This crafty storyline hooks you from the start. All you need to do is hang on for a wild ride.
A troubled marriage undergoes a stringent series of tests in the boondocks, dislodging secrets and upending expectations, including those of the reader, in this wry, sly chiller.
Craig and Daisy have been married for two years and, on the surface anyway, are living the dream: a Brooklyn home, steady work in the creative sector, and enough income to leave the city for a weeklong anniversary getaway in upstate New York, organized by Daisy as a surprise for Craig. But the title of this wickedly inventive, briskly paced psychological thriller is enough to suggest trouble in paradise. Sure enough, Craig has been planning to slink away the day after their anniversary for a separate getaway to Cabo San Lucas with his mistress, Lilith. The “Eden Test” is also the name of a series of questions waiting in the cabin, to be posed from one partner to another over the course of seven days, to test the strength of their marriage. The first question is “Would you change for me?” (As you can probably guess, they get harder each day.) Craig is, to say the least, not amused that Daisy has dropped this game on him, and at first, he’s even more determined to leave for Mexico. Eventually, Craig decides to stay after all just as things around the couple, notably the people living in the town nearest the cabin, get weirder. Some of the locals use the portmanteau citiots to characterize “city idiots” from Gotham like Craig and Daisy. Some pop into their space unexpectedly, including a hunter wearing a blaze orange cap whose “arms and shirt are smeared with slick and shiny blood.” Even the therapist couple who came up with the test questions show up, as does a mysterious “protector” named Shep who turns out to be somehow connected to one of the secrets Daisy’s been keeping. In darkly funny domestic gothics like this, false leads, red herrings, and jolting change-ups are part of the narrative decor. And Sternbergh—author of The Blinds (2017), etc.—shows he’s gotten even better at evoking bizarre behavior in seemingly normal environs and keeping his readers in the dark just long enough to make them jump when the lights, so to speak, come up.
This crafty storyline hooks you from the start. All you need to do is hang on for a wild ride.Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-85566-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
This propulsive thriller twists into the dark and bloody underbelly of the world of fine art.
The discovery that a revered artist’s sculpture contains a human bone sets off scandal and violence.
Art historian James Becker has what seems like a sweet deal. He’s the curator of the collection of the Fairburn Foundation, housed at a stately home owned by the Lennox family: Sebastian, Becker’s best friend, and his bitter mother, Lady Emmeline. Becker’s wife, Helena, was Sebastian’s fiancee first, but they’re all very civilized about it and happily awaiting the birth of her baby. The centerpiece of the Fairburn collection is works by the late Vanessa Chapman, an artist about whom Becker wrote his thesis, and with whom he is somewhat obsessed. Partly, it’s because of her great talent, but she was also a glamorous figure, a beauty who, as she became successful, sequestered herself on an isolated Scottish tidal island called Eris. She had a dark side—lots of stormy relationships, plus a philandering mooch of a husband who vanished without a trace a few decades ago. Her reputation, though, has risen after her death—so much so that the Fairburn has loaned some of her works to the Tate Modern. That’s where a forensic anthropologist sees one of her sculptures, made of found objects that include what’s described as an animal bone. The scientist is sure the bone is human, and soon Becker finds himself scrambling to prevent scandal. Vanessa willed her works and papers to the foundation, but some of them are still on Eris, guarded by her longtime friend Grace Haswell. A retired doctor, Grace lived with Vanessa off and on over the years and nursed her through her fatal cancer. It was a surprise when Vanessa left her estate not to Grace but to Douglas Lennox, Emmeline’s husband and Sebastian’s father. Douglas was Vanessa’s gallerist and lover, but the two had a nasty falling-out. Sebastian is so frustrated by Grace’s refusal to turn over all of the bequest that he’s ready to sue her, but Becker believes he can negotiate, so off to the the island he goes. He finds far more treachery and shocking secrets than he expected, past and present alike. Hawkins keeps her cast tight, her wild setting ominous, and her plot moving fast.
This propulsive thriller twists into the dark and bloody underbelly of the world of fine art.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9780063396524
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Expert, but unsurprising.
The death of an old friend who was more than a friend sends Dr. Kay Scarpetta down her latest rabbit hole.
If every body tells a story, the corpse of 7-year-old Luna Briley sings the blues. On top of the many signs of ongoing physical abuse, there’s the fatal gunshot wound to her head. Ryder and Piper Briley, the wealthy and powerful parents who didn’t call the police until after their daughter died, insist that Luna’s death was an accident, or maybe a suicide. Scarpetta doesn’t think so, and her refusal to release the body to the Brileys’ hand-picked mortician moves them to legal action against her as Virginia’s chief medical examiner. You’d think it would be a relief to put this case aside for another when Scarpetta’s niece, Secret Service agent Lucy Farinelli, calls her and ferries her by helicopter to an abandoned Oz theme park owned by Ryder Briley, but this one’s even more heartbreaking. Scarpetta is there to examine the body of astrophysicist Sal Giordano, her close friend and former lover, who was evidently kidnapped, held in captivity for several hours, and tossed out of an unidentified aircraft. The leading suspects are the Brileys; Carrie Grethen, Lucy’s sociopathic ex-lover, with whom Scarpetta has repeatedly tangled in the past; and the UFO that dumped Giordano’s body without leaving the usual traces for air-traffic technologies to pick up. The multiple rounds of physical examinations Scarpetta conducts on both victims are every bit as meticulous and gripping as fans would expect; the killer’s identity is neither surprising nor interesting, but Cornwell juggles her trademark forensics, and the paranormal hints she’s become increasingly invested in, more dexterously than usual.
Expert, but unsurprising.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781538770382
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
BOOK TO SCREEN
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