Strong characterizations are the highlight of this mystery tale.
In Parent’s whodunit, a veteran detective investigates the life of an emotionally scarred man on trial.
Since Fall River, Massachusetts, resident Cassidy Branigan’s demise was ruled a suicide, her neighbor boyfriend, Jaden Sanders, has been in a fragile state. He’s on medication for depression, lives alone, and feels “like a loser who couldn’t stop losing.” An unseen neighbor has been harassing him with notes for slamming his door; the most recent one reads, “You’re the reason she’s gone.” Then he’s visited by three aggressive men early one morning, one of whom says, “There’s always consequences.” Sanders kills two of the intruders and stabs the third in what seems like a clear case of self-defense to DS Asante Royo, a 15-year veteran of the Fall River police. However, Heather Laughton, a prosecutor with political ambitions, is determined to bring Sanders to trial,and Royo starts to question whether “there’s more going on here than Sanders is letting on…or perhaps more than he knows.” He teams with energetic rookie Megan Costa; their pairing is “like Tigger and Eeyore,” but her enthusiasm makes her a promising mentee in a city where “too many cops were on the take, living large.” Over the course of this mystery, Parent deftly sketches his main characters, including the pitiable, tormented Sanders, with his tormented soul, and Royo, “a man of few means and fewer needs.” The author effectively shows the latter to be a good cop and a good man who understands that his job has “more shades of gray than a winter sky full of clouds.” He also shows how, for Laughton, a plea bargain in the Sanders case might be in the best interest of justice but “not in hers.” The solution to the mystery, however, is less compelling, and the fact that Sanders acts as if his girlfriend is still alive, eight months after her death, is initially confusing. However, the case has a swift denouement that’s freeze-frame ready if it should ever be adapted to the screen.
Strong characterizations are the highlight of this mystery tale.Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Red Adept Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A particularly nasty villain heightens the stakes in this thriller about a woman learning how to be her own hero.
An author is targeted by a fan who just can’t let her go.
Arden Bowie has had plenty of tragedy in her life, but now she’s finally on top. After her parents died when she was a teenager, she moved from Brooklyn to Ohio to live with her aunt, uncle, and cousins. She soon became part of their loving family and grew up to become a writer and bookseller. When her debut novel is published, she meets Dustin Dubecki at her first event. He showers her with praise, asks for writing advice, and wants to take her out for coffee. Arden tells herself he’s just a little awkward, but then he keeps showing up at her local events—and, even stranger, she’s sure she sees him lurking at her event in New York City. When he bursts into her apartment one night and assaults her, Arden’s calm life is shattered. Dustin gets a five-year sentence at a psychiatric facility; Arden spends most of that time rebuilding her sense of stability. Eventually, she moves to Oregon to start a new life where Dustin can never find her. But even though she has a beautiful home, a thriving career, a doting family, new friends, and even a potential love interest in a former cop named Gideon Riley, Arden can’t escape Dustin’s rage when his sentence is finally up. Roberts toggles between Arden’s point of view and Dustin’s, giving the reader occasional glimpses into his extremely twisted mindset. Although Arden’s attempts to escape Dustin are engrossing, the story stalls in the middle when far too many pages are dedicated to Arden purchasing and decorating a house. But the excitement picks back up when Dustin, a truly odious villain, re-enters the story. It’s also satisfying to see Arden grow into someone who refuses to be a victim, even as she deals with horrifying circumstances.
A particularly nasty villain heightens the stakes in this thriller about a woman learning how to be her own hero.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781250413581
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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