Fans of crime fiction will love this one.
Nottingham forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven investigates a mass migrant murder in his fourth outing.
Cyrus and his friend Evie Cormac—born Adina Osmani—are enjoying a day at the beach when a woman screams that someone is floating in the ocean. Cyrus swims to the rescue, but he’s too late. Then more bodies float in, 17 in all with but one survivor. They had come from the Middle East, desperately trying to reach British soil. But miles out in the English Channel, another boat had rammed into their inflatable dinghy, sinking it. Who? Why? Was it an accident? Was it xenophobia, a warning to keep foreigners out? Or does it go deeper? A mysterious ferryman is said to control the human trafficking across the channel, but most people think him a bogeyman, the stuff of ghost stories. Then the lone survivor is murdered; how will police ever learn what happened now? In Scotland, Cyrus is told, “Oh, that’s a dangerous beastie, the truth, a monster in the loch.” Cyrus and Evie narrate alternating fast-paced chapters that will rivet the reader’s attention. Both have backgrounds you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. Cyrus’ older brother murdered their parents and two sisters. Evie, from Albania, lost her family and has been sexually trafficked and tortured. “Coin-sized lesions” from cigarette burns pock her legs and abdomen. Cyrus fostered her, and they have become good friends. The interplay between the two main characters makes the story stand out. She’s attracted to him, but the feeling is not mutual. He cares deeply about her, but he’ll never violate his professional ethics. So she’s both jealous and happy knowing that he’s “bumping uglies” with a more appropriate woman. In his words, Evie is “damaged and self-destructive and a pathological liar, but she is also funny and feisty and intelligent and empathetic.” There’s also a great secondary character from Zimbabwe who deserves a role in Cyrus and Evie’s next adventure.
Fans of crime fiction will love this one.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781668030998
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
“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
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