Louise Candlish (Our House), who has proven herself a master of capturing the tone and complexities of neighborhoods, returns with a psychological thriller that author Lisa Jewell calls “…fiendishly sharp, clever and gripping.”
Gwen Healy is the narrator for the majority of the book, a lonely divorcee of a certain age who lives in one of the loveliest buildings in London, Columbia Mansions, gone the way of so many grand houses separated into flats. Rooms are at a premium all over London, so it’s no surprise that there are plenty of sublets within the mansion, with some creative sorts even renting out a spare bedroom at exorbitant prices.
Living across the hall from Gwen is her neighbor, Alec. Gwen is immediately drawn to his newest subletter, a charming young woman who lives up to her name, Pixie. Despite the age difference, Pixie’s presence brings a new brightness to Gwen’s predictable life, and the two become friends.
It’s only as their friendship blossoms that Gwen sees that Pixie’s cheerful outer layer has a sadder underside, and soon traces this to the “friends with benefits” arrangement Alec has thrust upon Pixie to allow her to afford to live in the nice area and nicer home.
With her own children grown and distant, emotionally if not physically, Gwen is drawn to Pixie’s predicament and reacts with unpredictable protectiveness that pushes forward a chain of events that surprise and shock everyone in the building, even Gwen’s children.
There’s plenty of tension, and Gwen’s close observation of her neighbors in her building is rivaled only by what might or might not be really happening in their homes.
The twists abound as the quiet cruelties of such a close-knit building grow and expand in unimaginable ways to a shocking ending.
Terrifically well-constructed and highly readable~
Snow’s dark thriller begins and ends with a missing child, thought to be drowned.
Set along the Montecito coastline noted as the “American Riviera,” Roxie Starr is four years old when she disappears at the beach, and despite not being at work that afternoon, her nanny Colleen is haunted by guilt that she could have saved her.
It also destroys her parents with their tony lifestyle and open marriage. Is this a situation which any of them can survive?
Then Colleen returns to the beach house before moving away and the impossible happens: she sees a child down by the water who is the spitting image of Roxie.
Post-traumatic syndrome, guilt, trauma all are reacted to differently by the involved characters. Long-held secrets are exposed.
And then a swooping ending that contains more than one twist makes this psychological suspense novel a winner.
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.
Higashino is one of Japan’s best-known novelists, and I’ve read and enjoyed many of his books. The translations retain the intricacies of social customs, while his plotting is diverse and engaging.
While the others I’ve read have featured either Detective Galileo (The Devotion of Suspect X) or the intricate mind of Kyoichiro Saga (Malice), Guilt brings homicide detective Godai of Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police to the case of a murdered lawyer.
Kensuke Shiraishi’s body has been found on a riverbank, and after much detecting, Godai finds an older man named Tatsuro Kuraki is involved. Then a strange turn of events cause Kuraki, who at first claimed only minimal knowledge of the dead, to confess to not only his killing, but that of a cold case murder twenty years before.
Despite being congratulated that he has solved two cases at once, Godai fears Kuraki’s confession doesn’t ring true, and continues to investigate, all the while facing stubborn resilences from the man in jail, whose son takes up his own parellel investigation.
Both men will delve into the history of the deceased men, as well as the man who claims to have killed them, with surprising results.
There is a tension that rises as the reader sees what Godai sees–an unraveling of lies and half-trrths, until a final, surprising truth is attained.
Guilt and redemption are the two main themes explored in this highly readable novel.
As a crime writer, Auntie M is always interested when another writer uses a creative way to tell a story.
This is a book-within-a-book, told in alternating chapters between a young London detective, back at work after a medical leave and trauma, and the author of a tell-all primer supposedly, written by a serial killer who is now teaching others how he literally has gotten away with murder for years.
DI Samantha Hansen wants in on the case of a 14 yr-old girl murdered in Holland Park. Found lying against a tree in the park, a copy of the book is left beside her. While Sam recognizes the importance of this huge clue, she is also suspicious of it.
What follows is a cat-and-mouse game with the book’s author, Denver Brady, as Sam races to find him before he kills again. She will face criticism from her colleagues as her shaky anxiety sometimes impedes her. She will realize that people she’s trusted in the past have not deserved that from her, a wake up call that’s as difficult to swallow as the realization that perhaps Denver Brady isn’t who he claims to be.
Philipson explores the celebrity of serial killers in our society, as well as violence against women, while treating readers to a wild ride with great plot twists. A terrific read~
After bringing Nicola Upson’s The Christmas Clue and Mandy Morton’s Six Tails at Midnight to your attention, I’m adding two new releases that would make great gifts for the readers on your list that are not set on Christmas but are delightful reads:
Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club is a favorite series of many readers with good reason. The vastly different foursome of Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron, and Ibrahim have spent the past year differently after the events of the last installment, The Last Devil to Die.
But with The Impossible Fortune, a wedding (Joyce’s daughter, Joanna, long-yearned for by Joyce) brings the group together for a happy occasion. Then a wedding guest, Nick Silver, who knows of Elizabeth’s history, asks for her help . . . and disappears soon after.
Hoping to grill his business partner, Holly Lewis, only leads to a devastating result, and soon the group are mired deeply in this investigation which revolves around an uncrackable code that leads to riches.
Joanna feels she should help as Nick is a pal of her new husband, and soon adds her help. Ron’s daughter, Suzi, needs help, too, in getting rid of her abusive thug of a husband, and soon her son Kendrick is added to the population. And Ibrahim’s client Connie, newly out of prison, is mentoring a young woman, Tia, in a highly unusual manner.
It’s a wild ride that manages to come together with startling results along the way. Intricately plotted, and with Osman’s trademark humor but clear-sighted view of human nature, this will please any reader on your list.
Sophie Hannah, the gifted author chosen by Agatha Christie’s family to resurrect Hercule Poirot, gives us a convoluted mystery, The Last Death of the Year, set on New Year’s Eve, 1932, when Poirot and his detective inspector cohort, Edward Catchpool, travel to a remote Greek Island at the the behest of the owner.
The island of Lamperos contains tiny horses, goats, and few buildings, but it does have an unusual house on Liakada Bay called Spiti Athanasiou, The House of Perpetural Welcome, set right on the sea, an attraction for Catchpool, who loves to swim at any time of year.
Their host, Nate Athanasiou, has opened his home to a phalanx of different supporters of the community project he and his good friend Matthew Fair are developing: a place where welcome and forgiveness are given to all who live there, without consideration for past actions.
While the premise seems optimistic, Nate’s nervous demeanor hints at the threat of danger as the reason he’s called for Poirot to attend. That becomes obvious when the game played after dinner, where each of the residents writes a New Year’s resolution that isn’t signed, includes one that there will be “the last and first death of the year.”
With this declaration hanging over them, it should be no surprise when it comes true . . .
A masterful look at the psychology of each character in a complicated classic mystery, where the drawing room has been replaced by a craggy house on a Greek isle.
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.
Elly Griffiths has a treat for fans of her all of her series: a collection of stories that feature some of her favorite characters for readers to gobble up.
And what a collection this is! By turns heartwarming (St. Lucy’s Day), to the wry humor of Ruth’s First Christmas Tree, to a modernized Little Women in Castles in the Air. There are stand alones, too, such as Turning Traitor, What I Saw from the Sky, and others.
And we are treated to seeing Ruth Galloway and her Nelson together again for those readers who miss that series (hint, hint Elly!).
Many have tidbits of the history Griffiths sprinkles into her stories that add to them. And there’s even one from the viewpoint of Ruth’s cat, Flint (Flint’s Fireside Tale; A Christmas Story)
Best of all, the final story, Ruth Galloway and the Ghost of Max Mephisto, brings Ruth across the path of DI Harbinder Kaur, her protagonist from a different series, with the ghost of magician Max Mephisto from yet another of her series. It ties them all together, however briefly, for a delightful moment for readers.
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 