A fast, fun read for domestic thriller fans.
An amnesia victim has built a near-perfect new life when she runs into someone from her past.
A disheveled, bleeding woman who doesn't know even her own name is picked up hitchhiking on a highway in New Jersey by a kindly trucker. He and his wife become her surrogate parents, helping her manufacture a new identity as Addison Hope. Addison soon meets Gabriel, a wonderful young man from the Philadelphia Main Line who is so smitten he ends a yearslong relationship with another woman and proposes. Gabriel's mother, Blythe, isn't ready to pop the champagne, though—she wants to know who this girl really is. In truth, Addison feels the same reservations. Meanwhile, up in Boston, a handsome psychiatrist named Julian is caring for his 7-year-old daughter on his own after his wife disappeared two years earlier. Could it be...? In their fifth outing, the sisters who write as Constantine have cooked up another plot involving people with hidden identities—and it works well to embed that issue in the head of the protagonist, who doesn't know herself or anyone else from her past. The plot is twisty but not excessively so—it's the kind where an experienced reader can enjoy staying a few steps ahead of the reveals rather than the kind where the answers are obvious too early or are based on too many late-breaking details. Like most of Constantine's work, including fan favorite The Last Mrs. Parrish (2017), this one is set in the lap of luxury, this time a bit stripped down: fewer ritzy locations and rich-people caricatures, a bit less wealth porn. Still, Gabriel's country-club-snob mother is one of the best characters, and one of several wine recommendations is slipped in as the villain is about to enter his secret den of psychosis: "I have the house to myself overnight for the first time that I remember, and have decided to open the Odette Estate Reserve...."
A fast, fun read for domestic thriller fans.Pub Date: July 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-296732-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.
Following the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a struggling London novelist journeys to a remote Scottish island to try to get his mojo back—but all, of course, is not what it seems.
Grady Green hits the pinnacle of his publishing career on the same night that his life goes off the rails—first his book lands on the New York Times bestseller list, and then his wife, Abby, goes missing on her way home. A year later, Grady is a mere shadow of his former self: out of money and out of ideas. So, when his agent, Abby’s godmother, suggests that he spend some time on the Isle of Amberly, in a log cabin left to her by one of her writers, it seems as good a plan as any. With free housing for himself and his dog and a beautiful, distraction-free environment, maybe he can finally complete the next novel. But from the very beginning, Grady’s experiences with Amberly seem weird, if not downright ominous: As a visitor, he’s not allowed to bring his car onto the island; the local businesses are only open for a few hours at a time; and there are no birds. At all. Not to mention the skeletal hand he finds buried under the floorboards of the cabin, the creepy harmonica music in the woods, and the occasional sighting of a woman in a red coat who’s a dead ringer for Abby. As Grady falls deeper and deeper into insomnia and alcoholism, he begins to realize his being on the island is no accident—and that should make him very afraid. Through occasional chapters from before Abby’s disappearance, told from her point of view, we learn that Grady is not necessarily a reliable narrator, and the book’s slow unfolding of dread, mystery, and then truth is both creative and well-paced. Every chapter heading is an oxymoron, like the title, reminding us of the contradictions at the heart of every story.
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781250337788
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
A potent and surprising novel by the ever-reliable Crais.
Hired to find the father of celebrity “muffin girl” Traci Beller 10 years after his disappearance, PI Elvis Cole uncovers a nefarious plot that puts his life and those he contacts at risk.
The sweetly likable Traci, now 23, has amassed a huge following with her website, The Baker Next Door, and on social media. Against the advice and self-interest of the people who over-manage her career, she decides to find out what happened to her father. Cole quickly determines that he was last seen at the SurfMutt hamburger stand, where he gave a ride to Anya Given, a troubled 15-year-old whose mother, Sadie, was late in picking her up from the skate park across the street. With the reluctant help of a scattered young woman who used to work at the burger joint, Cole tracks down Anya and Sadie, who is eventually revealed to have a criminal past. For his efforts, he’s jumped by a small gang of men who send him to the hospital with the worst beating of his life. (Asked by a nurse what his name is, the best he can guess is “Los Angeles.”) Still in recovery, Cole and Joe Pike, his ex-Marine partner, trace his attackers to Sadie, with unexpected results. As ever, Crais draws the reader in via his protagonist’s casual, dryly humorous manner and the book’s relaxed ties to classic noir. Slowly but surely, the plot gains intensity and deadly purpose. Just when you think the missing persons case is solved, Crais ratchets things up with a devastating follow-through. This is the L.A. novelist’s 20th Cole mystery, following such efforts as The Watchman (2007) and Racing the Light (2022). It may be his most powerful.
A potent and surprising novel by the ever-reliable Crais.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780525535768
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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