Mystery & Suspense Archives | Page 85 of 119 | BookPage

by Barbara Clark

In What the Cat Saw, multiple award-winning mystery writer Carolyn Hart has penned another can’t-put-down tale—the first in a series—and this one comes with a nice dash of romance.

Nela Farley has traveled out West to cat-sit—she’s filling in for her sister, Chloe, who was minding the cat upon the death of its owner, Marion Grant, one of her employers in the hotsy-totsy charitable Haklo Foundation in Craddock, Oklahoma. The plan is for Nela to perform Chloe’s secretarial duties at the foundation while the latter is sunning in Tahiti. She’s hot-footed it off with her boyfriend to the tropics, while Nela, still reeling from the death of her soldier fiancé, thinks a change of scene may be just the ticket.

The proverbial ticket, however, comes complete with an apartment break-in on the very first night of Nela’s arrival, and if that’s not enough, there’s Nela’s subsequent discovery of a glittering diamond and gold necklace in Marion Grant’s purse, left strangely untouched when the place was ransacked. To make matters even worse, are those the cat’s thoughts echoing around in Nela’s head? Jugs, the feline, appears to be communicating feelings of unease and dread that include the possibility that his former owner did not die accidentally.

To make matters even worse, are those the cat’s thoughts echoing around in Nela’s head?

The necklace and the circumstances surrounding Grant’s death form the backdrop for Nela’s first day at work. She learns of all the strange, angry occurrences that have occurred at the foundation over the past year, including the disappearance of—you guessed it—an heirloom diamond necklace belonging to the foundation’s trustee, Blythe Webster.

In practiced and satisfying fashion, Hart pulls in her readers, winding the threads of circumstance and drawing Nela in tighter and tighter as she gets to know the odd little group whose lives revolve around the foundation and whose lines of patience have been stretched with each small act of violence, culminating in another murder most foul.

Enter Steve Flynn, a rumpled, red-headed reporter for the Craddock Clarion. Steve’s eye for the truth, as well as his eye for Nela, enliven the activities, and after circling one another for a time, the two form a somewhat wary alliance to ferret out the culprit. This is a nicely fashioned whodunit guaranteed to keep readers’ interest right to the finish.

In What the Cat Saw, multiple award-winning mystery writer Carolyn Hart has penned another can’t-put-down tale—the first in a series—and this one comes with a nice dash of romance.

Nela Farley has traveled out West to cat-sit—she’s filling in for her sister, Chloe, who was minding…

Fiction, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Fiction

Caught up in the swift currents of time

Review by bookpagedev

by Harvey Freedenberg

“All this happened quite a few years ago.” With that unassuming, almost childlike opening sentence, Per Petterson introduces an evocative still-life portrait of the tender, difficult relationship between a mother and her adult son.

Set mainly in 1989 with flashbacks to the early 1970s, I Curse the River of Time—Petterson’s third novel to be published in English—traces a cancer-stricken woman’s journey from Norway to her childhood home in a windswept, seaside town in Denmark’s Jutland region. She’s followed there by her son Arvid Jensen, haunted by his impending divorce and the specter of his mother’s death. Arvid, a former Maoist who dropped out of college (over his mother’s fierce objection) to work in a printing plant as an idealistic demonstration of his solidarity with the working class, sees his youthful illusions dashed as the Communist empire collapses in Eastern Europe.

The novel’s title, drawn from a poem by Mao Zedong, introduces the theme of time’s inevitable passage that permeates the story. “The world unfolded in all its majesty,” Arvid thinks, “back in time, forward in time, history was one long river and we were all borne along by that river.” In a few fine brushstrokes, Petterson economically captures Arvid’s regret over the way lost time has robbed him of his chances to build an enduring emotional bond with his mother.

Petterson’s unaffected prose calls to mind Hemingway’s, and is especially well suited to both the novel’s autumnal Scandinavian setting and the tense interplay between Arvid and his mother. Even the story’s mostly quotidian moments—a parent’s 50th birthday party or a conversation between mother and son over Napoleon cakes and coffee—are roiled by powerful undercurrents of feeling. Petterson seems untroubled by any need to elaborate on the novel’s sometimes enigmatic events, like the moving scenes of Arvid’s younger brother on life support in an Oslo hospital or the relationship between Arvid’s mother and a Danish man named Hansen, but these omissions only serve to enhance its brooding tone.

With a body of work that’s attracting growing attention in this country, Per Petterson delivers novels that plumb the depths of character with tender insight. His latest, eloquent both in speech and in silence, is best read in the quiet hours of the night, when we’re most receptive to its meditative spell.

Set mainly in 1989 with flashbacks to the early 1970s, I…

Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Suspense

Conspiracies on steriods

Review by bookpagedev

by Tony Kuehn

FBI. CIA. LSD. JFK. USSR. If an acronym associated with the 1960s comes to mind, it’s likely to make an appearance in Shift. From acid-induced mind control to covert operations in Cuba, from a missing nuclear weapon to mass hallucinations, Shift runs a gamut that your inner conspiracy theorist will find delightful and provocative. Ever wonder if Timothy Leary was more than just a drug-addled ’60s cliché? Want to know who supplied JFK with his acid? All these, and many more, questions are considered with a wry aplomb that will keep skeptics on their toes and give the “what if” crowd enough ammunition for years to come.

Melchior, one of three “wise men” recruited by a CIA operative known as The Wiz, claws his way out of a newly sanctioned 1963 Cuba and back to his “Company” progenitors, only to find that he has been quietly swept under the rug and forgotten. Meanwhile, a Persian prostitute blackmailed by a CIA operative into giving various government targets covert doses of LSD finds that her latest mark—a career student with family ties in high places—holds the key to vast mental powers unlocked by the mind-altering properties of LSD. Add to this a freshly minted—and recently disenfranchised—FBI agent blindly seeking an answer to a question he doesn’t understand and you have the recipe for a massive, out-of-control conspiracy so unreal it almost sounds credible.

With its disparate but always converging narratives, reading Shift is like fighting a featherweight boxer. Always moving, constantly on its toes, it peppers you with small punches until, eventually, you succumb and it delivers the knockout. But oh, what a fight, and certainly one that is enjoyable and frenetic from start to finish. Written in deceptively simple language, luscious descriptions of everything from hallucinations to childhood memories to the fit of a dress on the Persian temptress spring from the page in a way that is evocative of the ’60s while also managing to stay out of the way of the sheer mania contained within the pages. For an engaging romp through the ’60s that never were, look no further than Shift.

Cozy Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Cozy Mystery

A whodunit for Jane Austen fans

Review by Barbara Clark

by Barbara Clark

Every chapter of Tracy Kiely’s new mystery, Murder Most Austen, begins with a pithy quote from Jane herself, the undisputed mistress of early 19^th-century British literary fiction. For Austenites, this is cause for celebration. What’s more, the story is packed with Austen allusions, and Kiely’s narrative combines a well-constructed plot with a nice and easy sense of humor.

Kiely has fashioned a series with strong, admiring links to Austen the Original. In this installment, the series heroine, Elizabeth Parker, has traveled with her aunt Winnie to Bath, England, to attend that city’s annual Jane Austen Festival. As usual, where Elizabeth goes, along comes a murder or two. The Anglophile young woman soon finds out that real murder in present-day England is not quite the same as the cozy plots of a bygone Jane Marple day.

An egocentric English professor from America has promised to deliver a paper at the festival that will turn Austen fans on their ears with its supposed revelations about what “really” lies behind the author’s writings. Quite a few people are mightily upset by his claims, including Cora, an old friend of Aunt Winnie. Cora can’t seem to let the professor’s ridiculous propositions die a natural death, and she confronts him at every opportunity. Thus, when the professor dies a very unnatural death, suspicion immediately falls on Cora. Elizabeth is drawn into the fray in order to prove Cora’s innocence.

Tracy Kiely’s many fans will welcome another installment in a series that brings the brilliant Jane Austen to the forefront.

The strange assortment of possible suspects includes the dead man’s wife, ex-wife and a lover or two; an exasperating Brit named John Ragget, who insists on showing off his local knowledge to all and sundry; the professor’s square-jawed assistant; Cora’s seemingly naïve daughter; and the nasty professor’s equally nasty daughter-in-law.

Another murder ups the ante, but faithful readers will likely uncover the villain at about the same time as Elizabeth, who ends up confronting the real killer with—I might venture to say—a very unlikely final thrust. But then, this is fiction, and Kiely’s many fans will welcome another installment in a series that brings the brilliant Austen to the forefront.

Cozy Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Cozy Mystery

The super-dog detective is back

Review by Barbara Clark

by Barbara Clark

As sole proprietors of the Little Detective Agency, canine detective Chet and his (human) friend Bernie are at it again in A Fistful of Collars. After the mayor of Bernie’s Southwest desert hometown (“the Valley”) successfully promotes the area as a location for the newest Thad Perry blockbuster film, the pair act as minders for the popular but problem-ridden actor. Turns out the oddly winsome Thad has a way-back connection to the Valley. No one in his entourage seems to want his past known . . . maybe badly enough to kill?

As in his four previous books, author Spencer Quinn features the indomitable Chet as narrator, and you’ll never have a dull moment as the cocky canine wags his way into your affections. The book is full of hilarious verbal fly-bys, and these Chet-isms are what give the books their inventive humor, as Chet alternately misses the point or gets it with bells on. He explains that an idea can slip right by him, a fact he quickly accepts: “My mind shrank away from the thought. Always a surprisingly nice feeling when my mind did that: I had one of those minds that was on my side, if you know what I mean, which I actually don’t.”

You’ll never have a dull moment as the cocky canine wags his way into your affections.

The quiet Bernie (one wishes he’d say more) is hopeless with expressing feelings, especially toward the opposite sex; and he’s a loser at finances. But as the brains behind the operation, he has a fine-tuned sense of what’s going on in people’s heads, exacting the crucial truth from troubled suspects. Chet contributes his superior doggie hearing and speed, and he has a wonderful sense of what’s buried inside the human heart, fueling those human needs that sometimes confuse him. Bernie puts ‘em on the spot, Chet gets ‘em by the collar.

This book contains some fascinating cameo roles: a smallish dog barking from the desert outside Bernie’s gate; a frightening killer dog named Outlaw; and Brando, a silky-smooth, golden-eyed cat who belongs to Thad. Chet’s full of surprises, and they frequently surprise him, too. We hope that Quinn (a k a well-known author Peter Abrahams) doesn’t tire of this, pardon me, arresting pair.

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery

Mystery in Morocco

Review by Barbara Clark

by Barbara Clark

Grab your geography book and ’fess up that you don’t really know that much about the British colony of Gibraltar, or about the current politics between “The Rock” and its contiguous country, Spain. But Thomas Mogford’s debut crime novel, Shadow of the Rock, sets us straight on all things Gibraltar as he introduces Spike Sanguinetti, a Gibraltarian tax attorney and amateur detective with a strong taste for finding out the truth of a matter.

The attorney’s story takes one exotic turn after another as he travels to the Moroccan city of Tangier, just nine miles away across the Strait of Gibraltar. He’s looking for answers—and a murderer—as his old friend Solomon Hassan sits in a Gibraltar jail, accused of cutting the throat of a Spanish woman, stepdaughter of one of his employers in Tangier. Hassan, presumed guilty, has escaped to Gibraltar, and the authorities in Tangier want him back to stand trial.

This tightly written, highly readable story needs no car chases or special effects to lure readers into an all-night read.

Spike seeks information in Tangier from Hassan’s employers at the mysterious but high-flying renewable energy company Dunetech, poised to extend its multi-national control with an enormous solar energy site under construction in the Sahara. The attorney sets out to untangle the web of deceit and corruption at the energy giant. He also traverses the bars and back alleys of the famous Moroccan city, and travels into the desert with a young Bedouin girl, where he encounters the gleaming solar array, not to mention the ancient Bedouin tradition of Bisha’a (a painful lie detection ritual)—to his extreme discomfort.

Mogford assigns a starring role to the politics and locations of this romantic and captivating region, where the exotic locales are the stuff of old Bogart movies. This tightly written, highly readable story needs no car chases or special effects to lure readers into an all-night read. There’s an appealing cast of characters: Dunetech high mucky-mucks Nadeer Ziyad and Ángel Castillo; robed and turbaned Bedouins; a corrupt Tangier bar owner; and Spike’s inventive hotel neighbor, Jean-Baptiste, with his exquisite knowledge of the highways and backways of Tangier. The intriguing chemistry between Spike and a police officer named Jessica will assure her return in upcoming sequels.

Spike will turn your head in this engrossing new series. Attractively, he seems to be free of the quick-comeback, wise-cracking demeanor that mars so many of today’s fast-track detectives. A follow-up novel, The Sign of the Cross, is in the works.

Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Suspense

A cheerleading nightmare

Review by Barbara Clark

by Barbara Clark

Who knows better than “us girls” how cruel young women can be, especially to one another? Perhaps you remember, some years back, the mean and awful dealings amongst the ladies in books such as Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye.

Megan Abbott’s heart-stopping new novel, Dare Me, ups the ante on girl competition and angst, dropping readers into today’s high school milieu, complete with deceit and bullying, dangerously updated in high-tech fashion. Written in insistent, startling prose, the tense narrative excels at dramatic imagery as we step into a world where at times we wish we could avert our eyes. The reckless plot never lets up and will get under your skin.

Dare Me introduces readers to a group of elite, varsity cheerleaders who don’t seem to have anything truly useful to do with their toned, bulemic bodies except continue to abuse them. The hard-driving squad has a new coach, and her arrival unseats Beth, a student, from the top of the control echelon. The other girls fall under the spell of the calm and perfectionist Coach Colette French, who’s poised to challenge the team to a whole new level of gymnastic excellence.

Poised on the edge of beauty and darkness, Dare Me is a book you won’t soon forget.

What happens when this teenage hierarchy is thrown into disarray, and control slips from one person to another? Mix drinking, drugging and dieting with the high-tech communication devices these teens can’t escape, and you get a volatile and claustrophobic mix where chips are indeed going to fall. In a tightly constructed series of ominous scenes, Abbott produces a dark story that culminates in a disaster readers knew would occur, as cell phones vibrate back and forth like cunning, insistent hearts.

And speaking of falling, what about the high-flying new 2-2-1 pyramid routine that Coach is training the girls for? Who will soar and who will fail? We’re left with the nagging, unanswered question of what exactly drives these young women, and what might give their lives a lighter hue. As it is, they badly want to be an organic part of their small, compact troupe. Coach urges them on: “A pyramid isn’t a stationary object. It’s a living thing. . . . The only moment it’s still is when you make it still, all your bodies one body, until … we blow it all apart.”

Poised on the edge of beauty and darkness, Dare Me is a book you won’t soon forget.

Megan Abbott’s heart-stopping new novel, Dare Me, ups…

Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Suspense

Thrilling conclusion to a landmark trilogy

Review by bookpagedev

by Bruce Tierney

The final volume of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, finds neo-punk and genius hacker Lisbeth Salander recuperating from a bullet to the brain. She’s in no hurry to get better: A multiple-murder trial awaits her recovery. She has wreaked vengeance on her tormentors, who conspired to imprison her for most of her teen years. A few are dead, and the rest are scurrying to cover their tracks and somehow neutralize her before she can incriminate them. So was it murder, or self-defense? Or is there just the slightest possibility that Salander is, if not entirely innocent, at least not guilty in the eyes of the law?

Helping Salander from outside is renegade journalist Mikael Blomkvist, at times the focus of Salander’s affections, and more recently the object of her unbridled loathing. Blomkvist isn’t exactly sure how he fell from her graces, and she has not been forthcoming with the answer; indeed, she rebuffs his every advance. And so this uneasy pair labors, sometimes at odds, sometimes in parallel, in pursuit of Salander’s freedom.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest neatly ties together all the loose ends from the previous two cliffhangers, yet it still leaves the reader yearning for more. At the time of his death, Larsson left behind an unfinished manuscript of what would have been the fourth book in the series, and synopses of the fifth and sixth. Sadly, we will probably never see them, at least not as the author intended.

Cozy Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Cozy Mystery

Adventures of a Scottish philosopher

Review by bookpagedev

by Joanne Collings

I’ve been told all my life that I think too much, so I was delighted to make the acquaintance of Isabel Dalhousie, a 40-ish spinster, Edinburgh resident, editor of Review of Applied Ethics and the heroine of Alexander McCall Smith’s Sunday Philosophy Club series of novels. Isabel is, by profession and by personal inclination, a thinker. She thinks about everything, from the moral difficulties caused by chocolate, to economics, to age differences (the old have been young, but the young have not been old, so “[i]t was a bit like discussing a foreign country with somebody who has never been there”).

Isabel is easily drawn into others’ lives, including those of strangers. When she meets a recent heart transplant patient who tells her about the strange, life-threatening visions he’s been having, Isabel becomes involved, researching the theory of cellular memory and investigating the lives of those who might have been her new friend’s donor. Ever self-aware, Isabel recognizes that her motives are open to interpretation, acknowledging that “some would call it indecent curiosity. Even nosiness.” Isabel is appealing because she’s so human. She’s in love with Jamie, a musician younger than she who is still in love with Isabel’s niece Cat, who is no longer in love with him. Isabel’s only romance ended badly and she worries that “men don’t like women who think too much.” She’s well-off, but lonely, reflecting as she makes her way home from a concert that “nothing awaited her at home but the solace of the familiar.” McCall Smith is a lovely writer (the dead are described as being “like a cloud of love, against which weather we conduct our lives”) and, although his books are often called mysteries, readers not interested in that genre should still enjoy this novel. It’s a wonderful addition to the fall reading season.

I've been told all my life that I think too much, so I was delighted to make the acquaintance of Isabel Dalhousie, a 40-ish spinster, Edinburgh resident, editor of Review of Applied Ethics and the heroine of Alexander McCall Smith's Sunday Philosophy Club series of…

Historical Fiction, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Historical Fiction

Jack Kennedy, spy

Review by Barbara Clark

by Barbara Clark

Hitler has begun his march across Europe, and the United States and England are locked in denial. It’s 1939, just at the dawn of the intelligence era in U.S. politics. A 22-year-old Jack Kennedy, restless and very ill, is preparing to travel through Europe gathering research for his senior thesis. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, one of a minority of politicians who see the deadly war with Germany looming, enlists the young traveler to keep his eyes and ears open to discover the source of a fund of German money that’s entering the United States; Hitler’s trying to buy the American election, defeat FDR and seat an isolationist in the White House.

Like where this is going so far? That’s just the tip of the iceberg in the riveting Jack 1939, Francine Mathews’s latest spy thriller. Mathews, who’s had spy training and investigative experience as a CIA intelligence analyst, has effectively combined her knowledge of the politics and personalities of that era with a slam-bang plot of espionage and drama.

Francine Mathews has effectively combined her knowledge of the politics and personalities of 1939 with a slam-bang plot of espionage and drama.

The author creates a dramatic, unusual picture of young Jack, ill to near death with an as-yet unnamed disease that sends him to the Mayo Clinic and through the care of countless medicos. He’s intelligent, curious, irresistible to women, volatile and desperate—with “the fog called boredom or death hovering just over his left shoulder.” Riding on the Kennedy family reputation as pleasure-seeking social climbers, he’s able to close in on the seats of Nazi power without initially being counted a threat.

Filled with memorable characters both fictional and historical, Mathews provides an edge-of-the-seat journey, filled with haunting images that readers won’t soon forget. On the one hand, Jack must deal with his own father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., Ambassador to England and an ardent isolationist with tunnel vision. On the other, he must deal with “the Spider,” a Nazi thug intent on seeing Jack permanently among the missing. Mathews presents a rogue’s gallery of real historical figures, drawn with color and imagination, including the canny Roosevelt, a turtle-backed J. Edgar Hoover and the hard-drinking Winston Churchill, all poised at the brink of devastating war. The author draws on her knowledge of the Kennedys for an astonishing take on private scenes she imagines among them.

Aficionados of espionage fiction, history, the Kennedy family, World War II and seat-of-the-pants excitement will devour this book, a must-read story that stands out from the pack. It’ll make you want to turn back to your history books once again.

Cozy Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Cozy Mystery

An upper-class murder mystery

Review by Barbara Clark

by Barbara Clark

Amateur investigator Dandy Gilver is an upper-class lady who solves upper-class crimes, along with her friend Alec Osborne. Her aristocratic approach gets a little tattered around the edges as she inserts herself into a household of folks who do not welcome her, but she has her breakthrough moments in Dandy Gilver and An Unsuitable Day for Murder, the sixth book in Catriona McPherson’s popular post-World War I series.

Dandy’s been called to the Scottish town of Dumfermline by a member of the Aitken family. She’s there to find young Mirren Aitken, whose family owns the Aitken Emporium, a solid, staid department store that’s celebrating its solid, staid 50th anniversary. Turns out the family’s afraid that Mirren has run off to elope with Dugald Hepburn, youngest son of the owners of House of Hepburn, the other department store in town. A major rivalry fit for the Capulets and Montagues keeps the two families far apart, each the other’s nemesis.

During the anniversary celebration at the Emporium, Dandy discovers Mirren horrifically dead, with her mother alongside holding a revolver. With this, the story is off and running, with a determined Dandy pursuing an elusive scenario well after the police have deemed the death a suicide.

Despite her aristocratic airs, Dandy is not above disturbing the crime scene, pursuing her own line of questioning and continuing to interfere in the lives of both the Hepburns and Aitkens after they’ve told her to get lost. Occasionally, she seems on the verge of noticing her behavior: “If anyone were ever to find out that Alec and I had come along like a pair of gangsters’ heavies and intimidated a grieving family this way after being told to leave them alone . . . we would never work again,” she thinks. However, Dandy is not to be deterred from wresting a criminal from the depths of this sad, tortured family, even if it might be better to leave well enough alone.

Keep your Hepburn/Aitken family trees handy—they are conveniently provided—and your thinking cap on; you’ll need them, as confusion mounts in the “who’s who” of siblings and parents. What better place than this story to apply Sir Walter Scott’s famous line, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave / When first we practice to deceive.” Readers will keep guessing right up to the endgame in this startling tale.

Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Fiction Mystery Historical Fiction

Searching for Jack the Ripper

Review by Barbara Clark

by Barbara Clark

One of the lasting attractions of Alex Grecian’s debut historical crime novel, The Yard, is the fascinating way it lets readers in on the dramatic differences and particulars of another era without seeming ponderous or lecture-y.

Grecian, a well-known graphic novelist, applies his skills as a wordsmith here, giving readers an on-the-spot, intimate picture of London in 1889—what it’s like to be lost in the underground warrens of a London workhouse; visit a hospital filled with the poor and dying; or witness first-hand the rudimentary methods of a London pathology lab, just beginning to make the jump into what will shortly become modern forensic science.

The heart of The Yard involves the 12-member “Murder Squad,” a newly created unit of London’s Metropolitan Police Force (soon to become Scotland Yard). The Squad works under the leadership of police commissioner Sir Edward Bradford, a daunting figure with a dry sense of humor and a perceptive grasp of his men and his times. Accustomed to the numbing ordeal of everyday crimes resulting from street robbery, domestic violence and poverty, the Squad has failed to stop Jack the Ripper’s recent rampage of terror and is just beginning to struggle with this “new breed of killer”—one who may kill for enjoyment or to follow the dictates of some inner demon.

After one of their own is dispatched in especially grisly fashion, the remaining members of the Murder Squad are determined to catch the killer. Inspector Walter Day is new to London, but is tapped to head up the investigation, and he works closely with Dr. Bernard Kingsley, one of England’s first forensic pathologists and a man of immense importance, as he tries to make use of the new science of fingerprinting to break the case. Day, Kingsley and the rest of the men head out onto London’s streets, and the narrative swings back and forth among the detectives as they go about their tasks in a kind of Victorian Hill Street Blues fashion, while several odd crimes snake around and begin connecting up with their investigation.

Day and his men meet up with a couple of intriguing street people, including Blackleg, a streetwise ne’er-do-well who has a soft spot for an honest cop, and the marvelous “dancing man,” a keeper character if ever there was one. Readers who enter The Yard’s world-on-the-edge-of-change will be counting days until the sequel, hoping to meet some of these great characters again.

Grecian, a well-known graphic novelist, applies his skills as a…

Fiction, Mystery & Suspense, Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Fiction Suspense

Fleeing an ex-lover’s obsession

Review by Stephenie Harrison

by Stephenie Harrison

Every woman has an ex-lover she would rather forget. Catherine Bailey knows the feeling all too well: Prior to Lee Brightman, Catherine was carefree, with a tight circle of friends, and enjoyed frequent nights out on the town filled with dancing, drinking and the occasional tryst. When she attracts the attentions of sexy and captivating Lee, she cannot believe her luck. But as their relationship deepens, Lee’s dark side begins to emerge, leaving Catherine unbalanced, alone and fearing for her life.

Years after their relationship has violently ended, Lee has made indelible marks on Catherine’s body and her mind. Suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder wrapped in a layer of post-traumatic stress disorder, she is ruled by constant anxiety and compulsive behaviors that keep her locked away from the rest of the world, chained down better than any torture Lee could have devised. Catherine has long felt that no matter how far she runs, she will always carry Lee with her and that it is only a matter of time before he finds her.

Elizabeth Haynes has made quite an entrance into the world of literary thrillers: Into the Darkest Corner was named Amazon U.K.’s Best Book of 2011 and the film rights have already been purchased. The acclaim is well earned, as Haynes is a master at building tension to unbearable heights, and her thorough and thoughtful exploration of the psychological fallout of abuse adds a unique layer to the story. Having worked as an intelligence analyst for the police, Haynes mines her extensive experience to write with an authority and vividness that makes the story frighteningly real. Readers, take heed: This novel does not pussyfoot around the reality of domestic violence, but instead pays testament to it in exceedingly graphic detail. Dark and twisted, Into the Darkest Corner is a terrifying thriller, and the only breaks you’re likely to take while reading it will be to triple-check the locks on your doors and windows.

RELATED CONTENT
Read an interview with Elizabeth Haynes about Into the Darkest Corner.