Aficionados may fault Black for allowing the police at least one major oversight, but most readers will likely be too...
Ending the rampage of two sadistic serial killers may depend on a substance-abusing homicide detective facing an old lover and an unknown nemesis in this raw and utterly readable thriller.
Behind the nom de plume is Glen Duncan (By Blood We Live, 2014, etc.), last seen spewing bloody ink in the wrap-up to his toothsome werewolves-and-vampires trilogy. In a different vein here, he cooks up mayhem among mortals, creating a duo from Of Mice and Men by way of Thomas Harris without the fava beans. Inspired by some horrific child abuse, Xander and Paulie are on a mission to rape, torture, and murder a certain number of women, aided by a serrated fishing knife, an iPad, and a combined IQ maybe in the high double-digits. Detective Valerie Hart leads a San Francisco team confronted with at least seven victims and zero clues. Black sets parallel narratives in motion when the latest murders send a teenage girl into hiding and a new potential victim hands the Hart team its first break—once underway, the police work is crisp and convincing. Meanwhile, the former lover complicates Valerie’s chilly, vodka-fueled efficiency while an FBI operative seems to lie behind several incidents undermining her. Compared with the explicit gore of the trilogy, there’s some writerly restraint here amid much nastiness. But nasty it is, and it’s made more so by the author’s deep dives into the mind of a victim, especially when her terror is stoked by the iPad’s gruesome video records. An especially fine piece of staging has the injured teen and the writer crippled by sciatica with whom she has taken refuge awaiting unlikely rescue on a dead-end road.
Aficionados may fault Black for allowing the police at least one major oversight, but most readers will likely be too engrossed or happily grossed out to do anything but whip through the pages.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-05734-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This thriller aims right for the heart and never lets go.
A tense thriller explores the bond between sisters and family dynamics that give new meaning to the term “dysfunctional.”
Three years ago, 17-year-old Emma Tanner and her 15-year-old sister, Cassandra, left home, disappearing into the night; as Walker's (All Is Not Forgotten, 2016, etc.) book opens, Cass shows up at her family’s house—without Emma. Dr. Abby Walker of the FBI, a forensic psychiatrist who’s been on the case from the beginning, is desperate to find out what happened and to find Emma before it’s too late. Cass tells Abby she and Emma had been arguing the night they took off and that it soon became obvious that Emma was packing up to leave. Cass, hoping to get her sister in trouble, hid in the car when Emma drove off, heading to the beach, where she was met by a man and woman Cass didn't recognize. When Cass revealed herself, they decided to take her with them as they left for a remote island off the coast of Maine. Emma was pregnant, Cass says, and the couple had offered to help her, but what they really had planned was to keep the baby for themselves. Cass finally managed to escape, she says, but without Emma. It’s a harrowing tale, and Cass says all she wants is to find Emma, but Abby suspects she's hiding something. Cass’ first-person narrative, interspersed with Abby’s investigation, paints a shocking picture of Cass’ ordeal and her family’s disturbing history. Her mother, Judy Martin, has always used her beauty and charm to manipulate her family, and her girls had to flatter her to win her affection. She was jealous of the attention given to her beautiful daughters, which threatened her fragile ego, and she was always scheming to get what she wanted—even seducing her stepson, Hunter, who was obsessed with Emma. Cass is a survivor, forced to become an adult very quickly, and readers will root for her as she tells her disturbing story and looks back on what could have been, when hope was all she and Emma had.
This thriller aims right for the heart and never lets go.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-14143-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Michaels’s fan base isn’t likely to be increased by this improbable distaff pastiche of Mission: Impossible.
The Sisterhood takes on yet another evildoer in their endless quest to right wrongs against unjustly maligned women.
Architect Isabelle Flanders’s life was destroyed when her coldly ambitious employee Rosemary Hershey framed her for vehicular manslaughter and stole her ideas and her fiancé Bobby Harcourt. Now the Sisterhood (The Jury, 2005, etc.) has devised a diabolical plan to help her get revenge and recover her reputation. Wealthy Sisterhood stalwart Myra Rutledge installs Isabelle in a luxurious office and buys a Virginia property to set up a bogus contest in which local architects will be invited to design a sumptuous horse farm, planning to make Isabelle and Rosemary the only finalists. Meanwhile, Bobby, long fed up with Rosemary’s greed, sues for divorce, planning to start his own architectural firm. Rosemary, who’s receiving anonymous letters reminding her that it was she and not innocent Isabelle who ran down and killed a family, is sinking into a funk as the Sisterhood increases the pressure. A rainy night in a cemetery, bogus snakes and a broken rope finally get Rosemary to confess and leave the Sisterhood ready to plot their next adventure.
Michaels’s fan base isn’t likely to be increased by this improbable distaff pastiche of Mission: Impossible.Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-7278-6349-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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