Just in time for Mother's Day, a fresh bouquet of imperiled female virtue from ever-reliable Clark, who ought to take out a patent. Planning to sell her late daughter Heather Landi's East Side apartment, ex-beauty queen Isabelle Waring makes an appointment with realtor Lacey Farrell to check the place out. But when Isabelle finds and reads Heather's journal in the apartment, she refuses to sell to the promising client Lacey's got waiting in the next room. Too late: The client, who's really a hit man looking for the journal, shoots Isabelle, who only has time before she dies to beg Lacey to read the journal and turn it over to Heather's father, gruff restaurateur Jimmy Landi. So Lacey makes a copy of the journal for Jimmy, then reads it herself before taking it to the police. And when she finally does turn the journal over to the authorities, it doesn't do any good; first the original journal and then some crucial pages from Jimmy's copy disappear from police custody. By this time, the police are treating Lacey like some kind of criminal even as the hit man begins stalking her. The US Attorney relocates Lacey to Minneapolis under the Witness Protection Program, but things are no better there: Lacey's lonely, her mother back in New York keeps blurting out hints of Lacey's location to exactly the plausible male intimates veteran Clark-watchers will duly have noted as the most likely threats to Lacey's safety, and the hit man hasn't lost interest either. Innocence unprotected, cops who actually sound like cops, and an implacable enemy with the momentum of a Metroliner. Even if the final revelation of the hit man's employer is weightless, Clark, by concentrating on what she does best—heavy-breathing menace as the hit man's footfalls echo ever louder—has produced her most successful tale since Remember Me (1994)—six books ago. (First printing of 1.1 million; Literary Guild main selection; author tour)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-684-81039-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1997
A soapy and fun woman-centric thriller.
The enigmatic founder of an exclusive female-only co-working space suddenly disappears, stirring up a maelstrom of secrets in Bartz’s (The Lost Night, 2019, etc.) new thriller.
The Herd, emphasis on “her,” is the hottest, most sought-after co-working space in New York City—there’s even a waiting list. Founder Eleanor Walsh prides herself on her exclusive yet inclusive safe space for “women and marginalized genders” and seems genuinely dedicated to nurturing and inspiring creativity and joy. She’s hired her most trusted friends to keep the wheels turning, including publicist Hana Bradley, whom Eleanor has known since their Harvard days. Now Hana’s sister, Katie, a journalist, has come to New York after a failed book deal and a yearlong stint caring for their sick mother. Katie would love to score a spot at the Herd with Hana’s help, but Eleanor won’t hear of Katie jumping the waitlist, and meanwhile someone has been defacing the Herd offices with misogynistic (to say the least) graffiti. While Eleanor and Hana juggle that crisis, Katie sells her agent on a book about Eleanor, but everything blows up when Eleanor disappears. It turns out that Eleanor is hiding a closetful of skeletons which soon come tumbling out. But, of course, Eleanor isn’t the only one with secrets. Katie, who is white, and Hana, who is adopted and is described as having dark skin, have a fraught history, which is revealed via alternating narratives. This tension fractures them at a time when they need each other the most, adding a heavy dose of angst to the central mystery. Bartz whips up a fast pace and adequate suspense, though character development suffers a bit in the process. However, once the dominoes begin to fall in the twisty finale, readers will likely be turning pages too quickly to mind.
A soapy and fun woman-centric thriller.Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-984826-36-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PROFILES
Even readers who figure out the ringleader long before Tessa and Wyatt will get behind on their sleep turning pages to make...
A team of hard-nosed professionals interrupts a troubled couple’s tentative reunion by kidnapping them both, along with their teenage daughter, in Gardner’s latest kitchen-sink thrill ride.
Ever since Libby Denbe caught her husband, Justin, a handsome and wealthy Boston construction czar, cheating on her, their marriage has been on life support. Their experimental night out turns into a nightmare when they return to find three masked men in their Beacon Hill home terrorizing their 15-year-old daughter, Ashlyn. Swiftly overpowered and driven off in the kidnappers’ van, the family can only wonder why they’re being held in an unused prison in northern New Hampshire. At the same time, corporate investigator Tessa Leoni, whose firm had been hired by Denbe Construction to handle security problems, and New Hampshire county cop Wyatt Foster wonder why all three of them were kidnapped when Justin is clearly the one worth the most money—and why long hours pass with no ransom demand. The clues point to an inside job masterminded by one of Denbe Construction’s top brass: chief financial officer Ruth Chan, chief operating officer Anita Bennett, or construction manager Chris Lopez. Alternating, as in Catch Me (2012), between third-person installments of the search for leads in the case and the beleaguered heroine’s first-person accounts of her torment at the hands of the bad guys, Gardner generates such irresistible momentum that most readers will forgive the combination of cool-eyed professional investigation and heavy-breathing domestic soap opera as a family even Libby describes as “three mere clichés” begins to disintegrate still further under the grueling pressure.
Even readers who figure out the ringleader long before Tessa and Wyatt will get behind on their sleep turning pages to make sure they’re right.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-525-95307-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
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