French introduced fingerprint analyst Shaw Connolly in her thrilling first in this Maine series, Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell. Along the way, readers learn the intricate work these analysts perform and how involved they become in their cases.
Still reeling from the events of that novel, where she faced down her sister’s killer after years of hunting for him, she finds herself in the midst of a new case of missing woman discovered in a submerged car.
Her only clue is a single fingerprint belonging to a dead ex-con, which leads Shaw to investigate, with startling results.
In the midst of this, still grieving and trying to find peace in her life for her remaining sister, her two sons, her elderly father, and her estranged husband who wants to reconcile, a new wrinkle occurs: she’s asked by he state police contact if she will be willing to talk to her sister’s killer, in prison awaiting trial. The diabolical Anders Jansen claims he has information on two other cold cases, both of young women, but refused to talk to anyone about them unless Shaw agrees to participate in the search for their bodies.
Pulled in many directions, and with her own misgivings at the forefront, Shaw knows the years she and her family suffered by this man’s maliciousness, and reluctantly agrees.
This is a multi-layered plot that starts out hard and has a relentless pace. Add in characters so real they jump off the page and grab you by the throat and readers will find a book that’s hard to put down.
How’s this for a new way to get over a broken heart? The Himlafall Clinic promises to use new therapy techniques to help you heal. Set deeply in the Swedish woods, the Clinic appears to have many ways to help you move on.
But for some of the women, they don’t move on. In fact, they’re never heard from again.
Into this setting arrives Isobel Anderssen, eager to make her name as a freelance journalist by exposing the Clinic and it’s founder, Dr. Martina Hastings. Isobel has her own fake story ready to go, and is set to record interviews, but her contact and oldest friend goes missing.
Worse, Dr. Hastings seems to understand Isobel’s intent, and soon it’s Isobel who is worried about disappearing. She watches how the doctor pressures her clients, at times belittling them to undermine their self-confidence. There are medications handed out and abused, and a doctor who fails to see that she cannot help everyone.
Throw in a storm with a trashed generator and downed phone lines, and the tension rapidly rises. And so does the body count.
An absorbing and terrifying look inside the mind of a killer who will stop at nothing to achieve what she wants.
A trio of strong Black women head up West’s Chicago-set thriller.
Gio Mason, the head concierge at The Ivory Hotel, is dealing with her mother’s illness and entitled guests who drive her batty, when a new guest checks in that sets her on alert. Her former best friend, Natalie Moore, is an influencer which means she has a large following. Their reunion ends poorly with the two women publicly arguing.
Redding Stark is the detective who has been carting around a growing list of missing Black women from the city. When Natalie goes missing, and her trashed hotel room is found, Gio’s bruises and a memory lapse make her the main suspect in Natalie’s disappearance.
But Redding has a growing suspicion that this case is linked to the other missing women. Together, REdding and Gio race to find Natalie as the threats against them grow.
Their investigation will bring them into many unexpected circles, and just when it seems the perpetrators are caught, another twist sends this to a startling conclusion.
Strong characterizations and backgrounds of the women add to the depth of this story.
Using the technique of revisiting the same day in the lives of two entwined teens, Finlay slowly spools out their stories over the years after the events of one fateful night.
Quinn Riley’s intent is to break up a fight, but instead the youth from a poor family ends up in juvenile detention when it all goes horribly wrong. His release coincides with the murder of his mother, something he’s determined to figure out.
Jules Delaney, from a far wealthier home, lives with survivor’s guilt, haunted by weathering an attack of the May Day Killer, who is still striking on that same anniversary.
With both young lives impacted by the events of that day, Finlay creates an escalting thriller as he follows them over the next decade, weaving their stories as they each uncover long-held secrets.
Remember Lynne Truss’s book Eats, Shoots & Leaves? In it, she argues for the importance of proper punctuation, especially commas.
In Kemp’s new book, I, Spy, the cleverly placed comma takes away the notion of the childhood game and alludes to the identity of the protagonist.
Kendal Carter left her spy life behind when her lover was killed and she became a mother. She has embraced raising her daughter, Rosie, away from what she calls “The Game.”
Then her quiet life is upended when her safe location is exposed, and running with Rosie for their lives, she turns to her old contact Rico for help and security.
Ensconced in London in a tony safe house with Rosie, with the perfect school nearby, Rico extracts his quid pro quo for Rosie’s safety: mentoring a rookie in his Bon Temps espionage agency who he’s placed at a tech firm. Using her ‘mother’ cover, what starts out as an easy cover job soon turns fraught with PTA dates wrapped up in its own form of betrayals and secrets.
It soon becomes a top-notch high stakes thriller connected to Rosie’s school, putting them both in danger yet again.
This first in a planned new series promises feminine skills and thrills galore with a dose of humor and lots of action.
Gillian McAllister might have been a lawyer, but since she became a full time writer, she has a string of thrillers to claim: Wrong Place Wrong Time; Famous Last Words; Just Another Missing Person, and The Good Sister are just a partial list of her hits.
When her newest, Caller Unknown, was offered to me for review, Auntie M jumped at the chance to read it.
Simone has left her husband, Damien, in England to run their restaurant so she can meet their daughter, Lucy for a week together, after Lucy has spent the summer at a Texas camp learning to sing before her RADA course starts. It’s mother-daughter time Simone is looking forward to, as the thought of watching her daughter start the next stage of her life courses through her. She knows this is the natural order of things, but she’s having a hard time letting go.
Then the unthinkable happens: after one night together in a cabin, Lucy is kidnapped, a ransom demanded, and Simone’s entire life changes. Damien flies over, but she lies to him that she’s called the police in, as the kidnappers assured her that doing so would cause her daughter’s death. She’s sent a sad proof of life video, showing Lucy with her hands bound behind her back.
This is when McAllister swiftly turns the plot on hits head, with Simone as Mother Warrior, desperately trying anything to save her daughter. There will be shootings, murder, and a drug deal before the heady climax. The twists come fast as the action ramps up until an unbelieveable climax leaves the reader feeling almost bereft, but in awe of Simone’s strength—until a brilliant last sharp turns brings everything into focus.
A meditation on a mother’s inexhaustible love, and the length’s she will go to for her daughter. Stunning.
I almost did after reading the opening pages of this terrific novel. That’s how strong the opener is, and explains why I kept flipping pages long after the light should have gone out…
I’ve been a huge fan of the Poe and Bradshaw series from Day 1 and follow them avidly. Each of the previous books have genius plotting, really well-done characterizations, and an ironic humor that contrasts nicely to some of the darker bits. Because there are darker bits.
But the stakes are raised in this one. A sniper had been shooting individuals with no apparent pattern. Then a bride is killed on her wedding day, and her influential father aids Poe’s investigation in a rare way, desperate to find his daughter’s killer.
The pressure on Poe and Tilly is sharp and relentless, and it doesn’t help that Poe is due to be married shortly. There will be sleight of hand, psychological reasonings, and above all, Tilly’s uncanny ability with maths to bring them closer to an invisible killer.
A thrilling read, this is an extraordinary book, perhaps Craven’s finest, from someone who’s loved them all.
From time to time, Auntie M likes to let you in what she’s been reading, not for review, but for her own personal choice. These are some of my favorites, the ones I reach for again and again for a satisfying read:
Steve Cavanagh knocks it out of the park with his new Eddie Flynn legal thriller, Two Kinds of Stranger, which may be his most perfectly twisted plot yet, and he’s a master at it. Eddie is a conman turned lawyer who won’t hesitate to step outside the law to bring justice.
This case comes too close to home when a stalker client threatens his daughter, ex-wife and her new lawyer husband. At the same time, he and his team have taken on the case of a young woman whose life had been about espousing random acts of kindness. In an ironic twist, that same instinct has led to her being poisoned, while her cheating husband and his lover are also poisoned. While the duo die, Ellie Parker manages to survive but is soon charged with their murders, as no one can find the stranger she says she helped who poisoned her, a sociopath working behind the scenes to manipulate her life.
No one except Eddie Flynn. And then his ex-wife’s stalker is killed, and his daughter’s mother and her husband are on trial for that murder. His team is managing two serious trials at the same time, and lines will be crossed with life-changing outcomes. At times you can’t see how he can pull this one off, and Eddie isn’t certain he can, either.
There’s a final extra ending twist that makes it all come full circle—you won’t be able to put this one down. Cavanagh gets NYC and its environs perfectly, which is all the more surprising when you learn he and his family live in Belfast, Ireland. Don’t miss this brilliantly layered novel.
The Marlow Murder Club is currently showing on my Masterpiece Mystery, and Auntie M snapped up the newest installment, a locked room (boat) mystery that weaves a killing around the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society in Murder on the Marlow Belle.
Verity Beresford enlists Judith Potts and her friends to track down her missing husband after the drama society had hired The Marlow Belle for an evening on the river. But no one remembers seeing Oliver Beresford leave the boat.
Then Oliver’s body, complete with bullet holes, washes up downriver, and the three women amateur sleuths are on the hunt. Soon they are knee-deep in the personal lives of the main players, whose secrets they must unearth, as it seems Oliver had a host of enemies.
Cosy mystery crime at its finest with a returning ensemble we’ve grown to love.
Queen Camilla let it be known that Peter James is her favorite author, and so his October book, The Hawk is Dead, has scenes at Buckingham Palace. But One of Us is Dead is out now, so readers who follow Brighton Superintendent Roy Grace can gratefully indulge.
Grace and his familiar team are investigating a series of murders that appear unrelated, but Grace has a that twitch of instinct that tells him they are, despite mushroom poisoning and accidents that may not be what they seem.
At a local funeral, a man enters the church late to see a fellow a few rows ahead of him he knows to be dead–because he gave that man’s eulogy. What these disparate incidents have in common becomes the latest chase to find a canny killer.
Grace’s respect and detail of police procedures is at full mast here, as is his frustration at being behind the desk too much. Another great installment in a long-running series that never disappoints.
I had fears that SJ Bennett’s series featuring Queen Elizabeth would come to an end with the passing of the monarch, but Bennett’s Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series continues with A Death in Diamonds by heading back in time to 1957 with a young Queen finding her voice. And now she’s opened up a host of years to pull from as the series continues.
When two people are murdered and the Queen finds herself used as the alibi for one of the murders, all the while trying to learn her job and her nation’s place in a modern world, it seems that the very advisors she must trust may not always have her best interests at heart.
Her ally becomes Joan McGraw, an ex-Bletchley Park code breaker, discreet and loyal to the Queen, and soon this dynamic duo are running their own investigation. A clever and intriguing way to continue this series, Bennett gets the personalities of the royals involved down pat with nice asides we can well imagine might really have been said. A jewel~
Skelton’s well-plotted series featuring investigative reporter Rebecca Connolly continues with The Hollow Mountain.
Filled with the kind of ironic humor Auntie M enjoys, Rebecca is challenged by Alice Larkin, a dying millionaire and former reporter, to unearth what really happened when her lover died while working as a tunnel tiger on the Hollow Mountain project years ago.
With Alice parsing out her story, Rebecca must use her talents and those of her colleagues to unearth the truth of the hazardous construction as the workers blasted through mountains, under rivers, to create a pass, but she soon finds herself in jeopardy when the secrets she is finding threaten the reputations of those left behind.
Skelton’s series at highly atmospheric in their Scottish settings and the entire series comprise great reads.
Nita Prose’s maid Molly Gray is a wonderful character with a unique take on life whom Prose first debuted in The Maid. Now planing her wedding to chef Juan Manual, she’s been promoted to Head Maid and Special Events Manager at the Regency Grand Hotel, a delightful setting for much of the action of the series.
In The Maid’s Secret, the antiquities show Hidden Treasures is filming an episode at the Regency Grand when a decorated egg Molly brings in to be valued is found to be an antique treasure. At the same time as the television world and Molly’s life is turned upside down, excerpts from her grandmother’s diary explain how the egg came to be in her possession. And then the egg goes missing . . .
It’s a nice device that alternates with the madcap part of the auction process and gives a glimpse–and surprising information–to Molly. As usual, there is a sense of a heartfelt lesson being told.
Laury Egan will capture your attention from page one of her psychological suspense novel, a tale of two teenaged youths, but it’s not as simple a premise as it seems, for both of these teens inhabit the same mind and body, with a devastating outcome.
Afflicted with Dissociative Identity Disorder, long known as Multiple Personality Disorder, Egan illustrates how Jack’s early childhood abandonment followed by a series of foster home abuses led to the host Jack being “occupied” at times by another Jack whose actions lead to truancy, stalking, promiscuity–and that’s the tip of the iceberg. Worst of all, perhaps, is that host Jack often has amnesia to the actions of his alter ego. Scenes of host Jack waking and finding himself in a different place or situation from where he started out are particularly harrowing.
It’s a recipe for disaster as the ‘two Jacks’ struggle for dominance. Along the way Egan clearly illustrates, with growing horror, how Jack must learn to cope with the actions of someone who is his moral opposite to the point of causing him legal troubles. The reader identifies with host Jack’s heartbreaking attempts to carry on a semblance of normal life.
The depth that Egan uses to illustrate Jack’s early abuse explains why his “other” takes over at times and how that developed. Psychologists and therapists who understand this complex disease help to explain it to Jack, and thus to the reader, as he tries to find an inner strength to combat the torment of his daily life and overcome the hopeless feeling he has to find a road to a semblance of a normal life.
At once a terrific character study of both Jacks, it’s also a primer on this form of mental illness. With grace and compassion, Egan has created a suspenseful novel that shines a light on a harrowing disease.
Laury A. Egan is the author of thirteen novels, including The Black Leopard’s Kiss & The Writer Remembers;The Psychologist’s Shadow; Once, Upon an Island; The Firefly; Doublecrosses; and Jenny Kidd. as well as a collection, Fog and Other Stories, and four volumes of poetry. She lives on the northern coast of New Jersey. Visit Laury at: www.lauryaegan.com.
Please welcome Laury A. Egan, who will describe her journey with her new thriller, The Psychologist’s Shadow:
The Psychologist’s Shadow by Laury A. Egan
From the Beginning
The Psychologist’s Shadow is a portrait of Dr. Ellen Haskell, a compassionate, introspective therapist who finds herself in a dangerous struggle with an unknown stalker. The novel is a simmering suspense, one in which tension accumulates as the reader gains insights during sessions with clients—one of whom may be the psychologist’s shadow—and through the stalker’s journal entries, which serve as a discordant counterpoint.
The inspiration for the novel originated in my college interest in psychology. During my later years at Carnegie Mellon University, I selected all of my course electives in that field. Upon graduation, the head of the university’s counseling center, who had been one of my professors, urged me to embark on a career as a therapist. I was tempted but didn’t go that route, yet I continued to read books and to follow changes in psychology. When I began this manuscript in 1992 (a second novel), my goal was to meld my interest with my writing, depicting how a psychologist would react in sessions and what her thoughts would be during them as well as later, when she was alone and in private.
In other words, the story let me travel down the road I hadn’t taken, to try on the career I hadn’t chosen.
The novel is a semi-cozy suspense/mystery, set primarily in the counselor’s office in Princeton, New Jersey, and in her home on a forested property northwest of town—places I know well because I worked in Princeton and lived in a similar house. In addition to the familiar setting and my fascination with psychology, I was also attracted to the idea of writing about a light/dark dichotomy: the psychologist versus the disturbed, obsessive follower whose identity is unknown. Both are narrated in first person, thus allowing the reader (and me) to plunge into their minds, with a more in-depth concentration on Ellen Haskell.
Because one of my greatest pleasures as a writer is creating characters, the plot of The Psychologist’s Shadow allowed me rich opportunities to compose a sampler of diverse clients; to imagine their histories, personalities, and problems; how they would speak, behave, and dress, a process which was similar to writing case studies at university. I was also able to don a psychologist’s hat to “treat” each person, which provides the reader a voyeuristic perch from which to observe, analyze, and search for clues during therapeutic conversations. Wrapping Ellen’s story around her clients’ lives and interspersing the enigmatic journal entries by the stalker, was like being granted a chance to perform all the roles in a drama.
Throughout the years, I continued to revise the manuscript—almost forty times—and then, after publishing a number of other novels, I rolled up my sleeves, sharpened my red pencil, and attacked the manuscript with fervor, finally finishing the project. It now joins eleven other books on my shelf, several of which are in the suspense genre: A Bittersweet Tale, Doublecrossed, Jenny Kidd, and The Ungodly Hour.
However, unlike most authors, who usually concentrate on one genre, I tend to write whatever alights in my consciousness. This sometimes happens in a kind of channeling process when a character “comes through” while I’m sitting on my deck, looking out to sea, for example, or because a setting or “what-if” situation has inspired me. I’ve even tackled comedy: Fabulous! An Opera Buffa and young adult fiction, The Outcast Oracle and Turnabout. Perhaps I’m versatile or perhaps I love being all kinds of people, in all kinds of situations and places.
The Psychologist’s Shadow stayed with me for a long time, but it was ultimately a very satisfying creation. For those who have been in therapy or are therapists, for those who love solving mysteries, I hope this psychological suspense will be an intriguing read!
Published November 18, 2023 by Enigma Books, an imprint of Spectrum Books, UK
Laury A. Egan is the author of twelve novels, most recently The Firefly and Once, Upon an Island; a collection, Fog and Other Stories; four volumes of poetry; and numerous short fiction published in literary journals and anthologies. She lives on the northern coast of New Jersey. Website: www.lauryaegan.com
Auntiemwrites Crime-Mystery Author M K Graff 