Jeffries genially jabs at self-deluding lovers, visiting island philistines, and both native-based and imported pomposity,...
Companionably sipping his way through his 22nd case (A Maze of Murders, 1998, etc.), Mallorcan Inspector Enrico Alvarez is immersed once more in the island’s expatriate community, this time focusing on the disappearance of Sabrina, the lush, much-younger wife of former English commodities broker Bevis Ogden, recently hospitalized from the ill effects of the aphrodisiac Spanish Fly, which he presumably took to satisfy his sexy young love. When Sabrina’s green BMW is found abandoned at the airport, rumors proliferate that she flew away with a dashing stud. Then her naked, ringless body is found in the underbrush on the estate of Señor Claudio Zafortega. Ogden is duly distraught. But an insurance fraud investigator tells Alvarez that it’s all an act: Ogden’s heavily insured second wife also supposedly debunked with a young stud, then died—and dear departed Belinda turns out to be a dead ringer for Sabrina. How many times can Ogden work this scam? His inquiries abetted by top-notch brandy provided by the scandalized Brits, Alvarez uncovers another May-December doomed romance, a three-timing lothario, and a spin on a twist that, momentarily, quells the barbs of his huffy superior officer.
Jeffries genially jabs at self-deluding lovers, visiting island philistines, and both native-based and imported pomposity, all with an irony that’s as easy to swallow as a bottle of Hors d’Age.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-312-26583-2
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2000
Gardner tacks on so many twists that even the most astute reader will be confused, and even the intriguing resolution, when...
A New Hampshire cop tries to piece together a mysterious woman’s life following a car accident and discovers nothing is as it seems.
Gardner (Fear Nothing, 2014, etc.) puts Sgt. Wyatt Foster front and center in this overly complicated thriller, while corporate security expert—and Foster’s new girlfriend—Tessa Leoni, from the 2011 Love You More, plays a distant second fiddle. When Foster is called to a single-car accident on a rural road, it seems like driver Nicole Frank simply drank too much Scotch and drove off the road. But Nicole, who miraculously survives the crash, insists that her daughter, Vero, is still missing. Foster and his team launch a massive search until Nicole’s husband, Thomas, arrives at the hospital and tells the police that there is no child: Nicole suffered a traumatic brain injury (actually several), causing her to conjure an imaginary daughter. As the details of Nicole’s original injury—she suspiciously fell down both her basement and front stairs within the span of a few months—emerge, Foster and the reader become more, rather than less, confused. Nicole’s history unspools in calculated sound bites, with each episode ending in an artificial cliffhanger. According to Nicole—who claims to be “the woman who died twice”—she escaped a horrific childhood in a brothel known as the Dollhouse, a place that’s the nexus of the mystery surrounding Vero, who may or may not be a figment of her addled brain.
Gardner tacks on so many twists that even the most astute reader will be confused, and even the intriguing resolution, when it finally comes, doesn’t answer all the plot’s unnecessary questions.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-525-95456-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
Chilling.
A glaciologist seeks refuge in Antarctica.
A nearly two-year stint at the British Antarctic Survey’s base on South Georgia Island, halfway between the Antarctic mainland and the Falklands, seems like the perfect job for Cambridge graduate Felicity Lloyd. The landscape is breathtaking, the wildlife like no other in the world, and ever changing glaciers provide vital opportunities to investigate the effects of climate change on humankind’s future. But Felicity has another secret reason for choosing to pursue her professional passion in what may be the most remote place on Earth. She hopes that Freddie, who’s stalked her nearly her whole adult life, will never find her there. The trouble is, she can’t remember much about Freddie or the reason for his obsession with her; her memories are jumbled and distorted, with chunks of time missing from her consciousness the size of the icebergs she studies. Dr. Joe Grant, the psychologist she sees in Cambridge, tries to help her recover her lost moments, but just when he seems to be getting close, Felicity shuts him down, preferring to work out her problems alone in the frigid south. Leaving Felicity to handle her issues on her own, however, may no longer be an option for Joe once his mother, DI Delilah Jones, begins to connect the deaths of some of Cambridge’s homeless to Felicity’s blackouts. Bolton (The Craftsman, 2018, etc.) provides her readers with shivers worthy of her setting, although true aficionados of the psychological thriller may find the secret of Felicity’s illness a bit too easy to recognize.
Chilling.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-30005-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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