No more shapeless than usual but definitely weirder.
Has Stone Barrington finally bedded a woman too lethal?
Readers eager to find out will have to make it past the opening movement, in which the New York attorney most welcomed at high-end establishments is unaccountably eclipsed by Mickey O’Brien, a retired NYPD detective whose gambling problem has gotten him into serious trouble with both his creditors and his mother, restaurant heiress Louise O’Brien O’Brien, who swears this is the very last time she’ll bail him out. She showers him with money she was going to leave him in her will, and Mickey, breaking every rule in the suspense writer’s playbook, pays everybody off. Fans who’ve noticed Woods’ recent habit of pairing with other writers might suspect that these opening chapters had been ghostwritten if Mickey didn’t instantly indulge in Stone’s favorite habits: binge-buying upscale lifestyle commodities and seducing the women making them (and themselves) available. Tired, happy, and sexually sated, Mickey abruptly recedes, clearing the way for Stone to step back into the escalating tussle over who has the strongest claim to the $1 million the late criminal mastermind Eduardo Buono gave Jack Coulter, back when he was Johnny Fratelli, to watch Buono’s back in Sing Sing. At length Stone’s path crosses that of nightclub singer Hilda Ross, who moonlights as a contract killer. Other limbs cross, and consigliere Sal Trafficante, who works with Don Antonio Datilla and plays with Hilda, takes baleful note. Will Sal kill Stone? Will Stone kill Sal? Will Hilda kill one or both of them? The only way to resolve these burning questions, it seems, is to bring in Mickey O’Brien one last time.
No more shapeless than usual but definitely weirder.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-33166-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.
The loss of her police officer father and the discovery of an abandoned car in a local lake raise chilling questions regarding a young woman’s family history.
When Hazel Sharp returns to her hometown of Mirror Lake, North Carolina, for her father’s memorial, she and the other townspeople are confronted by a challenging double whammy: As they’re grieving the loss of beloved longtime police officer Detective Perry Holt, a disturbing sight appears in the lake, whose waterline is receding because of an ongoing drought—an old, unidentifiable car, which has likely been lurking there for years. Hazel temporarily leaves her Charlotte-based building-renovation business in the capable hands of her partners and reconnects with her brothers, Caden and Gage; her Uncle Roy; her old fling and neighbor, Nico; and her schoolfriend, Jamie, now a mother and married to Caden. Tiny, relentless suspicions rise to the metaphorical surface along with that waterlogged vehicle: There have been a slew of minor break-ins; two people go missing; and then, a second abandoned car is discovered. The novel digs deeper into Hazel’s family history—her father was a widow when he married Hazel’s mother, who later left the family, absconding with money and jewels—and Miranda, a consummate professional when it comes to exposing the small community tensions that naturally arise when people live in close proximity for generations, exposes revelation after twisty revelation: “Everything mattered disproportionately in a small town. Your success, but also your failure. Everyone knows might as well have been our town motto.”
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781668010440
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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