Deadly Animals, Marie Tierney’s brilliantly plotted debut mystery, introduces readers to Ava Bonney: a 14-year-old English girl obsessed with decomposing bodies.
Deadly Animals, Marie Tierney’s brilliantly plotted debut mystery, introduces readers to Ava Bonney: a 14-year-old English girl obsessed with decomposing bodies.
John Straley’s nonstop, high-octane Big Breath In introduces the unforgettable Delphine, a 68-year-old cancer patient-turned-investigator.
John Straley’s nonstop, high-octane Big Breath In introduces the unforgettable Delphine, a 68-year-old cancer patient-turned-investigator.
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In A Twist of the Knife, Becky Masterman ventures into intriguing new terrain with the third installment in her exciting crime series.

Hardheaded FBI agent turned PI Brigid Quinn darkened readers’ doorways previously in Rage Against the Dying (2013) and Fear the Darkness (2015), and she’s back again, barreling through a new investigation as she heads from her Arizona home to Florida to offer support and assistance to her former partner, Laura Coleman. Coleman is volunteering with a legal group that’s trying to prove the innocence of death row inmate Marcus Creighton, convicted of killing his wife and three kids.

You might think that Brigid, newly married and pushing 60, would have lost some of her rough edges to the call of love, but there’s none of that—though she’s happily married to Carlo, who seems downright saint-like at times. As for Brigid, she’s as opinionated as ever and figures that Creighton, given his past criminal record, probably isn’t innocent. She heads off to Laura’s aid, with the added excuse that her father is ill in a Fort Lauderdale hospital, and she can do double duty by spending time with her parents. The story is enhanced by intriguing characters including Shayna Murry, Creighton’s mistress, who hasn’t provided the alibi Creighton needs; fingerprint expert Tracy Mack, who has screwed up some cases in the past; and determined, steely Alison Samuels, a child abuse specialist who’s conducting an intensive search for traces of the Creighton kids, whose bodies were never found. Brigid’s cop brother, Todd, adds another layer to her family scene as he becomes involved in the Creighton case.

Ultimately, A Twist of the Knife is equal parts crime thriller and family drama. Oddly, Brigid projects a very narrow comfort zone for a cop who should know better when it comes to family dysfunction. Food fills the gaps in family togetherness—what else is new? “Mom never said what she meant”—join the club. Brigid, an otherwise strong character, often seems unable to roll with the blows or have much understanding of her own role in the family drama. Her stubbornness looks more like a cover for her own inability to connect.

Masterman’s writing is both satisfying and spare. The dialogue is brisk and realistic, and the story has a roller-coaster quality and a headlong pace, as readers are once again kept in suspense about what the volatile Brigid will get up to next.

In A Twist of the Knife, Becky Masterman ventures into intriguing new terrain with the third installment in her exciting crime series.

In an isolated Idaho town, 16-year-old Min Wilder and Noah Livingston share both a birthday and a secret: Every two years, they are murdered by a strange man only to awake the next day miles from their homes, alive and well. They’ve never revealed their secret to one another. The only one who knows is a local psychiatrist who convinces Noah that these are simply hallucinations. But Min isn’t convinced she’s crazy, and a slew of events—including an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, a suspicious military presence in the area and unexplained natural disasters—have assured Min that her hunch is correct. After breaking into her psychiatrist’s office, Min discovers that she and Noah are part of a global conspiracy that starts with her sophomore class.

Brendan Reichs, who penned the popular Virals series with his mother, Kathy Reichs, knows how to build plot twists and dynamic characters. Min, the daughter of a struggling single mother, is sharp and intuitive, while Noah, the son of an affluent businessman, is lonely and insecure. There’s also a protective best friend, a surly bully and a shady principal. Everyone’s a cog in this well-plotted machine. Readers who get hooked must be warned: This isn’t a standalone. A sequel is likely underway.

 

Kimberly Giarratano is the author of Grunge Gods and Graveyards, a young adult paranormal mystery.

This article was originally published in the April 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In an isolated Idaho town, 16-year-old Min Wilder and Noah Livingston share both a birthday and a secret: Every two years, they are murdered by a strange man only to awake the next day miles from their homes, alive and well. They’ve never revealed their secret to one another. The only one who knows is a local psychiatrist who convinces Noah that these are simply hallucinations. But Min isn’t convinced she’s crazy, and a slew of events—including an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, a suspicious military presence in the area and unexplained natural disasters—have assured Min that her hunch is correct. After breaking into her psychiatrist’s office, Min discovers that she and Noah are part of a global conspiracy that starts with her sophomore class.

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For 16-year-old Nikki Tate, home is a Las Vegas casino called Andromeda’s Palace that her parents own and run, but it’s Nikki who actually keeps the place afloat. This is by necessity, as her father, Nathan, was sent to death row on a false murder charge. Miraculously, his innocence is proven, resulting in his release from the penitentiary.

But Nathan’s return home has not been as joyful as expected. Nikki’s been pulling in money by winning poker games against Vegas lowlifes, a practice that is squashed by her father. Nathan hasn’t been around the casino; he’s spending long hours looking for the true murderer who escaped justice. When Nikki’s father is found slaughtered in a dark alley, she takes up that search herself, but things get complicated quickly. Nikki’s new boyfriend, Davis, is the son of rival casino owner Big Bert, who incurred her father’s enmity. Is Big Bert behind Nathan’s murder? If so, what does that mean about Davis’ interest in her?

The suspense builds steadily as Nikki is consumed by her quest. Author Lamar Giles stokes the tension with Nikki’s involvement in high-stakes poker games and the dangers she faces charging through the sordid side of Vegas. Like Nick in Giles’ Fake ID, Nikki is black, a fact that will appeal to many readers as much as the twists and turns of this well-crafted mystery. This is a fun read for fans of Harlan Coben or April Henry.

 

Diane Colson is the Library Director at City College in Gainesville, Florida.

This article was originally published in the April 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

For 16-year-old Nikki Tate, home is a Las Vegas casino called Andromeda’s Palace that her parents own and run, but it’s Nikki who actually keeps the place afloat. This is by necessity, as her father, Nathan, was sent to death row on a false murder charge. Miraculously, his innocence is proven, resulting in his release from the penitentiary.

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In Eliot Pattison’s masterful and deeply moving new mystery, Skeleton God, a disgraced former inspector must grapple with the horrors of Tibet’s past to uncover a crime decades in the making.

Shan Tao Yun is a former Beijing inspector banished to Yangkar, a remote town in the mountains of Tibet, where fragments of a shattered culture haunt the people left to eke out a living under the gaze of Communist China. But the village’s fragile peace is destroyed when three corpses are discovered in a remote tomb. One of the bodies is a long dead Buddhist saint, but flanking him are a Red Army soldier killed 50 years ago and an American killed only hours before the tomb was discovered.

The story frequently pauses as Shan considers the ramifications of his investigation on himself and his loved ones. He tries to soothe himself by meditating on the stark, unspoiled beauty of the Tibetan mountains or stealing a few moments with his friends. These flashes of peace, written with skillful restraint by Pattison, make Skeleton God a much more contemplative read than its macabre premise would imply.

Every advance in the case rings slightly hollow due to Shan’s belief that he is damning the people of his village to increasing government control and surveillance, and that his own life and his son’s are also at stake. Pattison wrings mounting tension from Shan’s pursuit of the killers simply reminding the reader that at any moment, the characters’ freedom could be ripped away from them.

Skeleton God is a melancholy mystery, an elegy for a lost culture as well as a well-plotted puzzle that manages to be as clever as it is unexpectedly and deeply moving. There is a mystery to be solved of course, the solution of which leads to a tense and inventive final confrontation between Shan and the killers, but Pattison also draws a remarkable psychological portrait of a people living in a post-apocalyptic reality, trying to grasp small measures of resistance and hope from the wreckage.

In Eliot Pattison’s masterful and deeply moving new mystery, Skeleton God, a disgraced former inspector must grapple with the horrors of Tibet’s past to uncover a crime decades in the making.

There’s plenty that can be said about Brad Parks’ new novel, Say Nothing, and most of it good. From the opening chapter, Say Nothing drops the hammer down on its main character, Federal Judge Scott Sampson, and doesn’t let up until the suspense-filled finish.

Part domestic thriller, part legal thriller, Scott’s story begins when his world is rocked by the discovery that his 6-year-old twins, Sam and Emma, are missing. Scott and his wife, Alison, receive a chilling phone call stating the children have been kidnapped; if they want to see them alive again they’ll do exactly as told and “say nothing.” Any hint of police involvement will result in dire consequences for the children, possibly even death.

As a judge, Scott correctly surmises the kidnapping has something to do with influencing an upcoming case in his court. But with dozens of cases on his docket, determining which case is anyone’s guess. In the meantime, Scott must carry on as if nothing has happened, anxiously awaiting word from the kidnappers that may come at a moment’s notice. And when it does, he is immediately thrust into a moral dilemma concerning a decision that goes against his judicial convictions. As Scott strives to determine who could be behind the kidnapping, no one, not even Alison, is completely above suspicion.

The only author to have won the Shamus, Nero and Lefty Awards—three of crime fiction’s most prestigious prizes—Parks easily pulls readers along for the ride with crisp, sharp prose that puts us firmly in the head of his protagonist. The very real reactions of Scott and his wife to the shock of possibly losing their children are relatable to any parent—or anyone with a heart, for that matter. Merge that with increasing tension and the moral quandary Scott finds himself in, and this book works on numerous levels.

There’s plenty that can be said about Brad Parks’ new novel, Say Nothing, and most of it good. From the opening chapter, Say Nothing drops the hammer down on its main character, Federal Judge Scott Sampson, and doesn’t let up until the suspense-filled finish.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes canon found a home and a ravenous readership in the pages of The Strand Magazine in the late 1800s. Now, more than a century later, author Lyndsay Faye has continued that tradition with her own Holmes adventures in the modern-day incarnation of The Strand. Fortunately for Holmes aficionados, if you haven’t been able to keep up with the publication, 15 of her tales (including two new stories) are now available in a new, collected volume, The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes.

Faye divides the collection into neat time periods in Holmes’ and John Watson’s lives, with adventures occurring pre-Baker Street, during the early Baker Street years and post-Reichenbach Falls. There are even a few tales set in Holmes’ later years. While not as memorable as Doyle’s best stories, Faye does an admirable job of filling the gaps between some of those tales with interesting asides. The stories are at times emotional—such as the case of “An Empty House,” in which Watson contemplates leaving London and the painful loss of his wife and Holmes behind, only to discover Holmes is very much alive. Other stories, like “The Adventure of the Memento Mori,” are shocking, as our intrepid pair discover a devious criminal slowly poisoning the patients in a women’s home.

A lifelong devotee of Doyle’s works, Faye broke onto the book scene with the Holmes novel Dust and Shadow, earning critical appraise from the Conan Doyle estate itself. Her short stories may be even better. Faye easily captures the essence of Holmes and Watson, both in voice and style. Readers will feel as if they are in the cozy confines of 221B Baker Street right alongside this often feuding and sometimes teasing pair of old friends or, better yet, sitting beside them in a bouncing carriage as they race to rescue a would-be victim from an otherwise heinous end.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes canon found a home and a ravenous readership in the pages of The Strand Magazine in the late 1800s. Now, more than a century later, author Lyndsay Faye has continued that tradition with her own Holmes adventures in the modern-day incarnation of The Strand. Fortunately for Holmes aficionados, if you haven’t been able to keep up with the publication, 15 of her tales (including two new stories) are now available in a new, collected volume, The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes.

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At its outset, Mister Memory has the intimate yet informal detailing of an adult fable or fairy tale. This makes sense, given that its author, Marcus Sedgwick, has published a number of YA books that include fantasy, myths and graphic novels.

Mister Memory introduces readers to Marcel Després, a handsome, naïve and uncommon young man whose extraordinary mind lands him in big trouble. For Marcel, every tiny action and word—the details of every moment in his life—is indelibly recorded in his mind. He’s literally unable to forget. For a long time he’s unaware that he possesses this unique trait—or burden. He simply thinks everyone’s mind works that way.

Unable to hold down a job in Paris of 1899, Marcel finally becomes a popular cabaret hit as “Mister Memory,” a moniker that may evoke for some the Hitchcockian character in The 39 Steps, a 1939 film full of dark, comic moments.

Sedgwick’s narrative soon turns into a clever, absorbing mystery after Marcel is arrested for killing his wife upon discovering her in bed with a lover. Instead of doing a stint in jail—the usual Parisian punishment for murdering an unfaithful wife—Marcel is whisked away to a mental hospital for the criminally insane, and the case is summarily closed like the slamming of a door.

Inspector Petit of the Paris prefecture realizes there is more to the story, at a level that involves the highest realms of law enforcement as well as the lowest echelons of Parisian society. A photograph of Marcel’s wife, also a cabaret performer, sets Petit on a dangerous path to discovery and action.

Mister Memory is an extraordinary trip into the deep recesses of mind and memory, brought to light little by little as Marcel’s physician comes to learn more about his patient’s inner world. Dr. Morel tells him, “You have taught me something. Through you I have come to see that there is no such thing as truth. That all we ever really know is perception.”

Petit, who struggles with memories of his own that he’d like to banish, belatedly comes to realize that “each memory is itself only a construction of infinitely small moments of time, each of which has no meaning in itself. It is only the story we make by linking such moments together, and the narrative that creates, that gives us any meaning.”

At its outset, Mister Memory has the intimate yet informal detailing of an adult fable or fairy tale. This makes sense, given that its author, Marcus Sedgwick, has published a number of YA books that include fantasy, myths and graphic novels.

Review by

It’s hot, hot, hot in Dallas, Texas, where a drug bust gone bad welcomes readers to police detective Betty Rhyzyk’s world of undercover narcotics, and into Kathleen Kent’s new crime novel, The Dime.

Kent, a writer of historical fiction, explodes onto the crime genre with a detective who has all the qualities that’ll make her stand out from the crowd. No shrinking violet, Betty is a very tall, redheaded lesbian, as well as a kick-butt detective, transplanted from Brooklyn to good ol’ boy Dallas, where lewd comments and not-so-subtle discrimination are the least of what she’s facing.

In her latest case, Betty confronts a slew of murder victims, but realizes that the gruesome deaths don’t have the marks of Mexico’s drug cartel. Betty and her team follow disparate clues to determine just who may be challenging the cartel—and who is responsible for the growing list of victims, including one of the detective team’s own.

Kent rises above the obligatory badass conventions that can sometimes derail brutal “cops and robbers” tales like these, with their complicated, often-violent protagonists. She excels in other ways, by creating an engrossing story of the sometimes-strained but always-changing relationships between this unusual detective and her more mainstream hetero colleagues, and puts into perspective a somewhat over-the-top torture-filled scene that threatens to unbalance the rest of the plot. Kent’s brilliant, sometimes-gentle and humorous observations humanize and set this book apart.

The Dime showcases the author’s strengths with multifaceted descriptions of Betty and her sturdy friendship with her police partner, Seth; the many characters on the police force; and her unfortunate run-ins with the disagreeable family of her lover/partner, Jackie. A religion-crazed cult leader who surfaces later in the book is a chilling, stay-in-your head character who may possibly figure in future books. Kent tops off her narrative with a couple of one-of-a-kind characters whose small heroisms figure very large: the marvelously rendered Civil War re-enactor who stands his ground; and James Earle Walden, Jackie’s alcoholic, Vietnam vet great-uncle.

Best of all, the voice of Betty’s deceased Uncle Benny, the man who inspired her life, threads through the book with an ongoing patter of whimsical advice, sometimes funny, sometimes dead serious, but always on the money.

It’s hot, hot, hot in Dallas, Texas, where a drug bust gone bad welcomes readers to police detective Betty Rhyzyk’s world of undercover narcotics, and into Kathleen Kent’s new crime novel, The Dime.

Review by

The Roanoke Girls lulled me into a false sense of security. The first chapters ably introduce Roanoke, a sprawling farmhouse in the middle of rural Kansas, and family black sheep Lane Roanoke, who returns to her family’s ancestral home years after a traumatic summer sent her running as fast as she could in the opposite direction. The disappearance of her cousin Allegra brings Lane back to her privileged grandparents and the summer fling she never quite got over, forcing her to deal with the dark things in her past while searching for her lost cousin. 

Based on those first few, perfectly capable pages, a reader may believe they know how The Roanoke Girls will end. But Engel drops a wicked twist in the first 35 pages—in the middle of a paragraph on the middle of the page—and lets it sit like a coiled snake. 

It’s a twist that most authors would save for the last chapter, and from that point on, The Roanoke Girls becomes a thrilling mystery and a satisfyingly gothic portrait of Middle America. But Engel is also interested in the things that break people and how they try to put themselves back together again. She deepens the typical tropes of the small-town mystery genre, using every sheltered country boy and fading matriarch to illustrate how people can silently, slowly shatter. 

Lane’s high school sweetheart is as damaged as she is, and the pair cleaves to each other with a jagged-edged desperation before tearing themselves instinctively away. It’s a painfully human, rough-hewn romance, and Engel balances it beautifully against Lane’s investigation into the fate of her cousin. Both threads braid together as the novel circles the mystery at its heart and The Roanoke Girls transforms into a dark fable of trauma and acceptance about damaged people accepting their crooked parts and using them to move forward.

 

This article was originally published in the March 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The Roanoke Girls lulled me into a false sense of security. The first chapters ably introduce Roanoke, a sprawling farmhouse in the middle of rural Kansas, and family black sheep Lane Roanoke, who returns to her family’s ancestral home years after a traumatic summer sent her running as fast as she could in the opposite direction. The disappearance of her cousin Allegra brings Lane back to her privileged grandparents and the summer fling she never quite got over, forcing her to deal with the dark things in her past while searching for her lost cousin. 
Review by

No one who has read Dan Chaon’s fiction will be surprised to learn that Ill Will, his new novel, is relentlessly bleak. It’s a murder mystery and a literary thriller, a multilayered nonlinear narrative and a psychological portrait of the dark side of human nature. You’ll lose track of the number of deaths, but you’ll remember the daring storytelling and the skillful treatment of characters who live with repressed memories.

If you’re Dustin Tillman, a 41-year-old Cleveland psychologist, widower and father of two teenage sons, then you’ve got horrific memories to repress. When Dustin was 13, his parents and an aunt and uncle were murdered on the eve of a camping trip. A Pulitzer-nominated photograph of Dustin running from the scene with his twin cousins, Kate and Wave, became famous.

The murder was blamed on Dustin’s adopted older brother, Rusty, in part because of Dustin’s testimony; he claimed that Rusty had engaged in satanic rituals involving baby rabbits, a doll and a candlelit pentagram. Now, 27 years after the murder, DNA evidence exonerates Rusty, who has always proclaimed his innocence and contended that Dustin’s testimony was based on faulty recollection.

Rusty’s re-emergence is only one of the factors that complicate Dustin’s life. In addition to his wife’s death and his younger son’s growing heroin addiction, Dustin has a patient, a Cleveland police officer put on leave for a “psychological difficulty,” who recruits Dustin to help solve a series of murders of college-age men who have drowned on dates that follow a pattern. And the next date to fit the pattern is coming up.

Throughout Ill Will, Chaon plays with the novel form: second-person narration, emails, shifting perspectives, emojis and, most radically, parallel columns of prose that show concurrent thoughts and episodes in characters’ lives. The result could have been style for style’s sake, but, in Chaon’s capable hands, the novel is a brilliant depiction of mental illness. Not a pretty picture, but masterfully painted.

 

This article was originally published in the March 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

No one who has read Dan Chaon’s fiction will be surprised to learn that Ill Will, his new novel, is relentlessly bleak. It’s a murder mystery and a literary thriller, a multilayered nonlinear narrative and a psychological portrait of the dark side of human nature. You’ll lose track of the number of deaths, but you’ll remember the daring storytelling and the skillful treatment of characters who live with repressed memories.

Celine is nearly 70. She’s an elegant woman with an excellent education and a mastery of her native French. She enjoys a quiet life with her husband, Pete—he cooks, she sculpts. Sometimes she calls her grown son on the phone and mildly lectures him about his love life. Oh, and Celine is also a private detective, once recruited by the FBI, and she occasionally takes a case that requires her and Pete to pack up their tracking equipment and cameras and take off across the globe to solve a mystery that’s been eluding traditional law enforcement. In those cases, Celine’s weapons training comes in handy.

The mystery at the heart of this story revolves around a young woman, Gabriela, whose father, a charismatic and complicated nature photographer, disappeared mysteriously when she was young. When Celine and Pete take her case, they find themselves traveling to Yellowstone National Park. They dress like hunters and frequent small diners, talking to locals and trying to unravel a case that’s long since been declared closed, inadvertently triggering the attention of powerful people who want to keep it that way.

In Celine, author Peter Heller tells an excellent story and creates a mystery that’s gripping and ultimately satisfying. He’s a master at describing the wonder and beauty of the natural world and at making setting and community an integral part of his stories. But even more noteworthy is his understanding of human frailties and the triumph of family relationships—Celine’s relationships with both Pete and her son are flawed but still loving and beautiful, and her relationship to herself as she ages is honest, illuminating and, ultimately, inspiring.

Celine is packed with details—there are bear attacks, a gold-digging nurse, an emphysemic sharpshooter and senior citizens who live in a camper van—but every bit feels authentic and true. All the elements move the story along; for the reader, nothing is wasted and every moment is made to be savored and enjoyed.

 

This article was originally published in the March 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Celine is nearly 70. She’s an elegant woman with an excellent education and a mastery of her native French. She enjoys a quiet life with her husband, Pete—he cooks, she sculpts. Sometimes she calls her grown son on the phone and mildly lectures him about…
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On the surface, Tracee de Hahn’s debut mystery mimics those Golden Age country house crime novels where the suspects gather in the drawing room facing each other across the tea table, with the curtains drawn against the night. Her book, however, is somehow both more and less than those old thrillers. It’s set in present-day Switzerland as a storm of epic proportions sweeps through the Lausanne region, blanketing the area of Château Vallotton with deadly ice, snow and wind.

Swiss Vendetta opens on a thrilling note—an icy blast, with a murder taking place right off the bat, before readers (or the victim) have time to bundle up against the weather. Just before the storm shuts down all outside access, rookie police officer Agnes Lüthi slips and slides onto the scene along with a couple of other officers, to contend with a château full of suspects.

Though officers and suspects are effectively trapped on the scene by the ice and snow, this particular château has tons of rooms, stairways and secret tunnels, so it’s not exactly a modest Agatha Christie country house. Agnes and her colleagues spread out to try and learn why Felicity Cowell, a bright young appraiser for a London auction house employed by the family to appraise an estate full of treasures, has met her death out in the storm, dressed in a diamond-embellished gown. The château bristles with suspects from the Vallotton family—the regal Marquise, her nephews Julien and Daniel, a peckish godson named Mulholland and a Great Dane named Winston. A young American, Nick Graves, who’s doing historical research at the estate, has a prior connection to the victim, upping the intrigue level. The family’s elderly neighbor, Monsieur Arsov, also figures large, with his dramatic World War II backstory.

Everyone’s full of polite obfuscations, but they give Agnes the run of the estate to pursue her inquiries, so this old/new crime novel ought to be a page-turner, with its marvelous backdrop of storm and menace. However, detective Lüthi’s insights are not always substantiated within the narrative, sometimes seeming to appear from offstage. Readers may struggle to develop sympathy for the author’s sometimes two-dimensional characters, who never quite spring to life.

Swiss Vendetta is full of side stories rich with promise. After a great beginning, a slow-going middle gives way to a finale that helps rescue some of the book’s dramatic potential.

On the surface, Tracee de Hahn’s debut mystery mimics those Golden Age country house crime novels where the suspects gather in the drawing room facing each other across the tea table, with the curtains drawn against the night. Her book, however, is somehow both more and less than those old thrillers. It’s set in present-day Switzerland as a storm of epic proportions sweeps through the Lausanne region, blanketing the area of Château Vallotton with deadly ice, snow and wind.

Review by

The atmosphere, attitude and ambiance in Emma Flint’s debut thriller, Little Deaths, tunes right into the era in which it’s set—that of 1965 New York. It’s a time full of female stereotypes, where law enforcement, juries, the press and the general public frequently pre-judge women on appearances, eager to denounce those who deviate from mom-and-apple-pie images of Norman Rockwell fantasies.

Ruth Malone is a single, working mother who discovers one morning that her two young children have gone missing from their beds. When their dead bodies surface days later and the case turns into one of murder, Ruth’s look and lifestyle immediately render her a prime suspect. She works long hours as a cocktail waitress; her makeup is heavy glam; she’s been known to sleep around and keeps a notebook of male “friends”; she’s not good at socializing with other women; and she dreams of finding that rich lover who’ll rescue her from her meager surroundings.

Local reporter Pete Wonicke gets assigned to the murder case, and he becomes increasingly obsessed with the case and attracted to what he believes is the real person beneath Ruth’s caricature of a surface. Lead detective Charlie Devlin is also obsessed, though in his eyes it’s “cherchez la femme”—for him, she is the obvious perpetrator to the exclusion of all other suspects. He’s a cop with a past, and he’ll do everything in his power to see that she’s found guilty of murder.

Ruth’s ex, Frank, was with his children shortly before they disappeared. He adds another voice to the narrative as the search for the guilty party heats up and readers sift through the stories and opinions from multiple sources.

As a thriller, Little Deaths succeeds as a fairly run-of-the-mill crime story with the usual collection of suspects, bad guys and sympathetic characters. However, as a psychological study of the subtle terror visited on a woman who is alone and essentially a victim herself, it’s superlative. The book effectively delivers a convulsive look at a woman trapped by circumstance and gender, skillfully tuned by the author to convey Ruth’s claustrophobic sense of fatalism.

There’s an unfinished feel to the end of the book, and some readers will consider the conclusion a cop-out. But in another way—and more effectively than a slam-bang finale—the final pages will embed readers in the real drama of Ruth’s descent—and perhaps her hope.

The atmosphere, attitude and ambiance in Emma Flint’s debut thriller, Little Deaths, tunes right into the era in which it’s set—that of 1965 New York. It’s a time full of female stereotypes, where law enforcement, juries, the press and the general public frequently pre-judge women on appearances, eager to denounce those who deviate from mom-and-apple-pie images of Norman Rockwell fantasies.

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