It’s rare when a house feels like one of the characters in a novel, but that’s exactly the case with the house at One Fulgate Street in JP Delaney’s thriller The Girl Before. Delaney switches back and forth between Emma, the girl before, and Jane, who is in the process of moving into the house … Continue reading
Would someone out there please read this book and let me know: Ghost story? “Gaslight” scenario? Just plain crazy? “Theme Music” is about Dixie Wheeler, who, at 18 months old, is the sole survivor of her family’s mass murder which, by the way, was done by her father, William, before he took his own life. … Continue reading
Sophisticated L.A. psychologist Alex Delaware doesn’t think too much about a child custody case between two sisters that he works on. Connie Sykes, a physician, is trying to gain custody of Rambla, her sister Ree’s daughter. Unsuccessful in her bid, Connie shows up at Alex’s office and tells him that she is not going to … Continue reading
Talk about the unexpected! The Mother-in-Law is one of those novels that with every chapter, you never know what is about to happen. Told in dual narratives between mother-in-law Diana and her daughter-in-law Lucy, as well as dual timelines, you can never tell what the next page will bring. The novel starts off with a … Continue reading
Lucas Davenport works as an investigator for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. He’s seen a lot of cases over his many years in law enforcement, but the one he encounters in John Sandford’s Field of Prey might be one of the most gruesome. A young couple out in the country for a make out … Continue reading
Riding (I’m sure) the rave reviews from her first novel Sometimes I Lie, author Alice Feeney has another winner with I Know Who You Are. Short chapters just like in her first novel (á la James Patterson which I personally love), as well as the big reveal at the end, (which I also love), and … Continue reading
Single mother Louise finds herself in a very uncomfortable situation in Sarah Pinborough’s novel Behind Her Eyes. She meets and kisses a man named David at a bar only to find out that he is a newly hired psychiatrist at the medical practice where she works as a secretary. She is able to stay at … Continue reading
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has nothing on Lars Kepler’s The Sandman. This has to be the darkest book I have ever read. The first few pages are a mixture of Silence of the Lambs and In Cold Blood. And it never stops! Chapter One begins with a young man stumbling around a railroad … Continue reading
Towards the beginning of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, Tom Ripley is looking at checks he has collected fraudulently. He has been calling people and telling them they owe back taxes. However, instead of cashing the checks, he simply collects them, as if he is performing the whole ruse for his own amusement or … Continue reading
Yes, Then She was Gone is another Paula Hawkins, A. J. Finn, Liane Moriarty, and Gillian Flynn novel with the clueless wife/mother/girlfriend. But at least this one is trying. Her persistence is commendable but also a bit annoying. You want to scream “Just ask!!!” But, of course, that would make for a much shorter book. … Continue reading
