The fun of reading Dutch author Herman Koch is his constant questioning of normal human behavior. His commentary on etiquette and the trappings of wealth is hilariously biting; it’s like standing next to the cynical party guest who keeps you laughing all night by mocking the pretentious host. And just like that funny guy at the party, Koch can go from companionable to creepy before you realize what changed. He did it in his stateside breakout book, The Dinner, when a simple meal turned twisted, and Summer House with Swimming Pool is no different: We watch as a happy family vacation grows complicated and dark.

This time, our misanthropic narrator is Marc, doctor to the stars. His patients are artists, writers and actors who are co-dependent more than anything else, relying on Marc’s reassurance and attention more than his medical opinion. He spends his time counting the minutes until his patients leave and yawning his way through their performances. He’s not disillusioned by wealth so much as utterly bored by it.

Or is he? One of Marc’s patients is Ralph Meier, a big, hulking actor who seems to get whatever he wants. The good doctor is both repulsed and intrigued by Ralph, and he’s obsessed with learning what makes him tick—to the point of borderline stalking the actor’s family on their summer vacation.

Koch has assembled all the elements for a good summer thriller, but his style is a bit unsettling. Just when you begin to connect with the characters, he zooms wide and you lose focus. It’s fun to peek inside the windows of the rich, but it’s frustrating to be kept outside, and these characters never really let you in. They’re always hiding something, and just like in The Dinner, the real mystery here is the human condition. Summer House with Swimming Pool describes a world where hopelessly damaged people live perfect-looking lives, where all is not as it seems, and where the shadows overtake the sunshine. One thing’s for sure—Koch is not afraid to take us to the dark side.

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

Rafe Solmes is a Bath, England, literature professor who has just finished a book on fairy tales, but his interest in gruesome stories like “Bluebeard” and “The True Bride” is far from academic. When Clarissa, a university assistant, lets him walk her home one night, she discovers a sinister side to this seemingly harmless scholar. An obsessive master manipulator who won’t take no for an answer, Rafe is soon everywhere she is—lurking outside her apartment at all hours, sending increasingly threatening gifts and even turning her friends against her. 

Clarissa’s life is quickly consumed by the need to predict his next move. Then she’s selected to serve as a juror on a seven-week court case. In the jury box, she finds refuge from Rafe’s attentions, but the trial brings its own terrors. The victim’s testimony—she was kidnapped and raped as payback for a drug deal gone bad—offers a frightening premonition of Clarissa’s own future if she can’t escape her pursuer. As the trial plays out, the defense attorneys methodically pick apart the victim’s credibility, recasting her ordeal as a willing exchange of sex for drugs. Clarissa learns a chilling lesson: “That’s what happens when you press charges, when you complain. They just rape you up there all over again and say you’re a prostitute.”

Clarissa delays going to the police, even as her plight becomes more urgent. The Book of You, like many a fairy tale, features a heroine who’s naturally timid and mild-mannered. But as the weeks pass, this seemingly passive protagonist realizes she must act to save her own life, and she decides to bring Rafe down by finding out the truth about his past.

Clarissa’s burgeoning romance with a hunky fellow jurist provides a narrative bright spot. Still, The Book of You is a frighteningly intimate—and accurate—portrayal of stalking. Through Clarissa’s eyes, we see the ragged nerves, sleepless nights and paranoia brought about by Rafe’s “romantic” obsession. First-time author Claire Kendal draws readers into a taut, compulsively readable tale of pursuit and escape.

Are beginnings all that discernible from endings? Or do events and memories just pile up and bleed together, leaving one to question how things ended up that way?

In Jan Elizabeth Watson’s second novel, What Has Become of You, Vera Lundy faces just these questions. She is a seemingly accomplished woman—a Princeton grad with 40 years of wisdom—but she is wavering through life. Having recently broken off an engagement and job-hopping for the past decade, Vera has nothing to call her own but a sparse 32-page true-crime manuscript about a killer who impacted her hometown. Hoping to gain some stability, she accepts a long-term substitution position at an all-girl preparatory school in the small town of Dorset, Maine, which is recovering from its own recent murder of a young girl.

Vera sympathizes with Jensen Willard, the school’s outcast, who is equipped with a fierce intellect and a penchant for the macabre. The dark-humored girl reminds Vera of her younger self and the problems she faced growing up, and the two form a small bond. Jensen is a proficient writer—even by prep-school standards—and the intensity of Jensen’s personal essays engrosses Vera, pulling her down the rabbit hole. Soon the darkness within Jensen’s journals become more than a 15-year-old girl blowing of steam, begging the question of how far she will go to refine her craft.

The storyline is sporadic at times, creating more questions than answers, which ultimately works in Watson’s favor and leaves the reader guessing until the very end. Even if the plot leaves something to be desired, stylistically the book soars with smart, well-structured sentences that tantalize the literary senses. This entertaining tale of psychological suspense is perfect for a reader dipping his or her toe into the thriller genre for the first time.

There’s a stranger in Claudia Morgan-Brown’s house. The Birmingham, England, social worker has what should be an enviable life: Newly married to a wealthy naval officer, she lives in a palatial house and is step-parenting his adorable twin boys. And after a string of heartbreaking miscarriages with her ex, she’s finally expecting a baby girl of her own. But there’s a problem: the new live-in nanny, Zoe Harcomb. Although this apparent super-nanny has a perfect resume, something about Zoe—a childless woman who “stares longingly at [Claudia’s] pregnant stomach”—just doesn’t seem right.

The tension ratchets up as Claudia’s husband prepares to leave on a long submarine voyage, and a series of brutal murders of local pregnant women stumps local law enforcement. The novel’s narration is shared among Claudia, Zoe and Lorraine Fisher, a police officer investigating the murders even as her marriage threatens to fall apart and her teenage daughter announces she’s leaving home. As these women’s lives become more entangled, the novel reveals the raw need and desperate yearning that often lie behind the idealized state of motherhood. Zoe wonders, “Would [Claudia] understand that I probably want—no, need her baby more than she does?”

Samantha Hayes, author of four previous suspense novels, builds tension skillfully, revealing and concealing just enough to keep readers riveted. The story’s twists and turns recall such female-focused suspense tales as Rebecca and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, culminating in a final revelation that is truly jaw-dropping. But it’s the novel’s use of iconic female fears—the loss of a beloved child, an intimate enemy under one’s own roof—that really get under the reader’s skin. The events of this plot may be lurid, but the emotions they’re grounded in are very real.