Across the pond, UK author Clare Donoghue’s new series features DI Mike Lockyer, racing to find a serial killer in Never Look Back.
Lockyer, aided by a decent team headed by DS Jane Bennett, and burdened with a snarky psychologist he’s forced to endure, has an added motive to stop this killer: the victims bear an increasing resemblance to his own daughter.
As Lockyer and Bennett look for clues to the brutal murderer, a young woman finally makes a report that she’s being stalking by an unseen man. Sarah Grainger’s phone rings, a mysterious van appears on her block, she feels she’s being followed. Is she losing it or are her fears real? And how can Lockyer convince her it’s safe for her to leave her home, which has become her prison, when he can’t know the answer to that question?
With the body count at three murders, the stalker who might or might be the culprit, Lockyer tries to reestablish a fragile relationship with his estranged daughter, all the while fearing she may be the next victim.
Donoghue’s device is to tell some chapters from the perpetrator’s point of view, which adds a chilling layer to the story. But which one is this–the stalker or the murderer?
A convincing debut with its sense of urgency and a well-constructed plot.
In the US, Karin Salvalaggio takes readers to the cold of Collier, Montana, in her debut Bone Dust White.
The opening has a powerful start that will hook readers immediately. Looking out her window, young Grace Adams sees a woman on the trails behind her house, and as she watches in horror, a man emerges from the shadows, stabs the woman and flees.
After a frantic call to the police, Grace goes out to the woman and is shocked to realize it’s her mother, who abandoned her years ago. Now recuperating from a heart transplant, in a fragile state physically and emotionally, Grace yearns for answer from her mother but the woman is dead.
Enter Detective Macy Greeley, heavily pregnant and not happy to be back in Collier to face some of her own old ghosts. Those include a paramedic she shares a past with, and an unsolved case involving Grace’s mother Leanne. With the woman dead, Macy must try to piece together the answers that eluded her so many years ago.
The setting is as bleak as the future most of its inhabitants face, and adds to the cold and calculating feel of the mystery. This one has gained prominence from readers who enjoyed her portrayal of the gritty town and its inhabitants almost as much as the suspenseful plot. Who is keeping secrets, and why?
Salvalaggio reveals just enough of Macy’s life and issues for readers to want to follow her in the next highly anticipated novel in this series that will entertain fans of Longmire and Craig Johnson.
NEW IN PAPERBACK: These previously reviewed books are all available now in paperback–
THE EDGE OF WATER: Elizabeth George’s second in her YA series featuring Becca, a young girl who can hear people’s thoughts. Set on Whidbey Island off the coast of Washington State.
THE GOOD BOY: Theresa Schwegel’s crime movie with eleven-year-old Joel Murphy and his father’s police dog, Butchie, highlight this thriller set in Chicago.
THE EGE OF NORMAL: Non-fiction author Carla Norton’s debut crime thriller featuring Reeve LeClaire, the young woman who was kidnapped and held captive from age twelve to sixteen. Helped by her therapist and friend, she can’t turn him down when Dr. Ezra lerner asks her to mentor a young girl rescued from a similar madman. A truly original protagonist.
Auntiemwrites Crime-Mystery Author M K Graff 