Too many kidnappings, abusive men, and damaged women spoil the broth.
An indomitable rookie crime reporter with a deeply troubled past pursues an even more disturbed serial kidnapper.
Sawyer Brooks was orphaned a month ago when her mother, who’d long covered for her abusive, pedophiliac husband, shot him to death and was shot in turn by one of her own daughters––Sawyer's sister Aria. Growing up in that family, Sawyer has learned to accept her place at the foot of the table—a spot she now fills at the Sacramento Independent, where she survives on the crumbs that fall from the plate of veteran reporter David Lutz. But she can’t let go of the disappearance of 12-year-old Riley Addison. She can’t believe that Riley was harmed by Mark Brennan, the piano teacher from whose doorstep she vanished—even though he grew up in a nearby town that was home to another victim three years ago. When she challenges Detective Perez, whose wrath she already incurred in Don’t Make a Sound (2020), because the blood he found on Brennan’s front steps and matched with Riley’s blood wasn’t there the day before, when Sawyer and Aria interviewed Brennan, Perez stares her down. And he demands that she be pulled off the story after a hot lead she supplies about another possible kidnapper turns into an embarrassment and a possible lawsuit against the police. Defying all obstacles, Sawyer presses on, linking Riley’s case to half a dozen other abductions over the years. She’s so sharply focused that she has no idea that her other sister, Harper, is dealing with their traumatic family history in an even more cathartic way: by taking an active role in The Crew, a group of female vigilantes who deal out summary justice to abusers from their pasts.
Too many kidnappings, abusive men, and damaged women spoil the broth.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5420-9390-3
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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
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