by Michael Robotham ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2020
An urgent, poignant, and terrifying thriller. More please.
Forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven returns in Robotham’s gripping follow-up to Good Girl, Bad Girl (2019).
Cyrus has finally tracked down Sacha Hopewell, the London special constable who carried little Evie Cormac out of a house of horrors seven years ago, where a man was tortured and killed trying to protect her. The little girl, whose true identity remains a mystery, was dubbed Angel Face and made a ward of the court; eventually she was given the name Evie and moved to Langford Hall, a secure children’s home. Meanwhile, Sacha and her family were threatened, and she eventually fled London. Cyrus hopes Sacha can shed light on what really happened to Evie in the days following her rescue and offers to take Sacha to see Evie, but she declines. Cyrus is then called to the scene of retired police officer Hamish Whitmore’s suspected suicide, where he finds evidence that suggests Whitmore was murdered. Cyrus advises his old friend Detective Lenny Parvel to treat the death as a homicide. Cyrus soon finds out that Whitmore had been investigating a series of child murders attributed to recently deceased pedophile Eugene Green, and, shockingly, the last name on his list is Angel Face. Whitmore’s family also reveals that a man with pale blue eyes and a half-moon scar, claiming to be police, had already questioned them. That’s no police officer, and it’s not long before Cyrus, with Sacha’s help, is racing to find out Evie’s true identity in a bid to save her from a powerful group of people who want her silenced at any cost. Once again, Robotham delves into some very (very) dark territory, and the horror steadily mounts as Evie, who has a strange ability to tell when people are lying, finally reveals what really happened to her before her rescue. Cyrus and Evie, both trauma survivors, are quirky, complex, and endlessly fascinating creations, and Robotham’s meticulously crafted tale is propelled by their alternating first-person narratives. Readers will be putty in this supremely talented author’s capable hands.
An urgent, poignant, and terrifying thriller. More please.Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982103-63-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
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New York Times Bestseller
by Tana French ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2024
An absorbing crime yarn.
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New York Times Bestseller
A divorced American detective tries to blend into rural Ireland in this sequel to The Searcher (2020).
In fictional Ardnakelty, on Ireland’s west coast, lives retired American cop Cal Hooper, who busies himself repairing furniture with 15-year-old Theresa “Trey” Reddy and fervently wishes to be boring. Then into town pops Trey’s long-gone, good-for-nothing dad, Johnny, all smiles and charm. Much to her distaste, he says he wants to reclaim his fatherly role. In fact, he’s on the run from a criminal for a debt he can’t repay, and he has a cockamamie scheme to persuade local townsfolk that there might be gold in the nearby mountain with a vein that might run through some of their properties. (What, no leprechauns?) “It’s not sheep shite you’ll be smelling in a few months’ time, man,” he tells a farmer. “It’s champagne and caviar.” Some people have fun fantasizing about sudden riches, but they know better. Johnny’s pursuer, Cillian Rushborough, comes to town, and Johnny tries to convince him he could get rich by purchasing people’s land. Alas, someone bashes Rushborough’s brains in, and now there’s a murder mystery. The plot is a bit of a stretch, but the characters and their relationships work well. Trey detests Johnny for not being in her life, and now that he’s back, she neither wants nor needs him. She gets on much better with Cal. Still, she’s a testy teenager when she thinks someone is not treating her like an adult. Cal is aware of this, and he’s careful how he talks to her. Johnny, not so much: “I swear to fuck, women are only put on this earth to wreck our fuckin’ heads,” he whines about Trey’s mother, briefly forgetting he’s talking to Trey. The book abounds in local color and lively dialogue.
An absorbing crime yarn.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780593493434
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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SEEN & HEARD
by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 27, 2024
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.
A bear is hunting prey in Wyoming’s Bighorns. And not just any bear.
It’s bad enough that Clay Hutmacher, who manages the Double Diamond Ranch, has lost his son, Clay Jr., to a vicious attack by a grizzly bear. What’s much worse is that Clay Jr.—who’d been about to pop the question to game warden Joe Pickett’s daughter, Sheridan—is only the first of the victims over an exceptionally broad geographical area. Marshal Marvin Bertignolli is clawed and bitten to death over in Hanna. Sgt. Ryan Winner is found bleeding out north of Rawlins. Former Twelve Sleep County prosecutor Dulcie Schalk, one of two survivors of an ambush, doesn’t survive her final encounter. The four experts chosen to kill the grizzly rope Joe into their expedition, but since their quarry keeps turning up far from the last sighting, the most meaningful confrontation the Predator Attack Team has is with a pair of Mama Bears, animal rights activists who demand due process for Tisiphone, as they’ve dubbed the presumed killer. Box, who’s far too canny to leave Tisiphone alone on center stage, follows Joe’s old antagonist Dallas Cates as the ex–rodeo star is released from prison and embarks on his revenge tour, which takes him to Lee Ogburn-Russell, an inventor whose life Dallas saved, and Axel Soledad, a correspondent who shares so many enemies with Dallas that he suggests they go after them together. Franchise fans will appreciate new details about Joe’s complicated family, the obligatory high-country landscapes, and yet another corrupt law enforcer.
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593331347
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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