Delicate and unsparing.
A new mother turns to old acquaintances for help when her future is under threat.
Karin’s boyfriend, John, is dead. He’s left Karin with a big, beautiful house on the lakeside, an infant daughter named Dream—and the Swedish Economic Crime Authority on her trail. John’s criminal career had previously ensured Karin’s comfort, but now that he's gone, she has little left but loose change. In the middle of a frigid Scandinavian winter, after she gets word from the authority that her house and car will be seized within days, Karin—accompanied by Dream—reaches out to some of John’s old associates in the hope that there might be a way, legal or not, to ensure her financial stability. But Karin quickly realizes that the people she thought of as her closest friends are no longer keen to help. Though the plot of Ramqvist’s English debut may make it sound like a crime thriller, the pace is lulling, the writing sensuous and patiently observed. So much of the book, in fact, consists of long scenes of Karin nursing Dream or spending hours watching the infant play that the book feels, more than any thriller, like an allegory of parenting. Karin’s life as a new mother is as gray and unchanging as the winter sky. When she tries to return to her old life, even temporarily, she feels alien and vulnerable. Ramqvist repeatedly shows Karin struggling with the physical weight of her daughter, trying to push a stroller through snow, or teetering off balance with a heavy car seat on her arm. And as Karin, quite literally, works to keep Dream alive against a backdrop of violence and deception, readers root for both characters to find their way.
Delicate and unsparing.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2595-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Black Cat/Grove
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
A grim and unbearably tense debut chiller with an unexpected and utterly fitting finale.
A lonely British schoolteacher falls for an American man incarcerated for the murder of a young woman. What could possibly go wrong?
Samantha, 31, is still reeling from a bad breakup when she discovers Framing the Truth: The Murder of Holly Michaels, an 18-year-old true-crime documentary about the killing of a young girl by then-18-year-old Dennis Danson, aka the suspected Red River Killer, who’s still on death row in Florida’s Altoona Prison. Sam writes to Dennis, and soon they’re declaring their love for each other. Sam flies to the U.S. to meet him, and although they’re separated by plexiglass, she knows that she’s found the love of her life. The chirpy Carrie, who co-produced and directed the first documentary, is Sam’s guide while she’s there, and Sam accompanies her while they film a new series about Dennis, A Boy from Red River. Sam and Dennis quickly marry when new evidence comes to light and Dennis is exonerated and released. Amid a whirlwind of talk shows, celebrity attention, and the new series premiere, married life isn’t quite what Sam had hoped for: intimacy is nonexistent, the already self-loathing Sam feels unloved and unwanted, and the appearance of Dennis’ clingy childhood friend Lindsay Durst sends Sam into a jealous fit. After Dennis’ father dies, they move into Dennis’ childhood home, and Sam begins to suspect he may be hiding something. After all, what actually happened to all those other missing girls? Refreshingly, Lloyd seems absolutely unconcerned with whether or not her characters are likable, and although a few British sayings ("round," “in hospital”) make their way into the dialogue of the American characters, her research into the aftereffects of long incarceration is obvious, and her portrait of an emotionally damaged woman feels spot-on.
A grim and unbearably tense debut chiller with an unexpected and utterly fitting finale.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-335-95240-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
Though the novel eventually begins to sag under the weight of all its plot elements, fans of the psychological thriller will...
A pathological liar, a woman in a coma, a childhood diary, an imaginary friend, an evil sister—this is an unreliable-narrator novel with all the options.
"A lot of people would think I have a dream job, but nightmares are dreams too." Was it only a week ago Amber Reynolds thought her job as an assistant radio presenter was a nightmare? Now it's Dec. 26 (or Boxing Day, because we're in England), and she's lying in a hospital bed seemingly in a coma, fully conscious but unable to speak or move. We won't learn what caused her condition until the end of the book, and the journey to that revelation will be complicated by many factors. One: She doesn't remember her accident. Two: As she confesses immediately, "Sometimes I lie." Three: It's a story so complicated that even after the truth is exposed, it will take a while to get it straight in your head. As Amber lies in bed recalling the events of the week that led to her accident, several other narrative threads kick up in parallel. In the present, she's visited in her hospital room by her husband, a novelist whose affections she has come to doubt. Also her sister, with whom she shares a dark secret, and a nasty ex-boyfriend whom she ran into in the street the week before. He works as a night porter at the hospital, giving him unfortunate access to her paralyzed but not insensate body. Interwoven with these sections are portions of a diary, recounting unhappy events that happened 25 years earlier from a 9-year-old child's point of view. Feeney has loaded her maiden effort with possibilities for twists and reveals—possibly more than strictly necessary—and they hit like a hailstorm in the last third of the book. Blackmail, forgery, secret video cameras, rape, poisoning, arson, and failing to put on a seat belt all play a role.
Though the novel eventually begins to sag under the weight of all its plot elements, fans of the psychological thriller will enjoy this ambitious debut.Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-14484-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
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