Mystery & Suspense Archives | Page 77 of 119 | BookPage

by Barbara Clark

There are several ways to know whether you’ve got a really fine novel on your hands, and you can tell pretty quickly that Dry Bones in the Valley is a debut of that caliber.

First, author Tom Bouman knows his rural Pennsylvania setting and is familiar with its smallest details, from inhabitants’ accents and manners to their dilapidated trailer homes, and from animal tracks in the woods to the winds and the night sky. Second, the plot unfolds just right, beckoning with its authenticity and maintaining a flow that stays true to the characters and the narrator’s sense of how things are. The storyline may commence with a simple atmosphere, but it conceals unspoken depths that reveal themselves without an excess of words or urging by the author. Third, the people fit snugly in their roles, and their dialogue sounds true in every way—even when their backs are turned, we sense they’re still in character.

The understated, straightforward Henry Farrell is one of only two police officers in Wild Thyme township, a rural area where folks are not shy about dressing in camo or expressing their feelings about the hazards of “too much government.” This is hunting and fishing country, and Harry, who does some hunting himself, uses metaphors of field and forest as he seeks the killer of an unknown John Doe found high on a ridge. When a colleague is murdered, the action escalates, and Harry’s strength and patience is sorely tested.

Descriptions of the rural backcountry and its residents immerse readers in a landscape that rings with authenticity, humor and also great sadness. For some, grinding poverty rubs shoulders with the anticipation of a financial windfall, as the juggernaut of corporate gas drilling and fracking moves slowly across the Pennsylvania landscape, buying rights to property after property to feed its ever-escalating need for drilling sites.

With more questions than answers, Harry maneuvers the tangled trails, underbrush and home-grown meth labs that pockmark the countryside, contending with a colorful cast of locals, including a sad, aging recluse, the drugged-out “People of the Bus,” gun-happy revenge seekers, and last but far from least, the mysterious lady of the bog.

There are several ways to know whether you’ve got a really fine novel on your hands, and you can tell pretty quickly that Dry Bones in the Valley is a debut of that caliber.

Fiction, Suspense

Fiction Suspense

Can a precocious teen end the Cold War?

Review by Arlene McKanic

by Arlene McKanic

The first thing you may think when reading the opening pages of Stephen L. Carter’s engrossing Back Channel is, “What in the devil is going on here?” It’s 1962 and we’re at the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy is in a townhouse with a 19-year-old African-American girl, but not for the reason you think. It seems that this young lady is the key to stopping the world from becoming a glowing, radioactive ember in the darkness of space. You can’t be blamed if your first reaction is bemusement.

But even before this assignation, the young lady, Margo Evans, is sent to Bulgaria to babysit a real historical figure—you would never in a million years guess who it is. (Don’t worry, it isn’t Comrade Khrushchev.) Now, on top of your bemusement, you have to wonder, “Were things during the Cold War that desperate?” Anyway, Margo’s fractious charge has been approached by some Russian muckety-muck who may or may not tell him just what’s in all those crates the Soviets are shipping to Cuba. Her task is to get him to tell her so she can tell her handlers, or something like that.

But when the charge refuses to show up for a meeting because of obsessions he finds more pressing, Margo goes in his place. The experience proves traumatic, but then, to paraphrase one character, “Things get funny.”

If that’s not enough to keep you hooked, Carter surrounds Margo with people who are decidedly not nice and situations that are beyond surreal. Watching Margo navigate among so many landsharks, including our charming horndog of a POTUS, is fascinating in its own right.

Then, there’s Margo herself. Brilliant, logical, ambitious, patriotic in her own way, somewhat chilly in demeanor, she may remind you of a young Condoleeza Rice. But it’s her vulnerability, ultimately, that fascinates. She’s a girl, she’s an orphan, she’s a virgin, she doesn’t quite know what she’s supposed to do or how she’s supposed to do it. That you’re here to read this review tells you one outcome of her ordeal. For the rest of it, you’ll have to read Carter’s smart and snappy page-turner.

This article was originally published in the August 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Fiction, Suspense

Fiction Suspense

A cloned woman fights for identity

Review by Meg Bowden

by Meg Bowden

M.D. Waters provides even more suspense and revelations as she returns to the complicated dystopian world that she set up so brilliantly in her debut novel Archetype. Equal parts science fiction and romance, this two-book series follows our heroine Emma as she attempts to define herself in a futuristic world where cloning is an everyday affair.

At the end of Archetype, Emma had escaped her controlling husband, Declan Burke, after discovering that she is a clone of the resistance member Emma Wade. Now months have passed, and Emma has fled to Mexico to search for her parents in hopes that they can help her start a new life. When Declan appears on the news, offering a sizable reward for Emma’s return, she realizes that it is impossible for her new life to begin until her past is settled—including her feelings for Noah, the fellow resistance fighter she married before the cloning.

Much of the struggle in Prototype is internal, as Emma tries to overcome her past trauma. Archetype found Emma in a confused, fragile state, searching for answers and then discovering that she is a clone. By the conclusion of Prototype, Emma has transformed into a brave and determined woman who knows what she wants, and will fight hard to get it. With every turn of the page, Emma achieves the respect that comes from having loved, lost and fought every step of the way.

This article was originally published in the August 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Fiction, Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Fiction Mystery

Something devilish in the dark

Review by Barbara Clark

by Barbara Clark

For crime aficionados, New York Times best-selling author Marcia Muller is always a welcome name, one to rely on when you want a sure thing—a book that captures the imagination and might even make you wish you’d cancelled your evening plans so you could just go on reading. Her latest, The Night Searchers—to be exact, number 31 in her San Francisco-based Sharon McCone series—promises to be that kind of book.

Muller is quick out of the gate with a catchy plot hook: A weird couple seeks help from PI McCone’s detective agency because the wife is “seeing things.” As husband Jay rolls his eyes and pats her shoulder, wife Camilla describes witnessing devil worshippers operating from the basement hole of a city excavation, possibly conducting a human sacrifice. The canny, pragmatic McCone intuits that something more than mental instability is at work here, and sure enough, the unlikely scenario soon begins to tie into an investigation underway by RI International, the firm run by McCone’s husband, Hy, a high-level hostage negotiator. McCone and Hy discover a non-Satanic connection between Camilla’s sighting and the titular Searchers, a shadowy bunch of treasure hunters prowling the ’Frisco streets, and with the kidnapping of the director of a political policy forum.

Hy and McCone dispatch researchers and operatives from their companies to connect the dots and discover what, besides treasure, the mysterious Searchers may be hunting, and how it may tie in with kidnappings and devilish conclaves. McCone becomes the suspect in a supposed murder attempt and hides out for a while in a safe house aptly called Cockroach Haven while directing the investigation. The story sports Muller’s usual mix of eccentric characters, not least the Searchers themselves, all with fake names containing the letter “Z.”

The McCone and RI agencies seem to have the power to do almost anything, from calling up the troops to calling off the troops, and the action never stalls. But this time around, Muller’s narrative has a choppy feel to it, jumping from one thing to another and occasionally losing its focus and our attention. The couple’s too-spiffy upscale lifestyle has also become a bit wearing, and readers will miss the old days when McCone operated out of the All Souls Legal Co-op and scavenged around for her daily bread. We are amply compensated, however, by the captivating tour of San Francisco sights and sounds that’s woven throughout the book.

Fantasy, Fiction, Mystery & Suspense, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Suspense

Science Fiction & Fantasy Mystery & Suspense Fiction Suspense Fantasy

A serial killer hunting for centuries

Review by Lizzie Davis

by Lizzie Davis

In his first novel, The String Diaries, British author Stephen Lloyd Jones has created both an innovative storyline and a new creature to fear. The secret to overcoming this monster lies within one family’s weathered, string-tied diaries, which contain meticulously compiled stories, research and theories. But what is it that hunts this family, and why?

Jones imagines a fantastical subset of humans, inspired by Hungarian folklore: the hosszú életek, the “long-lived” ones, who are able to take on the appearance of any individual they please. For three centuries, Hannah Wilde’s ancestors have been sought by Jakab, a degenerate hosszú életek, whose twisted passion quickly led to an abject obsession with the women in Hannah’s family. Now he is fixated on her. Hannah must face this ancient evil or risk losing the love of her life and their daughter. She must use her family’s diaries as a survival guide, learning to trust no one, to verify everyone and, if ever compromised, to run. But with Jakab’s ability to take on the appearance and mannerisms of those she loves, will she have the resilience to make the correct decision?

The String Diaries is a phenomenal read, offering readers a refreshing villain and a thrilling narrative laced with the Gothic: a woman being chased by a tyrannical male of supernatural ability in uninhabited places. Jones dazzles in his ability to make his characters' raw nerves so palpable, the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. The mounting tension throughout the novel is methodically woven through the centuries and the generations, bound together until the final pages. This book will have readers engrossed from start to finish, and hungry for more of Jones’ work.

Fiction, Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Fiction Mystery

From recovery to sleuthing team

Review by Adam Morgan

by Adam Morgan

Chicago is infamous for its violence, from Prohibition-era mobsters to modern-day street gangs. As a result, novels set in Chicago often fall somewhere on the spectrum of crime fiction. Lori Rader-Day’s blood-tingling debut—a mystery so chock-full of suspense it’s best devoured in a single late-night reading session—imagines a different brand of violence in Chicago, a phenomenon that’s become all too familiar in the 21st century: school shootings.

Ten months ago, Rothbert University professor Amelia Emmet was shot in the gut by a male student she’d never met. Unfortunately, no one believes Amelia’s side of the story. She’s young, attractive and popular with students, so Chicago news media—as well as Amelia’s friends and colleagues—don’t understand why a complete stranger would shoot her before turning the gun on himself. “I don’t know what they all thought—that I baited a troubled kid, drove him insane with sex or quid pro quo grading practices, and then suffered the only outcome that made any sense? Got what I deserved? Asked for it? That was a phrase I’d come across more than once in the comments section of the student newspaper’s website.”

But if anyone can solve the mystery of her attempted murder, it’s Amelia. She’s a sociology professor who specializes in violence. With the help of painkillers and a walking cane, Amelia returns to Rothbert University, where she meets an earnest young graduate assistant named Nathaniel Barber who’s obsessed with the history of Chicago’s criminal underworld. There’s just one problem: He’s a little obsessed with Amelia, too. Together, they discover Amelia’s role in Rothbert’s shrouded pattern of death.

Rader-Day’s addictive prose is atmospheric and laced with dread. Rothbert’s lakeshore campus in the shadow of Chicago drips with dark secrets, and as in all good mysteries, every character is enigmatic and fascinating.

A perfect thriller for the summer, The Black Hour transcends the tropes and formulas of the mystery genre while deftly portraying academia and the city of Chicago as characters in their own right.

Cozy Mystery, Fiction, Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Fiction Mystery Cozy Mystery

Garden of malcontent

Review by Barbara Clark

by Barbara Clark

Orchids—missing ones, dead ones, rare ones, at a murder scene or a horticultural talk—they’re all over the place in popular Brit mystery author Catherine Aird’s new series procedural, Dead Heading, featuring the organic detective duo Sloan and Crosby, long-timers from more than 20 of her mysteries.

The thoughtful, philosophical Sloan and his sometimes off-the-wall partner Crosby are investigating the death of—you guessed it—a greenhouse full of orchids and plants, all on order for waiting customers. A party or parties unknown left the greenhouse door open on a frosty night, and the heating system was mysteriously on the fritz. Sloan is not sure what sort of criminal activity is involved, or why, but after an orchid specialist goes missing and two orchids are found adorning the dresser in the room of a murdered man, he suspects a culprit who may be more complicated than someone with a grudge against rare blooms.

DI Sloan visits the distraught greenhouse owner, Jack Haines, and his possibly duplicitous assistant Russ, then follows the dead orchid trail to a fledgling plant operation whose owners, Marilyn and Anna, have just suffered a similar loss. The detective learns that Marilyn’s ex is also Jack’s stepson, a coincidence with potentially deep roots. Simultaneously he runs the gamut of homeowners whose gardens were affected by the “kill,” including a well-heeled couple with no discernible aesthetic taste and their garden designer, Anthony Berra, who has to dig fast and furiously to replace what’s been lost.

The missing orchid specialist, Miss Enid Osgathorpe, turns out to be an elderly woman whose former work as a doctor’s secretary left her in possession of a lot of delicious information about her fellow townspeople, and Sloan suspects this may have provided fertile soil for blackmail.

Aird is an expert at creating seemingly innocent local characters going about their lives with a certain devious intent—providing readers with a good laugh and many a sly aside by DI Sloan, who can be a bit shrewd at noticing the quirks of his fellow townspeople.

The missing woman appears to be quite a piece of work, as those who knew her can attest, including old Admiral Catterick, a bit of a sly fox himself; the more timid Benedict Feakins; and some garden-variety landscape designers, greenhouses types and family hangers-on. The literary ground is all set to bear a fruitful harvest of murder and mayhem.

Mystery, YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA Mystery

Three teens track a ruthless killer

Review by Kimberly Giarratano

by Kimberly Giarratano

In the first in a thrilling new young adult mystery series from best-selling author April Henry, three teens join Portland’s Search and Rescue (SAR) team for very different reasons. For Nick, who lost his father in the Iraq War, volunteering with SAR represents true courage and leadership. For Alexis, SAR means overcoming a broken home and standing out on college applications. But for awkward and lonely Ruby, SAR is everything.

When the three teens are called in to find a lost autistic man, they find a dead girl instead. Ruby fears Portland has a serial killer targeting homeless girls, but the lead detective doesn’t believe her. Ruby, Nick and Alexis investigate the murder on their own—but the killer soon turns his attention to them.

Filled with facts about real crime scene investigations and search and rescue teams led by highly trained teenagers, this engaging new series will appeal to “CSI” fans and mystery readers alike.

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

This article was originally published in the July 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Suspense, YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA Suspense

Something witchy this way comes

Review by Jill Ratzan

by Jill Ratzan

Senior year is a stressful time, especially at the prestigious St. Joan’s Academy for Girls, outside of Boston. Between prepping for AP History pop quizzes, jostling for class rank and trying not to compete with her friends for top college acceptances, Colleen has enough on her mind even before a mysterious illness suddenly strikes the most popular girls in school. A media frenzy follows as more and more students show strange and varied symptoms. Possible explanations abound, but none seem right to Colleen until she makes an extraordinary connection.

The primary narrative is interrupted by interludes from another voice and time: Ann Putnam Jr., a teen whose accusations helped fuel the witch hunt in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. At first the two stories are connected only by Colleen’s research into Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. But as teenage social pressure, power struggles and unexplained illness combine, the narrative threads begin to intersect in subtle and revealing ways.

Even readers who initially suspect a link between St. Joan’s and Salem are likely to be surprised by Colleen’s conclusion and its reception. With echoes of Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly, Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma and even “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Conversion keeps readers guessing until—and even after—the last page.

This article was originally published in the July 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Katherine Howe for Conversion.

Fiction, Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Fiction Suspense

Unmoored overseas

Review by Amy Scribner

by Amy Scribner

An artfully ripped-from-the-headlines tale of college girls studying in Italy, Abroad is a riveting story about the intersection between jealousy and friendship.

Taz, an Irish girl studying in the ancient Etruscan town of Grifonia, spends her first weeks wandering around the city, lonely and lost. When she’s taken in by a group of Brits who, while not particularly kind, always seem to have money and find adventure, Taz is flattered. She spends more and more of her time with the self-named “B4,” who insist on buying her clothes and taking her to exclusive parties.

Taz’s American roommate, Claire, senses the girls are no good and warns Taz. But Taz, who’s never been part of an in-crowd, can’t bring herself to break it off, and things sour further when Taz and Claire fall for the same man. Their once-simple friendship hurtles toward an inevitable conclusion.

Abroad is gorgeously written, with a steady drumbeat of dread infusing every page. Loosely inspired by the Amanda Knox case, it is astonishingly self-assured and perfectly paced without ever taking on a whiff of tabloid sensationalism. Author Katie Crouch (Girls in Trucks) captures the intoxicating—and sometimes dangerous—freedom of being a young student with seemingly limitless choices.

This article was originally published in the July 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

An artfully ripped-from-the-headlines tale of college girls studying in Italy, Abroad is a riveting story about the intersection between jealousy and friendship.

Fiction, Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Fiction Mystery

After teen bullying, the truth will out

Review by Emily Bartlett Hines

by Emily Bartlett Hines

For most high school bullying victims, life eventually gets better. For Toni Murphy, her torment at the hands of a mean-girl clique turns into a nightmare she can’t escape.

As her senior year draws to a close, Toni is planning a future with her adored boyfriend Ryan. He’s the one bright spot in her life. At home, her overly strict mom disapproves of everything she does. Her “perfect” little sister Nicole always seems to make her look bad, while getting away with sneaking out and lying to their parents. And at school, she’s taunted by a popular girl group led by her ex-friend Shauna. Graduation can’t come soon enough

Then Nicole is found brutally murdered. Toni and Ryan are the only suspects, and Shauna’s crew testifies that they saw the two sisters fighting right before the murder. No one believes Toni’s side of the story, and she’s sent to prison.

That Night takes up Toni’s story 17 years later. She’s paroled and back in her hometown, but starting a new life isn’t so easy: Shauna is still nursing a grudge and is eager to get Toni fired or worse. Meanwhile, someone has been talking about what really happened on the night of the murder. Ryan wants her to help him find out more. Her parole decrees that she could be sent back to jail just for talking to him, but the lure of clearing her name is irresistible. Who killed Nicole? And what secrets was she keeping in the days before her death?

The narrative bounces back and forth between Toni’s post-parole and pre-prison life, deftly building suspense about Nicole’s fate. But it’s Toni’s richly depicted inner life that makes the book truly immersive. Chevy Stevens’ account of what it’s like to be powerless—whether as a grounded 12th-grader or a prison inmate—is pitch perfect (and relatable to anyone who’s ever been a teen). We see Toni grow from an impulsive girl to a guarded but good-hearted adult, and her desire for justice always rings true.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a behind-the-book essay from Chevy Stevens for That Night.

For most high school bullying victims, life eventually gets better. For Toni Murphy, her torment at the hands of a mean-girl clique turns into a nightmare she can’t escape.

Fiction, Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Fiction Suspense

Nothing is as it seems in this international sensation

Review by Barbara Clark

by Barbara Clark

The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, by Swiss author Joel Dicker, may not tell the truth about anything, so prepare to feel cleverly fooled and marvelously misled while reading this skillful, humorous, multilayered dissection of honesty, fame, misperception, obsession and murder.

In 1975 a teenage girl goes missing in a small town in New Hampshire. In 2008 her long-buried body is discovered on well-known novelist Harry Quebert’s property, and Harry is arrested. Harry’s former student and longtime friend, Marcus Goldman, also a best-selling novelist, is currently suffering from writer’s block. He comes to New Hampshire to support his friend and to try to unravel the crime (and maybe write a new bestseller in the process).

Marcus has discovered that he’s been able to create an illusion of excellence around his accomplishments: “All that was needed was to distort the way others perceived me; in the end, everything was a question of appearances.” This powerful theme runs throughout the book, as readers must choose among a plethora of surface appearances and decide what may lie beneath. A letter is posted; a manuscript moves from person to person; bruises bloom on a woman’s body; a black Chevrolet Monte Carlo whisks on and off the scene; a couple make plans to meet and run away together. None of these actions have a one-dimensional explanation. Rather than peeling away the story’s layers, each element becomes another viewpoint to confuse or betray.

What is the real truth about the Harry Quebert affair? This contemporary yet classic whodunit puts readers through the wringer—it’s a brainteaser par excellence. Succeeding chapters, cleverly reverse-numbered, offer ever more plausible scenarios for events that occurred in the summer of 1975, as revisited through official reports, eyewitness accounts and excerpts from the novels embedded in this tale. Events are presented as fact, and then appear chapters later in a totally different light, contradicting what came before. What’s behind Harry’s Lolita-like infatuation? Is Nola actually sweet and innocent? Are the police concealing evidence? What motivates Luther, the troubled chauffeur?

All this could get to be a bit much. But sit back, read Harry’s 31 rules for writers, and decide for yourself the truth behind this clever, confounding affair.

Fiction, Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Fiction Suspense

A tale of espionage as WWII looms

Review by Lizzie Davis

by Lizzie Davis

With his new historical spy novel Midnight in Europe, celebrated author Alan Furst brilliantly illuminates an era on edge, during the troubled time preceding World War II, when a dark cloud of civil unrest and war slowly begins to envelop Europe.

Furst’s cast of characters is an amalgam of backgrounds, from gangsters to aristocrats, all bystanders that are pulled into the fray: slipping notes, trading secrets and doing whatever else it takes to stay at the forefront of the rat race. One such person is Spanish émigré Cristián Ferrar, who has adapted to life in Paris as a successful international lawyer, and recently turned spy for the Spanish Republic. Thinking his involvement will be confined to the Paris Front, Ferrar soon finds himself gunrunning across Europe with arms merchant Max de Lyon. Furst compellingly illustrates Ferrar’s clandestine exploits across Nazi-sodden Germany, the shipyards of Poland and even as far-reaching as the brothels in Istanbul. Sexual appetite aside, Ferrar’s hesitancy to play hero is endearing. He feels a certain level of responsibility, but is unsure of his ability to change the course of history, which the reader knows all too well.

Whether it is your first or fifth encounter with Alan Furst, Midnight in Europe is a captivating recreation of the late 1930s. Though fans of Furst might question yet another pre-World War II novel, his mastery of the era lends the narrative highly authentic imagery. As soon as readers open the book, they will find themselves submerged into the exotic life of espionage and the spiraling fight against the Fascist and Nazi factions that permeated Europe.