THE HANDYMAN

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.