Crime fiction, superpower fantasy, and sharp satire about sexism and ageism mesh for a satisfying read.
Menopause brings more gains than losses for three women in this entertaining thriller.
When menopause arrives for the three women who are the protagonists in this book, they don’t bother with estrogen therapy or worry about chin hairs. They develop superpowers. Harriett Osborne kicks her high-powered advertising career and her dweeby husband to the curb and lets her gift for botany flourish, growing plants for pleasure and for poison (and to really annoy the head of her homeowners association). Jo Levison is first alarmed by the rage that literally sets fire flowing from her hands—hot flashes with a vengeance—but she learns to channel it and starts a successful fitness and self-defense business. Nessa James’ emerging gift is a somber one that’s been handed down by the women in her family: The dead speak to her, but only the dead who need help. All three women live in the manicured little beach town of Mattauk, where bad things aren’t supposed to happen. But when Jo and Harriett accompany Nessa to a secluded beach, where one of those voices is calling to her, they find the body of a young woman decomposing in a garbage bag. And, Nessa says, hers is not the only ghost there. The response from local police is barely apathetic; the cops seem to be protecting someone, or all the someones who live behind gates at the high-priced end of the island. That just makes the trio push harder to find out what’s going on. What they uncover echoes the Jeffrey Epstein case and too many other cases of powerful men exploiting women and getting away with it—or maybe not. The novel takes on serious issues but doesn’t take itself too seriously; there’s plenty of mordant humor, a suspenseful plot, and mostly brisk pacing.
Crime fiction, superpower fantasy, and sharp satire about sexism and ageism mesh for a satisfying read.Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-314404-0
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
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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