Cleverly plotted and emotionally engaging.
Several decades of small-town misdeeds come to light in Unger’s latest thriller (Die for You, 2009, etc.).
The Hollows is the kind of place where “your doctor was also your neighbor…the cop at your door had been the burnout always in trouble when you were in high school.” So when self-dramatizing Charlene Murray vanishes after a fight with her mother Melody, everyone uneasily remembers the disappearance two decades earlier of perfect student Sarah, who turned up dead in the woods. Most unnerved of all is local cop Jones Cooper; it’s clear from the novel’s opening that he was somehow involved in Sarah’s death. That may be why he’s willing to believe that his son Ricky, Charlene’s boyfriend, was the one who picked her up in a green car the night she left home. Jones’ lack of trust infuriates and bewilders wife Maggie, a psychiatrist who knows there are plenty of kids in The Hollows more troubled than mildly rebellious Ricky. First and foremost among them is Maggie’s patient Marshall Crosby, sinking into severe depression now that he’s returned to living with his abusive father. Travis Crosby has been bounced from the police force after his DUI conviction, but he’s still armed and dangerous, not least for his hold over Marshall, who is both deeply creepy and heartbreakingly vulnerable in Unger’s multidimensional portrait. All the other anxious, guilt-ridden characters are painted in equally perceptive shades of gray. For a while it seems the author has planted too many dark secrets in her plot—even Maggie’s elderly mother has something to hide—but gradually she pulls the narrative threads together in a rich tapestry of psychological wounds passed down through generations. The denouement is grim, but the final resolution of both missing girls’ cases offers hope for the future. In the novel’s most moving scene, Ricky offers his tormented father the understanding and acceptance Jones is shamed to realize he has never given his son.
Cleverly plotted and emotionally engaging.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-307-39399-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Shaye Areheart/Harmony
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Be warned: It's a stay-up-all-night kind of book. Compulsively readable.
Amy Whey’s sins come back to haunt her when she’s extorted for money by a beautiful stranger in Jackson’s (The Almost Sisters, 2017, etc.) first thriller.
It was supposed to be book club as usual: a group of suburban mothers gathering to talk over a glass of wine or two and then going home to bed. But when new neighbor Angelica Roux shows up at hostess Amy’s door, it doesn’t take long for all hell to break loose. The booze flows freely, and soon the women are engaged in a game: What is the worst thing you did today? This week? This month? In your life? There are many women in the gathering with secrets to protect, but none more than Amy, who, as a teenager, committed a terrible crime that almost destroyed her. Saved by her love for diving, and then by meeting her husband and stepdaughter, Amy has worked hard to build a normal, stable life; she even has a new baby. Angelica has come to threaten all of this; she clearly knows about Amy’s past and will expose her to her loved ones if Amy doesn’t pay her. As Amy tries desperately to outscheme Angelica, she also realizes just how much she has to fight for—and what she might be willing to do to keep her family safe and her secrets buried. Jackson’s novel is chock-full of dramatic reveals and twisty turns, but she paces them out well, dropping them like regularly spaced bombshells. Just when the reader thinks they know what might lie at the heart of the novel, the ground shifts seismically, and the truth removes again to a distance. It’s skillfully done. Amy herself is an openly flawed and relatable character fighting to keep sacred the one thing she values most: her normal, loving, messy life.
Be warned: It's a stay-up-all-night kind of book. Compulsively readable.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-285531-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
These characters are so beloved that readers may not mind when a few twists veer dangerously close to the absurd.
Three Gardner fan favorites—FBI agent Kimberly Quincy, Sgt. D.D. Warren of the Boston Police, and serial-killer–survivor–turned-vigilante Flora Dane—team up to untangle a series of murders, and lots of small-town secrets, in the Georgia hills.
On a hike in the hills outside the quaint tourist town of Niche, Georgia, a couple finds the partial skeletal remains of Lilah Abenito, who went missing 15 years ago. Lilah was thought to be one of the first victims connected to Jacob Ness, who kidnapped Flora eight years ago when she was a Boston college student and held her captive, mostly in a coffin-sized box, for 472 days. The chance to link the deceased Ness to additional crimes is impossible to pass up, and FBI agent Kimberly Quincy invites D.D., Flora (who is a confidential informant for D.D.), and computer analyst Keith Edgar, Flora's friend/love interest, to be part of her task force. A search through the hills turns up a mass grave full of more skeletal remains. While D.D. is updating the mayor, Howard Counsel, and his wife, Martha, who own the charming Mountain Laurel B&B, she becomes interested in their timid, fearful maid, a young Hispanic woman who's brain damaged and unable to speak following a car accident when she was a child. When Martha suddenly hangs herself (or so it seems), D.D. realizes something very odd is going on at ye olde B&B. Gardner juggles multiple narratives, including that of the Counsels’ nameless maid, with ease. However, the involvement of two civilians in a major federal task force is initially hard to swallow, as are a few supernatural elements Gardner (Look for Me, 2018, etc.) shoehorns in. But Flora’s tentative romance with Keith and her realization that she might finally be thriving, not just surviving, are bright spots, as is Gardner’s evolving and sensitive exploration of trauma and its insidious, lasting effects.
These characters are so beloved that readers may not mind when a few twists veer dangerously close to the absurd.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4500-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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