A masterful melding of everyday domestic suburban fears with serial-killer thrills.
The vital clues to a serial killer’s identity are locked inside the brain of a child unable to speak.
How do you treat a 9-year-old who escaped from a kidnapper more than a year after he snatched her and has gone mute? Kathy Stone’s mother, Claire, is lucky enough to have an old friend, Robin Hart, who’s a child therapist. So Robin begins sessions with Kathy, watches her play with figures in a dollhouse, affirms her by describing the scenarios she’s creating, and waits for her to work through the trauma that’s rendered her speechless. As the sessions go on, Kathy’s games suggest that her memories are intertwined with the murder of influencer Haley Parks, who was stabbed and hanged in Clark State Forest two weeks earlier. Now Robin has a dilemma. She wants to share this information with Det. Nathaniel King, of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, but she can’t violate her bond of confidentiality with her patient, even though Kathy’s father, accountant Pete Stone, is eager to have the police question Kathy directly. Kathy doesn’t regain her voice, but as she begins to act out a widening range of violent fantasies, Robin realizes that she’s recreating the scenes of several other murders as well—including at least one that didn’t take place until after Kathy was rescued. Whatever she witnessed during the 15 months of her captivity, how can she possibly predict a crime that hadn’t happened yet? Even as he shifts gears from one set of riddles and anxieties to the next, Omer keeps the tension consistently high enough to prod you into reading just one more chapter.
A masterful melding of everyday domestic suburban fears with serial-killer thrills.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781662509377
Page Count: 379
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
Come for the forensics, stay for the nonhumans.
A Christmas bout between Kay Scarpetta and the Phantom Slasher.
But first, Scarpetta, Virginia’s chief medical examiner, has to figure out how software designer Rowdy O’Leary died. Fished from the Potomac River on Christmas Eve six years after a hit-and-run driver left him permanently disabled and a week after he plunked down the cash for a pricey emerald ring, he fell off his fishing perch and drowned—or did he? Scarpetta’s examination of his body is cut short by two disturbing developments: the discovery of an unidentified woman’s remains buried on the grounds of Mercy Psychiatric Hospital, and celebrity TV reporter Dana Diletti’s report that the red-eyed ghost associated with the Slasher’s three murders has floated through the window of her home. She’s got video, too, and the apparition looks real and scary. The final blow to Scarpetta’s plans for a Christmas getaway with her husband, Secret Service forensic psychologist Benton Wesley, is an attack on an Alexandria home that kills Mercy psychiatrist Georgine Duvall, who used to treat Scarpetta’s niece, Lucy Farinelli, and nearly kills graduate student Zain Willard, White House intern and nephew of presidential candidate Sen. Calvin Willard. This time the Slasher’s ghost has been spotted on the scene by none other than Pete Marino, head of investigations for the medical examiner’s office and Scarpetta’s longtime sidekick. Cornwell’s use of Robbie, Zain’s robotic dog, and Janet, Lucy’s AI companion, integrates the futuristic elements she favors more successfully than in her recent outings. But the solutions to all these mysteries will leave fans of the venerable franchise pursing their lips rather than gasping in awe.
Come for the forensics, stay for the nonhumans.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781538773963
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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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