A claustrophobic, tense tale of destructive desire.
A crew team infatuation turns into a deadly, yearslong obsession in Deering’s latest thriller.
Brenna Riley and Dennis Griffin both had controlling fathers, and both end up on the Stanford crew team. Brenna is a coxswain, in charge of steering the boat and commanding the rowers. Dennis is a stroke—a lead rower—and a man known for his intensity and ice-blue eyes. Brenna is drawn to Dennis but also a little afraid of him. After the two hook up following a meet in San Diego, Brenna decides that’s all she needs from him. Dennis, however, continues to harbor feelings that increasingly border on obsession. After graduation, Brenna marries another teammate, while Dennis—unmoored when he fails to make the Olympic rowing team—quits the sport and turns his attention on his old crush. An unplanned visit to Brenna’s new house leads to a second sexual encounter, one in which Brenna’s consent isn’t given. She gives birth to a daughter, Sadie, unsure if the father is Dennis or her husband. Meanwhile, Dennis marries a waitress who looks just like Brenna and takes a job as a handyman for Brenna’s wealthy father. It seems that Dennis may be hellbent on either possessing Brenna or destroying her life, even if it means resorting to murder. Deering’s understated prose captures both Dennis’s methodical madness and the horror of the other characters as they come to recognize it. Here Brenna finds mementos Dennis has kept in a locked briefcase: “Brenna struggled to control her shaking hand and get the key into the lock. She peered inside and saw an odd collection of items: a tangle of dark hair, a lighter, two framed photos…She examined the photos and saw that they were from her wedding and the San Diego Crew Classic.” Though some aspects of the novel strain credulity, Deering’s command of the creepiness will keep readers engrossed.
A claustrophobic, tense tale of destructive desire.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781647425074
Page Count: 280
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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