TUMMITURTLE

Kidnappings in Dublin ignite a rash of double-crossings in Doherty’s mystery/thriller.

In Book One of this novel, Celine Doyle learns that her husband, Kevin, is cheating on her. Her friend Liz Moore makes an unusual suggestion; she offers to have someone kidnap Kevin for ransom in order to teach him a lesson. Celine reluctantly agrees; after all, she’s having an affair with Liz’s spouse, Nick, who fears that his wife will sic a kidnapper on him. Eventually, kidnappers show up at Celine’s advertising agency with a photo of her abducted husband and a simple ransom: She must fast-track a TV ad for TummiTurtle, a pregnancy-monitoring device, and get the product in stores. However, the scheme doesn’t go as planned, resulting in more than one dead body. Book Two finds similarly named Killian Doyle in a similar predicament. Strangers claim they’ve abducted his wife and his daughter; to get them back, he must employ his ad-agency position to meet the same TummiTurtle demand. However, the second book isn’t a mere retelling, as it ultimately goes in an entirely different direction. Doherty, the author of ShamrockSnake (2019), presents an atypical narrative format that’s largely entertaining. Although there’s some repetition—a few scenes in the first half replay in the second nearly verbatim—the characters aren’t predictable, as their motivations and temperaments vary. Both stories are often surprising, but the first features more twists that make it dizzyingly fun. The tales’ conclusions are worlds apart but equally satisfying. Throughout, Doherty shows a knack for vivid, specific details; at one point, for instance, a woman dons “a puddle length grey tweed skirt…a green chunky cable knit top, and a tan cardigan that she was using as a scarf” while also having “arranged her face into what she felt was the correct expression.”

Two stories of crime and deception make for a witty, riveting novel.