A disquieting and distinctly creepy debut.
When a true-crime podcaster disappears, her biggest fan sets out to find her.
After a miscarriage and a divorce, Sera Fleece feels like she’s “wrong in the world” and that if she were to disappear, no one would miss her. She’s slowly unraveling. Rachel Bard’s podcast, Murder, She Spoke, which Sera is obsessed with, keeps her from coming apart completely. When the podcast abruptly stops, with no updates on social media, Sera becomes convinced something bad has happened to Rachel and decides to put the investigation skills she learned from the podcast to work. Using bits and pieces of personal information revealed on the podcast, Sera makes her way to Fountain Creek Guest Ranch in Northern California, owned by Rachel's family. Arriving at the remote ranch, she realizes she needs a good story, so she pretends she’s looking for work. Luckily, she knows how to handle horses, and Rachel’s larger-than-life mother, Addy, hires her as head wrangler. This is an opportunity for Sera to investigate, and she soon notices a palpable strangeness at the ranch. There are no guests or internet access, the horses aren’t healthy, and Addy thinks Rachel might have been killed by a dangerous gang that roams the borders of their land. It only gets weirder. Sera discovers that more women have disappeared from Fountain Creek, and she’s not sure whom she can trust. Even Jed, the handsome cowboy she falls for, seems to be hiding something. Sera’s urgent narration often takes on an uneasy, dreamlike quality and is directed solely to Rachel, who's addressed as “you.” Sera eventually finds within herself a courage and resolve she didn’t know she possessed: She can’t leave until she finds Rachel, even when her instincts tell her to run. Snippets from Rachel’s podcast precede each chapter, heightening and building the uneasy narrative all the way to a none-too-tidy finale.
A disquieting and distinctly creepy debut.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-19822-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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