Irish Guilt

Name: Irish Guilt
Author: Paul Linkletter

by Paul Linkletter ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A mildly gripping mix of villains and do-gooders headlined by a seasoned, likable detective who intends to save the day.

bookshelf

A complex thriller involves a kidnapping, vicious murders, and a dedicated team of sleuths.

This debut novel is set in fictional Springtown, where beautiful, statuesque Diane Oliveres has just begun her well-deserved, yearly two-week vacation in the quietude afforded by the rural hamlet. But her cheating husband, Dan, is already busy hooking up with another woman, and a maniacal killer moves in to murder him and his mistress. The culprit, now with two fresh bodies, meticulously stores them deep in the woods hoping for a ransom opportunity. But before he exposes the bodies to the public, the perpetrator needs to find and kidnap Diane for the whole plan to succeed. Like clockwork, Diane inexplicably disappears, and her brother, Brooklyn Police Detective Patrick Malley, is hot on the scene, carefully retracing his sister’s last steps. Alert and anxious, Malley pieces together clues and follows leads to uncover Diane and her husband’s former whereabouts, though he shows much less concern for the womanizing Dan. But a recent crime spree through Springtown, a collection of stolen cars parked deep in the woods, and a violent attack on Malley complicate matters. The bustling plot really begins to gain momentum once the author, who’s also a playwright and singer, establishes a firm grip on the characters anchoring the mystery. Besides expert police investigators Malley and Ben Stone, Nicholas “Papa” Malone, the chief medical examiner for the township’s highly regarded crime lab, appears on the scene, ably assisting the detectives. As the villains up the stakes and release the bodies of Dan and his mistress, their increasing violence puts Malley in grave danger as the number of victims multiplies and the crimes garner widespread FBI attention. Linkletter even makes enough room in his busy plot for Malley and Malone to consummate a passionate love affair. While a good amount of suspense and intrigue permeates the antics, the novel is in dire need of character development and an organization of events and plotlines. But even if one character name gets sloppily interchanged (“Mally” instead of “Malley”), suspense fans should find that this convoluted tale delivers just enough dastardly crimes to keep the pages turning.

A mildly gripping mix of villains and do-gooders headlined by a seasoned, likable detective who intends to save the day.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: July 18, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

bookshelf

THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD

by Claire Lombardo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2019

Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...

bookshelf

Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.

Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.

Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet another pleasurable tendril of sisterly malice uncurls.

Pub Date: June 25, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019

Categories:

LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

- AWARDS
Mantel, Woodson on Women’s Prize Longlist

- SEEN & HEARD
Reese’s Book Club Reveals April Pick

bookshelf

THEN SHE WAS GONE

by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.

bookshelf

Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.

Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.