All twisty and turny and the things this genre should be, but the ending’s entirely predictable.
Two women whose lives are connected by a deadly old house embark on a collision course in Unger’s latest thriller.
Claudia Bishop’s daughter, Raven, hates her new home. The 15-year-old, who’s picked on at school because she’s both new and impossibly beautiful, longs for her old life in Manhattan while her mother sets about renovating a beat-up farmhouse in rural New Jersey and starting a blog about it. A single mother, Claudia left her husband, Ayers, years ago; their marriage fell apart after she was brutally raped by a stranger who broke into their apartment, and Claudia found out she was pregnant soon afterward. Claudia raised Raven with full knowledge of the rape that may—or may not—have produced her, and Raven is now considering a paternity test to determine whether Ayers or her mother’s rapist is her biological father. Meanwhile, in New York, martial artist Zoey hunts the men who killed her parents and tried to kill her when she was a young teenager. When Josh Beckham, a handyman who lives near Claudia, is brought in to fix some things and Zoey finds one of the men who killed her parents, the women find themselves tied to one another by the home in which Claudia now lives. Unger plots an intricate story with multiple points of view and converging storylines. With plenty of action and a brisk pace, the author manages to keep all the balls in the air even when the dizzying slate of characters overlaps and things occasionally become confusing. The convoluted story is absorbing, and Unger introduces intriguing characters (although Raven comes across as relentlessly selfish and Claudia is a milquetoast mother). However, the book holds its own until the final resolution, which feels both rushed and tacked on as a means to resolve all the collective mysteries and loose ends kicked up in the story.
All twisty and turny and the things this genre should be, but the ending’s entirely predictable.Pub Date: April 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-0167-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Both darker and more absurd than previous romps, the latest Montalbano is a bracing cautionary tale.
Murder, meltdowns, and a boisterous Swedish film crew bring chaos to a veteran police chief and his Sicilian community.
Inspector Montalbano has his hands full when a television crew from Sweden invades his bailiwick. To celebrate the linking of Vigàta with its sister city, Kalmar, Swedish TV is filming a movie about a romance between a Swedish girl and a “youth from Vigàta.” All this bustle is a nuisance to the world-weary Montalbano (The Other End of the Line, 2019, etc.), who coincidentally finds himself investigating an odd case that involves the cinema. Ernesto Sabatello has discovered a reel of film from decades ago: a collection of shots taken by his father, Francesco, once a year over a series of years. The boring film shows just a patch of wall, apparently unchanged year after year. Montalbano is intrigued, but it takes him quite a while to focus on this puzzle when distractions come in the form of a melee between Swedes and Sicilians and the need to referee the marital battle between his quirky detective, Mimì, and Mimì’s wife, Beba. This last becomes unexpectedly serious when Mimì attempts suicide. The discovery that Francesco had a twin brother named Emanuele, who apparently committed suicide in 1957, makes the case even curiouser. Montalbano’s attentiveness to Swedish visitor Ingrid and her blond bear sidekick, the director Gustav, puts a new wrinkle in his relationship with girlfriend Livia. Then another investigation concerning an incident at a school is added to his crowded plate. When disaffected teens emerge as the prime suspects, Montalbano fears for the state of the world.
Both darker and more absurd than previous romps, the latest Montalbano is a bracing cautionary tale.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-14-313-496-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hopefully, this is just the first adventure of many Steiner will write for DS Bradshaw and her team.
A new and complex police heroine tries to solve a high-profile missing persons case while seeking domestic fulfillment in Cambridge.
Thirty-nine and single, DS Manon Bradshaw is feeling the burn of loneliness. As she pursues dead-end date after dead-end date, her personal life seems a complete disaster, but her professional interest and energy are piqued when the beautiful graduate-student daughter of a famous physician goes missing, apparently the victim of foul play. As the investigation into free-spirited Edith Hind’s disappearance uncovers no strong leads, Manon finds herself drawn to two unconventional males: one, a possible romantic partner, plays a tangential role in the investigation when he finds a body; the other, a young boy with a tragic home life, mourns the death of his brother, who also might have ties to Edith or her family. As Manon draws nearer to the truth about Edith, aided by her idealistic partner, Davy, and their team of homicide detectives, she also has to face the fact that she might not be destined to follow the traditional domestic model. Though it follows all the typical twists and turns of a modern police procedural, this novel stands out from the pack in two significant ways: first of all, in the solution, which reflects a sophisticated commentary on today’s news stories about how prejudices about race and privilege play out in our justice system; and second, in the wounded, compassionate, human character of Manon. Her struggles to define love and family at a time when both are open to interpretation make for a highly charismatic and engaging story.
Hopefully, this is just the first adventure of many Steiner will write for DS Bradshaw and her team.Pub Date: June 28, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9832-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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