Nazis, sadomasochism, and psychoanalysis always provide a heady mix, and a little murder thrown in pushes Bayer’s latest...
Edgar winner Bayer (The Dream of Broken Horses, 2002, etc.) continues his romance with psychoanalysis with a riff on Lou Andreas-Salomé’s persona as analyst and femme fatale.
In 1882, three people who probably should have known better—physician Paul Rée, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and 21-year-old Lou Andreas-Salomé—memorialize their decision to live together in an intellectual ménage à trois with a photo showing the two men pulling a cart with the young Lou, who brandishes a twig fashioned into a whip. Years later, a young painter offers a now middle-aged Frau Lou, who’s come to Vienna to study with Freud, a watercolor based on the photo as a token of his admiration. Still later—in the present day—California dominatrix Chantal Desforges creates her own version of the trio with two naked, hooded young men pulling her in a chariot in the Oakland loft she calls the Eagle’s Nest. Into this simmering psychodrama drops Tess Berenson, a performance artist who loves the light, airy loft so much that she doesn’t mind the jail cell built into its corner. While she’s not studying muay thai martial arts or rehearsing Recital, a performance piece about a grande dame carried away by her own sense of entitlement, she learns all she can about Chantal. Her downstairs neighbor, painter Josh Garske, knows lots about Chantal’s work, since he monitored some of her sessions on a hidden camera. And Mistress Lynx, a fellow domme, fills Tess in on the personal side of Chantal’s life. But when Chantal turns up dead, Tess’ interest verges on obsession. Does the solution to Chantal’s murder lie in Oakland—or do its roots date back nearly 150 years to Vienna?
Nazis, sadomasochism, and psychoanalysis always provide a heady mix, and a little murder thrown in pushes Bayer’s latest into the radioactive zone.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7278-8546-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
The secrets of the past refuse to keep quiet in this disquieting, taut thriller.
Thirty years ago, Seattle Police Capt. Edward Shank put down a serial killer dubbed the Butcher. Edward’s bullet ended Rufus Wedge’s sorry life. But did the killings end?
Hillier’s (Freak, 2012, etc.) third thriller fairly shudders with tension. Edward is ready to retire to an assisted living facility and give his grandson, Matt, the family home, a beloved Victorian in a posh neighborhood. An up-and-coming chef, Matt has parlayed his successful food-truck business into Adobo, the hottest restaurant in town, and the reality show networks are calling. The only trouble is that his girlfriend, Samantha, can’t understand why Matt hasn’t invited her to move in, too. After all, they’ve been together for three years. Pressuring Matt, though, isn’t getting her anywhere, and even their friend—well, really Sam’s friend—Jason is a little mystified. Certainly, Matt’s history of anger management trouble gives Jason pause. While Matt renovates the house and works late, Sam turns back to researching her latest true-crime book. This time, she has a personal investment. She’s convinced that her mother was killed by the notorious Butcher. Bored at the retirement home, Edward has become an invaluable sounding board. Like the Butcher’s other victims, Sam’s mother was raped, strangled and left in a shallow grave. Unfortunately for Sam’s theory, her mother was killed two years after Rufus Wedge’s death. Meanwhile, Matt’s contractor has unearthed a crate filled with gruesome artifacts. As Matt investigates the crate’s contents and Sam questions a mysterious informant, their romance unravels and the body count begins to rise. Hillier sends her reader into a labyrinth of creepy twists and grotesque turns. There’s no escape from the brutal truths exposed.
The secrets of the past refuse to keep quiet in this disquieting, taut thriller.Pub Date: July 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3421-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
Neither story is anywhere near Westlake’s best work, but they still make a terrific tragicomic pair.
Hard Case revives a pair of movie-related novellas originally published under the cryptic title Enough in 1977.
A Travesty, the first and longer of these stories, opens with movie reviewer Carey Thorpe standing over the dead body of actress Laura Penney, the lover with whom his quarrel had suddenly and fatally escalated. Even though her death was technically an accident, Carey, who doesn’t want anyone connecting him with it, immediately begins concealing all indications that he was ever in her apartment. It’s all for naught: Soon he finds himself blackmailed by private detective John Edgarson and having to commit another felony to satisfy his demands. From that point on, his dilemma rapidly spirals into one of the comic nightmares in which Westlake (Brothers Keepers, 1975/2019, etc.) specialized: Moments in which he’s threatened with exposure alternate with long intervals in which NYPD DS Al Bray and especially DS Fred Staples, who’ve decided that he’s innocent, take Carey under their wings, marveling at his ability to solve murders committed by other people; then he caps his transgressions by taking Staples’ wife, Patricia, to bed. The second novella, Ordo, couldn’t be more different. The naval mates of Ordo Tupikos, a deeply ordinary San Diego sailor, tell him that Estelle Anlic, the woman whose marriage to him was annulled years ago when the courts, egged on by her mother, discovered that she was underage, has transformed herself into movie star Dawn Devayne. Against all odds, he manages to reintroduce himself to Estelle, or Dawn, but although her agent plays it as a storybook reunion, Orry just can’t find Estelle in Dawn, who’s changed a lot more than he has, and the tale ends on a note of sad resignation.
Neither story is anywhere near Westlake’s best work, but they still make a terrific tragicomic pair.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-78565-720-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
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