A moody and multifaceted psychological thriller.
Questions, and plenty of secrets, still linger seven years after the murder of 11-year-old Oh Seryong kicked off a series of events that destroyed the lives of so many.
In 2004, Choi Hyonsu, who was head of security at Seryong Dam, was convicted of killing Seryong; Seryong's father, who owned much of the property around the dam; and his own wife, then opening the dam’s floodgates, destroying nearly the entire Seryong Village. The scandal followed Hyonsu's 11-year-old son, Sowon, as he was passed around to numerous family members. Eventually, Mr. Ahn, a security guard who worked for Hyonsu at the dam, takes Sowon in. Now, the two make a living diving for clams in the waters surrounding the island where they live in tiny Lighthouse Village. Their quiet existence is shattered when they help retrieve a group of people missing after a diving accident and Sowon’s past is exposed. Sowan then receives a manuscript written by Mr. Ahn, detailing the events of 2004, and he begins to wonder if his father is actually guilty of the crimes that led to his incarceration on Seoul Prison’s death row. Bestselling Korean author Jeong sprinkles Sowon's narration and excerpts of Mr. Ahn's manuscript throughout, and eerie interludes, such as a night dive by Mr. Ahn that reveals the largely intact underwater village that was previously flooded to create the dam, add a sense of dreamlike beauty. Each character’s motivations are examined, such as Sowon’s bond with his troubled, hard-drinking father and Seryong's treatment by her cruel father, the details of which are rendered even more potent by the author's frank descriptions. Missing and dead girls are a prolific staple of crime fiction, but Jeong’s portrait of Seryong, a young girl unforgivably betrayed by the very people whose job it was to keep her safe, saves her from being just one of many. Readers will think they know what actually happened to Seryong long before Sowon does, but they should be prepared for a few final twists.
A moody and multifaceted psychological thriller.Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-14-313424-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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