An entertaining, well-written, and smart crime tale: an excellent read.
Fearing his beautiful wife is cheating on him, a suspicious husband arranges for a hit man in this thriller.
“It’s not every day that a good man sets a killing in motion.” Certainly, 34-year-old Chester Carter doesn’t seem to have a mean bone in his body. Six years ago, when he first met Candace, then 23, he was sure that the attractive waitress was out of his league. With her troubled foster home childhood (the temporary dads “tended to paw at me”), Candace had long wanted a prince to rescue her. She appreciated Chester’s kind warmth and the security he offered. He wasn’t rich, but he made a good living in Columbus, Ohio, and though her tastes were more expensive than his, he could afford it. Delighted when their daughter, Amara, is born, Chester feels like a lucky man. But Candace sometimes seems distant, spacy, or depressed, and although Chester knows she’s been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder—a result of her early trauma—he becomes worried, distrustful, and insecure. He contacts a hit man, arranging for him to strike while the couple is on vacation. The murderer is supposed to copy the strangulation M.O. of a local serial killer. But on several levels, all is not as it seems. In his second thriller, McPhie does a masterful job of building suspense as Chester works out his plan and negotiates with the hit man. They not only discuss money, but also wrangle over almost comically macabre details: “How about I don’t use a silk-tie but just shoot her. So much easier.” Intelligent characterizations elevate the story, as does the twisty plot. The author keeps readers guessing until the end about Candace’s state of mind, Chester’s true ends, and the identity of a key player, reaching a pleasing and unexpected conclusion.
An entertaining, well-written, and smart crime tale: an excellent read.Pub Date: May 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9952877-2-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Colonsay Corp.
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
