A story rooted more deeply in setting than in suspense.
When her husband goes missing, Nora challenges the balance of power in her wealthy community to find out what happened.
It’s not easy being a younger second wife. As she surveys the glamorous party she’s throwing for her husband Will’s 46th birthday, 28-year-old Nora Somerset knows that to the ultrawealthy society of Winter Park, Florida, she’s an interloper. But after a whirlwind courtship with “Hot Mean Lawyer” Will, Nora seems to have hooked the white whale—and she’s head-over-heels in love with him. Never mind that his first wife cuts her dead every time they meet; never mind that his law partner has pressured her to sign an agreement in case the marriage doesn’t work out; and never mind that Will, a workaholic, rarely comes home for dinner and shuts her out of his business life. She finds good friends in free-spirited millionaire neighbor Este, her husband, Beau, and their friend Marcus. Despite some marital struggles between Nora and Will, the party celebrates not only Will’s birthday but also their recent recommitment to each other. So when Will gets a phone call just before they go upstairs at the end of the evening, Nora isn’t worried. And when she wakes up alone the next day, she figures he’s at work. But when two days go by without any sign from Will, it becomes clear that something has happened: Her husband is missing and—after his shirt is discovered in the lake behind their house—is presumed dead. The novel begins on the night of the party and then tells the story both forward from the couple’s first meet-cute and forward from Will’s disappearance. Nora is a feisty, self-aware, and appealing character, but as thrillers go, this is pretty tame. The focus on the wealthy community of Winter Park necessarily limits the possible suspects, so there isn’t much suspense baked in. The fascination lies in the way Lavender and Shores pull back the curtain on this enclave of affluence, and how Nora is both repelled and seduced by this world.
A story rooted more deeply in setting than in suspense.Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9780593974377
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Although it lacks the surgical precision of Slaughter’s very best nightmares, this one richly earns its title.
More than a decade after a Georgia man is convicted of a monstrous double murder, an uncomfortably similar crime frees him and resets the search for the guilty party.
In Clifton County, home to the Rich Cliftons and the other Cliftons, the disappearance of teens Madison Dalrymple and Cheyenne Baker during the Halloween festivities hits everyone in North Falls hard. Working with her father, Sheriff Gerald Clifton, Deputy Emmy Lou Clifton hears the clock ticking down as she races frantically to get leads on the two friends, who’d been secretly plotting to take off for Atlanta after some undisclosed big score. As a longtime friend of Madison’s mother, Hannah, Emmy hopes against hope to find the missing teens before they’re both dead. By the time Emmy’s hopes are dashed, two unpleasantly likely suspects with strong attachments to underage sex partners have emerged, and one of them ends up in prison. In a bold move, Slaughter jumps over the next 12 years to the case of Paisley Walker, a 14-year-old whose disappearance catches the eye of retiring FBI criminal psychologist Jude Archer, who promptly crosses the country to come to Clifton County and take charge—um, that is, consult—on this heartrending new investigation. Emmy, suddenly and shockingly deprived of counsel from the parents who’ve supported her all her life, doesn’t get along any better with Jude than with the larger circle of Cliftons and the Clifton-Cliftons. But together they identify one new suspect, then another, before a shootout that arrives so early you just know there are still more surprises to come.
Although it lacks the surgical precision of Slaughter’s very best nightmares, this one richly earns its title.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9780063336773
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 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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