This stand-alone by the award winning author of the Ruth
Galloway series is a tribute to Gothic literature and doesn’t miss any tropes
along the way. Clare Cassidy is a
secondary school English teacher in West Sussex, and a single mom to teenaged
Georgie. She is writing a biography of
writer R.M. Holland who once lived in the building were her school Talgarth
High, is currently housed. The school is
as gothic a setting as one could hope for and it is said that Holland’s wife
fell down the stairs to her death and still haunts the schools, and that when
her ghost appears, a death will follow.
No one has claimed to see the ghost, but then Clare’s colleague and
close friend is murdered, a note quoting Holland’s most famous short story “The
Stranger” left near the body. As police
investigate, they are very interested in Clare, especially when Clare shows
them that she has just found a line in her diary that she did not write,
written in the same hand as the note near the body. The story, told from three points of view:
Clare’s, her daughter Georgie’s, and the Sikh policewoman investigating the
case, unravels slowly, the haunted house, the specter of Halloween, and Gothic
literature as an inspiration for a murder, until a rather surprising
conclusion, and an almost light-hearted epilogue.
The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner
In 1943, German-American Elise Sontag’s father is arrested
as a threat to America even though he and his wife have been in America almost
two decades. Eventually, he and his
family are reunited and relocated to Crystal City, an internment camp in
Texas. There, 14-year-old Elise meets
Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American teenager whose family has also been
relocated. The girls promise each other
they will live in Manhattan after the war, but after the Sontags are
repatriated to Germany and the Inoues to Japan, the girls lose touch. Now in her eighty’s, Elisa, who married and
returned to the US, seeks out Mariko who she learns is dying in
California. Elise decides to make one
last trip to see her dear friend and learn about her life since the two parted
nearly seventy years ago. Meissner’s
keen attention to historical details allows for a feeling of immediacy during the
later years of World War II, including the hatreds and prejudice that lingered
long afterwards. Told almost exclusively
from Elise’s point of view, a compelling story to be sure, more of Mariko’s
struggles would have rounded out this lovely story of friendship lost and found
even more. A www.libraryreads.org pick for
March.
The Last Woman in the Forest by Diane Les Becquets
Marian Engstrom joins a conservation group in Alberta
tracking caribou, a job she loves: working outdoors in the wilderness with
dogs. She becomes involved with Tate,
one of the team leaders and is devastated when she learns of his death, but
also a bit uneasy as during their relationship there were things Tate said that
didn’t quite add up to Marian, including his claim that he found the body of
one of the Stillwater Creek victims.
Marian reaches out to Nick Shepard, the profiler who worked on the cases
and all too soon she is drawn into the investigation, all the while feeling
someone is watching her. The stark
detailed beauty of the wilderness mirrors the detachment of many of the
characters who often bond better with the animals than each other. A www.libraryreads.org pick for
March.
Call Me Evie by J. P. Pomare
Seventeen-year-old Kate Bennet doesn’t’ know why she is
locked in a New Zealand beach cabin far from her home in Melbourne; she doesn’t
know the man who is keeping her, no why he says he is her uncle Jim, and why he
calls her Evie. She just knows she did
something very wrong in Melbourne and that he says he is hiding her to project
her. As snippets of her memory return,
she wonders if she can really trust Jim and if he is really hiding her or
holding her hostage. Kate becomes more
desperate as she tries to work out what she did, why she is here, and who she
can trust. This addictive psychological
suspense hits all the right notes, and is put together well save for a final
nudge that is needed to work up to the big reveal.
My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing
Millicent and her husband have found a way to keep their
marriage alive and interesting after fifteen years: they murder young
women. One of them changes the rules and
suspicion falls on a possible serial killer from the past, the investigation
into several unsolved murders of young women rackets up, revealing more secrets
about the couple than either thought they knew.
Can this marriage be saved? This
twisted dark novel will have readers guessing until the very end. The Number One www.libraryreads.org pick for
March.
This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism by Ashton
Applewhite
Blogger and TED speaker Applewhite quietly, but firmly,
rails against ageism, in this entertaining and informative book, a collective
of her wisdom and beliefs. Overall,
people are living longer, working longer, playing longer, and want to remain
independent as long as possible. She
addresses stereotypes, and affirms that
it’s okay to age and grow old, offering broad advice on how to age gracefully,
and well.
The Good Detective by John McMahon
Detective P.T. Marsh was going far in the police department
in Mason Falls, Georgia before a car accident killed his wife and young son the
year before. No he drinks heavily and
doesn’t always make good choices.
Agreeing to rough up the abusive boyfriend of a stripper becomes one of
those bad choices when the man, with Neo-Nazi tattoos, is found dead the next
morning, P.T.’s fingerprints all over the scene. The discovery of a fifteen-year old black
teenager, partially burned with a rope around his neck, in a burned out field
sends P.T. and his partner Remy off on a trail of hate that may lead back to
the dead man, but the solution seems too pat to P.T. and he begins to did
further into things, finding ties to prominent local business men and
politicians, and stretching back as far as the Civil War. A good sense of place, a well-plotted
investigation, and a flawed main character make his debut one to watch.
In the Blink of an Eye by Jesse Blackadder
Beginning to settle in after moving from Tasmania to
mainland Australia, the unthinkable happens to the Brennan family and threatens
to tear them apart. One morning, Finn
sets to his work as an artist in his studio in the backyard, teenage son Jarrah
heads off to school, while Finn’s wife Bridget gets ready to leave for her job
as a marine biologist, a routine that is a little different than usual. Bridget takes her eyes off of their
two-year-old son Toby for a few minutes and he vanishes; he is found floating
in the pool, drowned. What follows, is
the unfolding of each family member’s roll in Toby’s life and death, their
guilt, and their grief. The narrative is
interestingly and effectively told from the viewpoints of each family member:
Finn’s in the third person, giving the most distance from the story; Jarrah’s
in the first person, giving a sense of loss and immediacy, and Bridget’s as if
she is musing over the events, almost in a trance-like state. With the police involved and an arrest made,
suspicions, anger, and guilt build even more, providing an additional layer of
tension to this heart-breaking plot, beautifully rendered.
The Gardener of Eden by David Downie
James Adams, recently widowed, retired judge, returns to the
now dying timber town of Carverville, California, a town he left almost
forty-years ago, both he and the town a little worse for the wear. He finds himself helping the chatting owner of
Eden Seaside Resort Cottages, Beverley, doing gardening and yardwork with Taz,
a teenager whose brilliance and talents may go unused unless he is able to get
out of the small town. When the two make
a terrible discovery, a feral hog trap, James knows they have unleashed a past
he hoped not to face again, but one he must, all the same, in his hometown
which has become a dystopian police state.
Literate, with many Sherlockian references, and heavy handed in places,
this novel, an homage to the beauty of the rural wilderness of the Pacific
Northwest.
Murder Once Removed by S. C. Perkins
Austin, Texas genealogist Lucy Lancaster has been hired by
billionaire Gus Halloran to do his family tree; Gus has just announced that
Texas senator Caleb Applewhite murdered Seth Halloran…in 1849. Lucy isn’t so sure: she has a photo that
shows another man may be guilty. As Lucy
digs into the Halloran family history she stirs up a lot of trouble, brings in
the FBI, and gets involved in a modern day murder in this debut mystery that
won the 2017 Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery contest. Armchair sleuths and amateur genealogists
should be prepared to be charmed.
Too Much is Not Enough by Andrew Rannells
This deceptively light and breezy memoir chronicles Andrew
Rannells’s (The Book of Mormon)
journey to New York City from Omaha.
Andrew always loved live stage, and knew he was gay (though he didn’t
come out to his family until three days before he left for Marymount College in
Manhattan). In 1997 he finally has his
chance to realize his dreams: but arriving in New York, things are a little
different than he expects, but he is anxious to try everything, and try most
things he does. He sets his sights on
Broadway, and never waivers until he finds himself standing among the cast of Hairspray ready to make his debut. Rannells is painfully honest, never forgets
his family or where he came from, and driven to succeed in this honest,
touching, humorous look at one man achieving his dreams and what he went
through to do so.
The Lost Night by Andrea Bartz
Lindsey is living and working as a fact checker for a
magazine in New York City and feels as if she has her life together. Gone are her hipster days of 2009, hanging
with friends in Calhoun Lofts in pre-gentrified Bushwick, Brooklyn, but she’s
okay with that and has tried to put that behind her. When her friend Sarah reaches out to her, the
two discuss the evening in August 2009 when their friend Edie committed
suicide. The two women have different
recollections of the events of that night and Lindsey begins to question
whether or not Edie killed herself or if she was murdered. Lindsey, who has had drunken blackouts, some
ending with violence, more than once, reaches out to the other friends she
Sarah, and Edie hung out with, reconstructs e-mails, and finds the files on her
video camera, each step bringing her closer to the truth of what happened that
night, and the truth may be closer to her than she can imagine. Tightly plotted with gritty writing at times,
this debut thriller captures the atmosphere of young adults ready to take on
the world.
Baby of the Family by Maura Roosevelt
When the patriarch of the Whitby family dies, he leaves
behind an empire including hotels, houses in several cities. Four times
married, Roger has nine children, including the son of his fourth wife he
adopted, the son to whom he leaves his entire fortune: except no one can find
Nick. Nick is running underground after
having participated in an act of terrorism against a corporation in Maine, his
co-participants having been arrested.
Half-sisters Shelley and Brooke are concerned that they will lose the
Roger owned homes they are living in as each deals with her own set of
problems: Shelley has dropped out of
college, her mother is in and out of mental hospitals, and is working as an
assistant to a blind author, a situation that becomes uncomfortable on several
levels. Brooke, an emergency room nurse
in Boston, has recently become pregnant by her fiancé, but would rather be with
her girlfriend Allie. These three
half-and step-siblings form an uneasy alliance as they sort out their lives in
this assured debut from the from the great-granddaughter of Franklin and
Eleanor Roosevelt.
While You Sleep by Stephanie Merritt
American painter Zoe Adams comes to the McBride house on a
remote Scottish Island, seeking refuge, and perhaps forgiveness. There is a pall of unrest over the house, and
while the locals are friendly enough, Zoe experiences a good deal of unease and
even a ghost or two. A local historian
shares the tragedies that surround the house with Zoe, heightening her
alertness. This sexy, suspenseful,
gothic thriller hits all the right notes with atmosphere.
Redemption Point by Candice Fox
Former detective Ted Conkaffey was wrongly accused of
abducting a raping young Claire Bingley; though he was released from prison and
not convicted, his life has never been the same: he is hiding out on the edge
of a swamp in Australia, away from his wife and young daughter, at the mercy of
vigilantes who still think he’s guilty, and now the target of Claire’s father
who still blames Ted for his daughter’s attack.
Ted has joined forces with Amanda Pharrell, an unusual private detective
with her own demons and idiosyncrasies, after doing time for murder (told in Crimson Lake) to try and find the real
attacker. Hired by the father of one of
two bartenders who was murdered at closing at the nearby Barking Frog Inn, the
pair doesn’t exactly join forces with Detective Inspector Pip Sweeney, the lead
detective on the case, though since it’s her first murder investigation, Amanda
feels Pip can use a little help with her case and dives right in. Though the parallel investigations never
cross, both are well laid out with surprises and twists and turns, and though
there may never be total redemption for Ted nor Amanda, each will come away
with a stronger sense that life may be more than it has been for each.
Before She Knew Him by Peter Swanson
Hen and her husband Lloyd are settling nicely into a suburb
of Boston: Hen, an illustrator, has found a studio nearby from which she can
work and sell her art, and can live a peaceful and stable life, her bipolar
disorder under control. Until the night
she and Lloyd have dinner at the neighbor’s house: Hen spots a fencing trophy
in the office of the husband, Matthew.
She recognizes the trophy as belonging to a young man who was killed
nearly two years ago, a murder that remains unsolved, but one that has been an
obsession of Hen’s since. When Hen
realizes that Matthew teaches at the school Dustin Miller attended, her
suspicions grown and becomes more obsessed and begins to stalk Matthew. When he learns she has been stalking him, she
wonders if she’ll live to tell police what she suspects. A tightly written novel where madness and
madness meet with no way out for anyone.
House on Fire by Bonnie Kistler
This debut by a former trial lawyer hits all the right notes
for fans of suspenseful family dramas, with moral questions that have no good
answers. Leigh Huyett, a divorce
attorney, and her second husband Pete Conley have successfully blended their
families, Leigh’s twin sons and her 14-year-old daughter Chrissy with Pete’s
son Kip, a high school senior. On the
weekend of the couple’s anniversary, they leave Pete and Chrissy home alone,
and receive news every family dreads: there was a car accident, Kip was
arrested for drunk driving, but both children seem relatively unharmed. Twelve hours later, Chrissy is dead, Kip is arrested
for vehicular man slaughter, and the family is thrown into emotional
turmoil. Kip always had an edge about
him, but was a star student and athlete, looking forward to a bright future,
beginning with college in a few months.
Even with the loss of her daughter, Leigh throws her full support behind
Kip, until Kip changes his story saying Chrissy was driving. Leigh now feels her loyalties divided, the
strain is on their marriage, but as she begins to work some new cases of her
own, she is able to see things in a different light, and begins to wonder if
Kip isn’t telling the truth. This
tightly plotted drama has many twists and turns, moral questions, and
unanswered questions, is recommended for book groups, and fans of authors such
as Jodi Picoult.
Run Away by Harlan Coben
Simon Greene’s daughter is a drug addict who has run away
and doesn’t want to be found. Her
father, however, wants her found: when he sees her playing guitar in Strawberry
Fields in Central Park he begs her to come home, only to scare her off, setting
off a chase that will take Simon and his wife into a dangerous world of drugs,
a world more dangerous than they could ever have imagined. When Simon is approached by Elena, a private
investigator from Chicago who is looking for a young man, he can’t imagine there
is any connection, but the deeper he delves into the world in which his
daughter is now living, the more evil he faces; the more Simon learns about why
Paige has run away the more he questions everything he knew. Another twisty, stand-alone thriller from the
best-selling author.
Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward
Maddie, who was horribly disfigured on a camping trip
several years before, is afraid she’s losing her mind: she Googles “should I
see a therapist” and decides she should.
Cami J has Maddie journaling and her many fears come out: when Charlie
(her son) cries; when Ian (her husband) drinks in the basement, and when Ian
gets angry, along with several other unlikely fears. All this from a woman who, in her younger
years, lived in Bulgaria, teaching English on a Fulbright Scholarship, and then
writing a guide book, traveling frequently to Macedonia where her friend Jo is
an aid worker, and where she meets Ian, and begins their tumultuous
relationship. Years later, Ian and
Maddie are married, living in rural Kansas with their young son Charlie, Ian
still working overseas, Maddie and Jo estranged over Maddie’s decision to marry
Ian, all culminating in a night of killing and an aftermath that is much more
twisted than ever imagined in this startling, sophisticated debut. A www.libraryreads.org pick for
March.
Save Me from
Dangerous Men S.A. Lelchuk
Nikki Griffin, a 33-year-old bookstore owner, has a second
career: a vigilante PI. At thirty-three,
Nikki is very much a loner: all she needs are her books and her
motorcycle. She has no cell phone and
tries to look after her junkie brother who lives nearby in Oakland. Nikki’s typical clients are abused, cheated
on women whose husband’s need a lesson in how to leave their female partners
alone. She is a little startled when she
is approached by the CEO of Care4, a Silicon Valley start-up that manufactures
baby monitors, to investigate Karen Li, an employee who may be trading the
company’s secrets. Nikki agrees, and
easily tails Karen: but what she finds is an entirely different story than
Gregg Gunn told her. Nikki’s
investigation takes a dangerous turn, and puts her life and her brother’s at
risk. This tightly wound protagonist
with a hidden back story, revealed slowly and partially during court-ordered
weekly therapy sessions, makes this thriller, with an equally tightly woven
plot, a stellar debut; readers will be eager to see more of Nikki and the women
she protects.
