A cross-genre tale that’s intriguing, character-driven, and a little too packed.
A spy thriller meets legal fiction meets romance novel.
The book’s title refers to Belinda “Lyn” Larkin, a 60-year-old lawyer. Lyn is now daunted by the prospect of retirement and haunted by the one who got away: Jay Jackson, a Texas cowboy with an eventful past. After a stint in the CIA and a professional relationship with Lyn as her law firm colleague, he addressed their mutual chemistry on a passionate night together before disappearing from her life. The story follows Lyn as she closes a frustrating deal with oil corporation Global Trading, owned by the enigmatic private equity boutique Branoble. Meanwhile, Jay is reeling from the murder of his CIA mentor, Raymond Hatcher, which is connected to their off-the-books expedition in Spain years ago. In flashbacks, readers see Jay, seeking revenge for Raymond’s death, closely tailed by shadowy agent Anna Stegineo. When Lyn hears from Jay again, it is after he has apparently tied up some loose ends. Yet a tangled web of legal and political mysteries follows both protagonists along with a strange, colorful cast of characters: Ben Lufkin, Jay’s old agency handler; Patrick Brashner, the aggressive, misogynistic top dog at the law firm Stewart Baines; and Will Baines, legacy head of that firm. As the details of Raymond’s death become clearer to Jay, he grapples with putting his past behind him while Lyn confronts the sinister goings-on in the legal world. The tale opens and closes with a verse from T.S. Eliot’s “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Characters are sometimes bound by their “decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse,” but the poem’s thematic relevance to the story could be stronger than a hasty use of the verse. Still, Zvonkovic excels at showcasing the complexity of his female protagonist, with Lyn enduring the tribulations of being a woman in a male-dominated field. The portrayal of Mexico, a setting for Lyn and Jay’s romance, is questionable, with ironic questions strengthening stereotypes rather than generating humor. The vast cast of characters and complex legal plot will confuse many readers, leaving them unsure of the novel’s genre. While the author’s strength lies in characterization, the talewould benefit from a streamlining of the cast and storyline to better focus on the engaging, eponymous hero.
A cross-genre tale that’s intriguing, character-driven, and a little too packed.Pub Date: June 14, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73527-514-7
Page Count: 276
Publisher: DOS Perro Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.
Dexter meets Killing Eve in Wallace’s dark comic thriller debut.
While accepting condolences following her father’s funeral, 30-something narrator Claire receives an email saying that one of her paintings is a finalist for a prize. But her joy is short-circuited the next morning when she learns in a second apologetic note that the initial email had been sent to the wrong Claire. The sender, Lucas Kane, is “terribly, terribly sorry” for his mistake. Claire, torn between her anger and suicidal thoughts, has doubts about his sincerity and stalks him to a London pub, where his fate is sealed: “I stare at Lucas Kane in real life, and within moments I know. He doesn’t look sorry.” She dispatches and buries Lucas in her back garden, but this crime does not go unnoticed. Proud of her meticulous standards as a serial killer, Claire wonders if her grief for her father is making her reckless as she seeks to identify the blackmailer among the members of her weekly bereavement support group. The female serial killer as antihero is a growing subgenre (see Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, 2018), and Wallace’s sociopathic protagonist is a mordantly amusing addition; the tool she uses to interact with ordinary people while hiding her homicidal nature is especially sardonic: “Whenever I’m unsure of how I’m expected to respond, I use a cliché. Even if I’m not sure what it means, even if I use it incorrectly, no one ever seems to mind.” The well-written storyline tackles some tough subjects—dementia, elder abuse, and parental cruelty—but the convoluted plot starts to drag at the halfway point. Given the lack of empathy in Claire’s narration, most of the characters come across as not very likable, and the reader tires of her sneering contempt.
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780143136170
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.
The loss of her police officer father and the discovery of an abandoned car in a local lake raise chilling questions regarding a young woman’s family history.
When Hazel Sharp returns to her hometown of Mirror Lake, North Carolina, for her father’s memorial, she and the other townspeople are confronted by a challenging double whammy: As they’re grieving the loss of beloved longtime police officer Detective Perry Holt, a disturbing sight appears in the lake, whose waterline is receding because of an ongoing drought—an old, unidentifiable car, which has likely been lurking there for years. Hazel temporarily leaves her Charlotte-based building-renovation business in the capable hands of her partners and reconnects with her brothers, Caden and Gage; her Uncle Roy; her old fling and neighbor, Nico; and her schoolfriend, Jamie, now a mother and married to Caden. Tiny, relentless suspicions rise to the metaphorical surface along with that waterlogged vehicle: There have been a slew of minor break-ins; two people go missing; and then, a second abandoned car is discovered. The novel digs deeper into Hazel’s family history—her father was a widow when he married Hazel’s mother, who later left the family, absconding with money and jewels—and Miranda, a consummate professional when it comes to exposing the small community tensions that naturally arise when people live in close proximity for generations, exposes revelation after twisty revelation: “Everything mattered disproportionately in a small town. Your success, but also your failure. Everyone knows might as well have been our town motto.”
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781668010440
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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