A promising debut packed with malevolent neighbors, juicy scandals, and cozy friendships.
In Verheyden’s thriller, when a free-spirited woman settles in a small Canadian town, horrifying secrets soon emerge.
On the outside, Pleasant Hill in Summerfield looks picture-perfect—but behind the charming veneer lurks a nightmare. Under the oppressive scrutiny of Holly and Homer Kent, the despicable founders of the local homeowner’s association (HOA), the residents of Pleasant Hill are anxious and suspicious. And that’s just how the Kents like it: For 30 years, the Kents have enforced the meticulous upkeep of lawns and houses and rigid rules about pets, noise, decorations, and vehicles. Their tactics of intimidation—including spying, inspections, and fines—usually keep the residents in check. But when Clementine Harrison, a 52-year-old photographer recovering from a breakup with her girlfriend, moves to town with her dog, George, and converted bus “Matilda,” the Kents may have finally met their match. The gregarious Clementine quickly finds her tribe, including no-nonsense senior Marjorie Burns and Valerie Park, who is relentlessly hounded by the HOA over her rewilded yard and whose late husband (who was of Korean descent) was the target of the Kents’ racism. Together, they vow to take down the Kents and unearth shocking truths. While the author introduces a huge cast to follow, the characters are well-crafted and sharply distinguished by their unique struggles. Though the plot relies on a few improbable coincidences, and the over-emphasized “you’ve got this” attitude among the women grows tiresome, Verheyden showcases her talent as a storyteller by skillfully dropping in clues that keep readers guessing, with prose that is punchy and sometimes darkly humorous. (“Didn’t they see that all of them would benefit if they’d just go along with what she wanted?” Holly thinks. “Why would anyone settle for staying ordinary if they could become extraordinary?”) Lighter moments are sharply contrasted with a compelling critique of power dynamics and timely explorations of addiction, sexual assault, and prejudice, resulting in a tale that oscillates between uplifting and sobering.
A promising debut packed with malevolent neighbors, juicy scandals, and cozy friendships.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9798325751066
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.
Stephanie Plum’s 31st adventure shows that Trenton’s preeminent fugitive-apprehension agent still has plenty of tricks up her sleeve, and needs every one of them.
The current caseload for Stephanie and Lula—the ex-prostitute file clerk at her cousin Vincent Plum’s bail bonds company, who serves as her unflappable sidekick—begins with two “failures to appear.” Eugene Fleck is suspected of being Robin Hoodie, who robs from the rich and, yes, distributes the proceeds to the poor. Racketeer Bruno Jug, who’s missed his court date on charges of tax evasion, is also suspected of drugging and raping a 14-year-old. But neither of these fugitives can hold a candle to Zoran Djordjevic, aka Fang, a self-proclaimed vampire wanted in connection with the gruesome fate of his late wife and three other missing women. As usual, Stephanie’s personal life is just as helter-skelter as her professional life as a bounty hunter. She’s managed to get herself engaged both to Det. Joe Morelli, of the Trenton PD, and Ranger, a former Special Forces agent who runs a private security firm; she thinks she may be pregnant; and she’s willing to marry the father, whichever of her fiances that turns out to be. On top of it all, her nothingburger schoolmate Herbert Slovinski suddenly pops up at one of the funerals she ferries her Grandma Mazur to, hitting on her relentlessly and gilding his importunities by cleaning and painting her shabby apartment and laying new carpet. Luckily, Lula’s on hand to offer cupcakes that stave off the worst disasters, and whenever this hodgepodge threatens to slow down, another FTA appears, or fails to appear.
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781668003138
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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