Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan
James is a Member of Parliament and a crony of the current
Prime Minister. His wife Sophie feels
very lucky to have a loving, successful, handsome husband, a lovely home, and
two charming children. One woman
threatens to ruin it all with the secret she is about to reveal, but Sophie
doesn’t believe the young woman and vows to stand by James no matter what. Kate is the barrister who is to prosecute the
case, her specialty: high-profile sex crimes.
Kate is zealous in her prosecution as always, but this time is different
for Kate and she is determined James will be punished for his crimes…all of
them. Sophie and James have been
together since their time at Oxford, and there is something from those many
years ago that Sophie doesn’t know and could change everything if she finds
out. What starts out as a pretty
straight forward case…and story…quickly takes a sinister turn and takes readers
into dark places as the tension edges up and secrets are revealed.
The Vanishing Season by Joanna Schaffhausen
Ellery Hathaway is a police officer in the quiet suburb of
Woodbury, MA where she is sleeping with the chief of police, Sam, and where she
waits each July around her birthday for another resident to disappear. Ellery, once Abigail, is the only person who
survived the serial killer Francis Coben who is on death row. Yet for the past three years, someone has
sent Ellery an anonymous birthday card and shortly after someone disappears and
is never found. Sam doesn’t think there
is any connection to Ellery’s kidnapping so she turns to the one person she
thinks will help her, FBI agent Reed Markham, the man who rescued her, the man
who has written the book about her case, and the man who is currently on leave
from the FBI after a botched case.
Markham has to investigate unofficially, but when a pair of hands
belonging to the first young woman who disappeared, Coben’s signature was to
remove the victim’s hands, appear on Ellery’s front porch she knows she isn’t
crazy and is more determined than ever to solve the case before there is
another victim. This first novel by the
winner of the
Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition is full
of twists and turns, and damaged characters.
Though then ending may feel a little rushed, and in need of a more
detailed motive, there is enough interest to keep readers turning the pages as
they follow Ellery, Markham, and Ellery’s dog Speed Bump down the dark road
into Ellery’s past which has found its way into her present.
No comments:
Post a Comment