A slow start, hypnotic storyline, and overly neat ending make this not one of Daly’s best.
A woman strikes a deal with a very rich lover and lives to regret it.
Roz Toovey, a divorced physiotherapist, stands on the verge of losing everything she has. She’s deep in debt and has no idea where she’ll get the money to pay her bills. When bailiffs show up and take everything from her place but the kitchen sink, Roz and her little boy, George, contemplate a bleak future. Enter the wealthy Scott Elias. A friend of Roz’s sister and brother-in-law, Scott has a picture-perfect marriage to Nadine. The golden couple jet-set around and hold expensive parties, but Scott doesn’t care about all that. He wants Roz, and he’s willing to pay for the experience. Scott offers Roz a ridiculous amount of money to have sex with him—no strings attached—and Roz, desperate to keep a roof over her head, takes him up on it. But there’s a catch: Wayne, Roz’s boss at the clinic where she works, has found some money missing, and, having figured out her arrangement with Scott, he wants part of the action or he'll pin the theft on her. Roz meets him at his place and agrees to a one-time sexual encounter, but things go awry, and when she gets to work on Monday, Wayne is missing. Then Roz is left to figure out how much the police know about her, as well as deal with Scott’s increasing demands. Daly’s stories are always compelling but rarely plausible, and this one’s no exception. This time she includes too much detail about physiotherapy (providing, for example, a detailed explanation of sciatica, even though the condition is immaterial to the story) and creates a highly flawed and morally compromised protagonist, making it difficult to empathize with her. Although it takes too long to get the narrative ball rolling, Daly heats things up fast from there.
A slow start, hypnotic storyline, and overly neat ending make this not one of Daly’s best.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2409-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
As much a surgical dissection of what makes a marriage as an expertly paced, sparsely detailed psychological thriller, this...
In the near future, a man and his wife are visited by a mysterious stranger offering a chance for previously unimagined adventure, though the true exploration—and danger—might be closer to home.
Junior and Henrietta live in a dilapidated but cozy rural farmhouse, deep in a sea of canola fields, with only a few chickens for company. Their isolation is both comforting and eerie, a combination Reid pulled off exceptionally well in I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2016). Then a man named Terrance arrives with an outlandish prospect: Junior is on the long list of lottery participants chosen to take part in the Installation, a temporary space resettlement project run by OuterMore. Though Terrance’s enthusiasm is palpable, and unnerving, Junior and Hen are understandably leery. With all the cheer of a traveling Bible salesman, Terrance departs, promising to be back if Junior moves up the list. Two years pass in a flash, with Junior going about his job at the mill and Hen sinking into a minor depression of sorts. Like the warning of potential yet probable future disease, dread over Terrance’s return settles over the narrative, and Junior and Hen's relationship, which at first seems strong, wobbles. As Junior moves up the list and his departure becomes more certainty than possibility, cracks appear in the marriage; Junior struggles with memories of his past, and Hen confronts her husband with feelings she’s kept hidden for years. Terrance’s role as observer and cataloger as he prepares the couple for the Installation is claustrophobic yet revealing, and Reid builds to a deeply unsettling climax.
As much a surgical dissection of what makes a marriage as an expertly paced, sparsely detailed psychological thriller, this is one to read with the lights on.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2742-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As usual in this white-hot series (Fractured, 2008, etc.), the ongoing psychological warfare and the physical violence that...
A Georgia student’s murder is solved all too quickly and violently—in a way that tears apart her community, fuels the hatred between Det. Lena Adams and former Medical Examiner Sara Linton, and promises still further violence.
If it hadn’t been for the telltale cut on the back of her neck, Allison Spooner’s death would have looked like suicide, complete with motive and farewell note. Shortly after Lena realizes that Allison’s been murdered, a routine search of Allison’s place leads to a sudden, bloody confrontation with a masked intruder that leaves all three officers involved—Lena, Det. Brad Stephens and interim police chief Frank Wallace—wounded. Miraculously, the intruder doesn’t escape. Arrested none too gently, Tommy Braham confesses that he killed Allison because she spurned his advances. But his story, though it conveniently fits the facts of the crime, seems to require a killer who’s both more intelligent and less weepy than him. When Sara, just returned to Heartsdale for a visit, arrives at the jail in response to a mysterious phone call, she finds Tommy dead. Furious at the incompetence of Lena, whom she still holds responsible for her husband’s death (Beyond Reach, 2007), Sara phones the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who send Special Agent Will Trent to determine the question of Tommy’s innocence or guilt—and incidentally to referee the latest round of the long feud between the two women.
As usual in this white-hot series (Fractured, 2008, etc.), the ongoing psychological warfare and the physical violence that punctuates it are far more memorable than the unmasking of the real killer.Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-34197-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2010
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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