives Clark’s tale of the intersecting lives of these two smart and resourceful women, and emphasis is placed on the importance of female friendship and support. Readers will surely find themselves hopelessly invested in Claire's and Eva’s ultimate fates.
A tense and engaging womancentric thriller.Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-1572-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Categories: THRILLER | SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE
Did you like this book?
Now that Coben’s added politics to his heady brew, expect sex and religion to join the mix.
GET IT
Coben’s latest darkest-suburbs thriller sets a decidedly offbeat detective on the trail of a crime with overtones unmistakably redolent of once and future presidential elections.
Wilde is called Wilde because nobody’s known his real name from the moment a pair of hikers found him foraging for himself in Ramapo Mountain State Forest 24 years ago. Now over 40, he’s had experience as both a lost boy and a private investigator. That makes him an obvious person to help when his godson, Sweet Water High School student Matthew Crimstein, expresses concern to his grandmother, attorney Hester Crimstein, that his bullied classmate Naomi Pine has gone missing. Matthew doesn’t really want anyone to help. He doesn’t even want anyone to notice his agitation. But Hester, taking the time from her criminal defense of financial consultant Simon Greene (Run Away, 2019) to worm the details out of him, asks Wilde to lend a hand, and sure enough, Wilde, unearthing an unsavory backstory that links Naomi to bullying classmate Crash Maynard, whose TV producer father, Dash Maynard, is close friends with reality TV star–turned–presidential hopeful Rusty Eggers, finds Naomi hale and hearty. Everything’s hunky-dory for one week, and then she disappears again. And this time, so does Crash after a brief visit to Matthew in which he tearfully confesses his guilt about the bad stuff he did to Naomi. This second disappearance veers into more obviously criminal territory with the arrival of a ransom note that demands, not money, but the allegedly incriminating videotapes of Rusty Eggers that Dash and Delia Maynard have had squirreled away for 30 years. The tapes link Rusty to a forgotten and forgettable homicide and add a paranoid new ripped-from-the-headlines dimension to the author’s formidable range. Readers who can tune out all the subplots will find the kidnappers easy to spot, but Coben finds room for three climactic surprises, one of them a honey.
Now that Coben’s added politics to his heady brew, expect sex and religion to join the mix.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5387-4814-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | GENERAL & DOMESTIC THRILLER | CRIME & LEGAL THRILLER
Did you like this book?
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | SUSPENSE
Did you like this book?
© Copyright 2020 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
