Frighteningly plausible, swiftly paced, and laden with suspense.
A wrongfully accused father fights to get his daughter back in McIntyre’s thriller debut.
Adam and Kate Grammaticus lead a happy married life in Oregon. Kate must use a wheelchair due to the effects of multiple sclerosis, but this is a difficulty they can manage as they dote on their 3-year-old daughter, Emma…until Child Protective Services drops a bombshell: Rachel Norwood, the Grammaticus’ nanny, alleges that Adam has hurt the couple’s daughter with a sharp tool. There’s no evidence whatsoever of abuse, but complications pile up, from a 23-year-old secret regarding a double homicide that Adam doesn’t want coming out to the accuser being found stabbed to death. After CPS places Emma in the foster care system, Adam believes his only options are to flee or be tried for murder. He turns to childhood friend and former military man Tugg Morgan, who shares Adam’s buried secret, for help. Compellingly complex characters populate the novel; Tugg’s loyalty never falters, but he also hides a grim past, and an apparent villain’s narrative perspective shows that the character is more misguided than malevolent. The author sets an exhilarating pace as Adam and Kate face copious hurdles, and motorcycle club duties (Tugg is a prospect) send the men all over Oregon, including to a Native American reservation. Concise prose (“Tugg snorted. ‘Don’t look for trouble. It’ll come or it won’t.’ ”) drives the story, especially in tense moments, such as confrontations with rival bikers and CPS’s unwelcome social calls. While McIntyre highlights flaws in the U.S. foster care system, it’s clear that specific corrupt individuals are the book’s true evil. It’s disappointing to see winsome, razor-sharp Kate’s appearances wane in the latter half, but Adam’s burner-phone calls back home and flashes of memories are blissful reminders of the family he’s fighting for.
Frighteningly plausible, swiftly paced, and laden with suspense.Pub Date: July 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1640620889
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Braveship Books
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.
What should be a rare horror—a woman gone missing—becomes a pattern in Kubica's latest thriller.
One night, a young mother goes for a run. She never comes home. A few weeks later, the body of Meredith, another missing woman, is found with a self-inflicted knife wound; the only clue about the fate of her still-missing 6-year-old daughter, Delilah, is a note that reads, "You’ll never find her. Don’t even try." Eleven years later, a girl escapes from a basement where she’s been held captive and severely abused; she reports that she is Delilah. Kubica alternates between chapters in the present narrated by Delilah’s younger brother, Leo, now 15 and resentful of the hold Delilah’s disappearance and Meredith’s death have had on his father, and chapters from 11 years earlier, narrated by Meredith and her neighbor Kate. Meredith begins receiving texts that threaten to expose her and tear her life apart; she struggles to keep them, and her anxiety, from her family as she goes through the motions of teaching yoga and working as a doula. One client in particular worries her; Meredith fears her husband might be abusing her, and she's also unhappy with the way the woman’s obstetrician treats her. So this novel is both a mystery about what led to Meredith’s death and Delilah’s imprisonment and the story of what Delilah's return might mean to her family and all their well-meaning neighbors. Someone is not who they seem; someone has been keeping secrets for 11 long years. The chapters complement one another like a patchwork quilt, slowly revealing the rotten heart of a murderer amid a number of misdirections. The main problem: As it becomes clear whodunit, there’s no true groundwork laid for us to believe that this person would behave at all the way they do.
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-778-38944-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Park Row Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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