A deceptively slim yet viciously potent slice of female retribution.
A group of wronged women takes female empowerment to the extreme in this novel.
As he did in Prisoners of War (2018), Scott taps into American history to roll out a complex yarn that begins during World War II. Mildred Mercer is a teenage prostitute in Dorris, California, in the mid-1940s who is swept away from her downtrodden existence by Pat McBride, a generous soul who buys her a bus ticket to Seattle to start a new life. Headstrong and independent, Millie catches the eye of neighbor Duano Lagomarsino, and a courtship simmers quickly into marriage and a relocation to Bayview, Idaho. Their marriage (and much of the other subplots) hinges on what the author calls “life’s little curve balls,” and soon, Millie’s former occupation comes back to haunt her. But her fierce sense of self-preservation kicks in. This story is joined by the tale of Eleanor Greenberg, whose family is sent to Auschwitz. She is separated from her loved ones to become the pre-pubescent obsession of a Nazi scientist who sexually abuses her. Upon her escape to a kibbutz overlooking the Sea of Galilee, she promises her captor they will reunite one day. The scientist later becomes a United States Navy researcher in Idaho searching for Nazi sympathizers but winds up face to face with “patient huntress” Eleanor. Boosting this plotline are the period details Scott homes in on, such as the price of housing and the apprehensive nature of a traumatized society during wartime. Adding to this melodrama is the intriguing tale of Bernadette Albers, the fifth victim of a serial bigamist con man who “specialized in middle-aged women of questionable beauty.” Bernadette is, like the wives before her, double-crossed and swindled by her duplicitous husband, Randall, but vows to end his string of misdeeds permanently. All of these searing sketches coalesce in Northern Idaho, where the timeline advances to the mid-’90s as the skeletal remains of nine bodies are discovered at the bottom of Spirit Lake. Readers will easily identify those remains and connect them to the men’s cutthroat fates. The sheer brevity of Scott’s novel belies the heft of its central theme about the resurgence of the past and how it can lead to both a painful reunion and an opportunity to avenge atrocities and festering wounds.
A deceptively slim yet viciously potent slice of female retribution.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 108
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
A weird, wild ride.
Celebrity scandal and a haunted lake drive the narrative in this bestselling author’s latest serving of subtly ironic suspense.
Sager’s debut, Final Girls (2017), was fun and beautifully crafted. His most recent novels—Home Before Dark (2020) and Survive the Night (2021) —have been fun and a bit rickety. His new novel fits that mold. Narrator Casey Fletcher grew up watching her mother dazzle audiences, and then she became an actor herself. While she never achieves the “America’s sweetheart” status her mother enjoyed, Casey makes a career out of bit parts in movies and on TV and meatier parts onstage. Then the death of her husband sends her into an alcoholic spiral that ends with her getting fired from a Broadway play. When paparazzi document her substance abuse, her mother exiles her to the family retreat in Vermont. Casey has a dry, droll perspective that persists until circumstances overwhelm her, and if you’re getting a Carrie Fisher vibe from Casey Fletcher, that is almost certainly not an accident. Once in Vermont, she passes the time drinking bourbon and watching the former supermodel and the tech mogul who live across the lake through a pair of binoculars. Casey befriends Katherine Royce after rescuing her when she almost drowns and soon concludes that all is not well in Katherine and Tom’s marriage. Then Katherine disappears….It would be unfair to say too much about what happens next, but creepy coincidences start piling up, and eventually, Casey has to face the possibility that maybe some of the eerie legends about Lake Greene might have some truth to them. Sager certainly delivers a lot of twists, and he ventures into what is, for him, new territory. Are there some things that don’t quite add up at the end? Maybe, but asking that question does nothing but spoil a highly entertaining read.
A weird, wild ride.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18319-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
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