A terrific entertainment for readers who love an unlikable heroine.
Covering up a murder is the least of her worries.
Lalla Rook has a lot on her plate. She’s trying to get her daughter into a prestigious prep school. She’s trying to coach her husband to secure the promotion he’ll need if they’re going to buy her dream house in London’s fashionable Hampstead neighborhood. And, when this story opens, she’s trying to figure out how to deal with the dead body of the unknown man she’s just stabbed to death in her kitchen before guests start arriving for her 4-year-old son’s birthday party. This is, as previously mentioned, a lot, but our heroine is up to the task. As she puts it herself, “I can assure you that I couldn’t chair the junior school winter fair committee unless I was absolutely on my mettle at all times.” Unfortunately, the people around her—with the possible exception of her loathsome and meddling mother-in-law—don’t possess Lalla’s sangfroid. Thus, from this bloody beginning, complications ensue. Oliver’s debut is sharp and funny, and the mystery that drives the story is pleasingly twisty. The author’s most impressive accomplishment, though, is crafting a protagonist who slowly becomes relatable even if she never quite becomes sympathetic. He offers readers glimpses into Lalla’s past that give texture to her behavior without excusing it. More importantly, readers may well discover that Lalla’s struggles are outsized versions of their own—or recognizable as challenges most women face. (While they are very different books, a comparison to American Psycho isn’t outrageous and might be illuminating.) The ways in which this author plays with genre conventions is a lot of fun, too. This is a cozy mystery in which the amateur detective is investigating the murder she committed. And, if we strip the romance novel down to its fundamental elements, this novel might qualify.
A terrific entertainment for readers who love an unlikable heroine.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2026
ISBN: 9781668096901
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Dec. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK REVIEW
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