Immersive and compelling—this neighborhood’s a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to die there.
In Reida’s mystery novel, a street in a tony Atlanta suburb acquires a well-deserved nickname: Murder Avenue.
Adelaide McKenzie can’t believe her good fortune: After growing up in a trailer park, she now resides with her handsome surgeon husband, William, in a huge white mansion that looks like a wedding cake, “the kind you don’t want to slice into because it’s too fancy to eat.” But happy as she is, she knows fairy tales aren’t real. Flaws and secrets, ranging from minor to major, abound among many of her neighbors, including Ray Willis (“There’s something almost reptilian about the way she blinks”); Helen Beecham, who waits each day for 4:00, “an acceptable time for her first Moscow Mule”; adulterer Conner Boyle; homophobe Beverly Grant; racist HOA president Pam Muenster; and neo-Nazi Tripp Schulman. Faith Martin, earning money for college during her gap year, weaves in and out of the homes, doing housework and running errands for the residents. After an extravagant party, two of those people are murdered. Faith is shocked to find that after the murders, there is no sign that such crimes occurred (“Everyone wants to pretend nothing bad can ever happen in a place like this”). But when the killings continue, tensions understandably ratchet up, as do accusations and media coverage. In addition to her evil characters, the author also provides quite a lot of laughs, even as the body count ramps up. (When resident Soon-Li Jung opts for a home elliptical machine instead of a gym membership, the device is only used to hold wet laundry: “It might not help with her heart rate, but it can dry six sweaters at once.”) The killings aren’t grisly and there are some sweet bits, but rough language keeps this mystery from being strictly cozy. A fast pace and a strong ending are welcome features.
Immersive and compelling—this neighborhood’s a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to die there.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781684429639
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Keylight Books
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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