A super-focused therapist drives the unrelenting tension in this page-turning, twisted thriller.
Seriously creepy cat-and-mice games ensue when a sharp-thinking therapist tries to track down a patient who may also be a kidnapper.
Caroline Strange is a therapist with a hot husband, a fabulous Brooklyn brownstone (“My patients are primarily from the privileged masses: Prospect Park soccer moms and aging hipster dads, anxious gainfully employed millennials and their oddly relaxed unemployed counterparts”), and two sons. She sports Alexander McQueen suits and $175 hairstyles, is exacting in her thought process, and thinks highly of herself. Strikingly distant whenever she mentions her own offspring, Dr. Caroline has apt-if-unkind nicknames for her patients: Deluded Delia, Jacked-Up James, Copycat Caroline (“doomed to be so called just because we share a name”), Bilious Byron, Churlish Charlotte, Amanda Demanda; she also has her own traumatic history that heralds potential emotional baggage. When a new client meets with Dr. Caroline and tells her that he’s going to kill someone, adding, “I know who you really are,” Caroline jumps into action. Even after the police get involved, Caroline is convinced that she can do better than them—a young woman has gone missing, and she, Dr. Caroline, is the one who can find her by tracking down this possibly deranged new patient. As the tension-filled story unfolds, we are privy not just to Caroline’s perspective, but also to those of Ellen Garcia, the missing woman, and Gordon Strong, an erstwhile neighbor of Caroline’s from her childhood home in Wisconsin. A few notches grislier than your garden-variety thriller-with-multiple-twists, this novel alleviates some of that gore by being chock-full of cleverly leveraged cultural references, from the Beastie Boys and Billy Ray Cyrus to Red Rover (yes, the children’s game), Sybil, The Silence of the Lambs, Saw, and Clueless.
A super-focused therapist drives the unrelenting tension in this page-turning, twisted thriller.Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9780374612795
Page Count: 352
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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