A satisfying mystery filled with intriguing characters.
In Daigle’s thriller, a Laguna Beach police detective and a local reporter become involved in an investigation that changes the trajectories of their own lives.
Ray Stone, formerly of the LAPD (until he blew his cover during a major sting operation), is biding his time in California’s sleepy, artsy town of Laguna Beach. He misses the adrenaline-fueled high-octane police work of Los Angeles and is waiting for a chance to redeem himself. Early in the morning on New Year’s Day, 1969, a call comes in from dispatch: “Dead body at Shaw’s Cove.” The victim is Amelia Hart, a wealthy 50-something member of the artistic community and an anti-war activist. Her body is badly bruised. The officer on the scene says it is a suicide, but Ray suspects there is more to the story. Meanwhile, Dennis Driver, a reporter with the local Daily Pilot and a Vietnam War veteran, is battling depression and PTSD-like symptoms. On New Year’s Day, he checks the newspaper and sees that his story had been scrapped for one written by a more experienced reporter. When he dejectedly enters the newsroom, his editor hands him an opportunity for his big break: Report on the suspicious death of Amelia Hart. As Ray and Dennis, working separately but occasionally sharing information, begin digging into the secrets hidden behind the glossy facade of Amelia’s life, Daigle leads readers through the dark underbelly of the high-priced art world. The twisty, methodically paced narrative is as much a character study of two men struggling to overcome their inner demons and begin anew as it is an engaging mystery. A skillful wordsmith, Daigle mixes tight dialogue with long descriptive sentences, displaying a passion for similes that occasionally threaten to overwhelm the action: “…he watched the smoke twist and rise, a serpentine signal of the story he was about to unravel.”
A satisfying mystery filled with intriguing characters.Pub Date: June 15, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 229
Publisher: Plan B Publishing Co
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
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