Saturdays With Kaye: Cross Her Heart By Sarah Pinborough

Cross Her Heart By Sarah Pinborough

This is a dark British tale of family relationships.

It’s Ava’s sixteenth birthday, but a school day. Her mother, Lisa, contemplates the time Ava will fly from the nest, and it will be too soon for her. The first hint of shadows as they’re getting ready for the day is Lisa’s alarm—almost panic—at an unfamiliar car coming up the street. She has to tell herself that she and Ava are safe to calm her racing heart. At work, her unease continues as she gears up for a presentation for a potential client, Simon Manning. She feels an attraction developing between them that she doesn’t know how to deal with.

Ava is involved with a good swim team consisting of three other girls she has known for only ten months, but has bonded with. She feels closest to Jodie, who is much older but likes swimming with them. They compare their weird mothers. Ava’s hovers and is overprotective, Jodie’s is mostly absent. Lisa and Ava alternate telling the story as it deepens and darkens. Ava has started getting involved with an exciting romance online. She knows about the dangers, but she’s smart and aware, right? Nothing bad will happen. She has to keep this secret from her mother, though, because she would flip.

Meanwhile, Lisa is struggling to keep her sanity as mysterious signs start popping up, reminding her of a life she thought she shed, and making her physically sick to her stomach. The worst thing that could happen would be for the people from her past to find her and Ava. Even Lisa’s best friend, sunny and outgoing Marilyn, has her own dark secrets.

Mother and daughter, separately and together, head toward disaster, both of them trusting the wrong people as the reader cringes for what could be coming; not knowing what it is, but knowing it will be disastrous.

The past and the present speed to converge on an awful event bringing about the startling, defining moment in their lives.

Reviewed by Kaye George, Editor of Day of the Dark: Eclipse Stories, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: The President Is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson

The President Is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson

The reader will be able to detect both personalities in this novel. I believe it should be classified as a techno-thriller. There aren’t any standard thriller passages, except for a brief shooting scene, and most of the tense action consists of meetings between high-level global powers, and frantic computer coding taking place in a secret room.

The story is told in first person, present tense, mostly by President Duncan. It’s not as edgy as most books written that way. That said, however, it’s a great glimpse into what it’s like to work in the White House; surrounded by so many people, it’s hard to keep track of them all at first. The president is spinning a lot of plates. His wife recently died of cancer, he is being afflicted by a rare disease that flares up under stress, and he doesn’t trust his Vice President or the Speaker of the House—both of whom want him gone. Plus, he recently committed a public blunder that may force him out of office.

Outside enemies, forcing the crisis, are unknown expert computer hackers, a mysterious hired assassin, a mole living somewhere among his six most trusted advisors, and the overall threat of “Dark Ages.” That’s the code name for what will happen if the computer virus isn’t stopped. The result will be the failure of every system connected to a computer: water, power, defense, transportation, hospitals, etc., resulting in a return to primitive living, and likely, humans turning to bloody competition in order to attain basic needs.

Once the threat has been issued and the clock begins ticking, President Duncan thinks it best that he comply with the orders from the unknown terrorists, and meet them alone. Hence, he dismisses his bodyguards and goes “missing” without informing anyone but his most trusted and loyal assistants. Or…so he thinks. A long read, but it’s also a fun

one.

Reviewed by Kaye George, Editor of Day of the Dark: Eclipse Stories, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman

The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman

Considering this non-fiction book is about one of the most disturbing subjects I can imagine, I thought it would be difficult to read. However, Weinman’s concentration on linking Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” to the real-life story of Sally Horner had me quickly involved.  

Nabokov was always determined to hide the origins of his works. His attitude was that true art must stand on its own; it owes nothing to pedestrian realities and events. Today, the opposite is true. Writers readily reveal their inspirations, and readers are delighted to find out what’s behind the stories they love and how they relate to actual events.

Nabokov went to great pains to destroy his sources. He even wrote in longhand, had his wife type up his notes, and then burned the original papers. He took notes on index cards when not actively writing and destroyed most of those, too…but some have survived. One, a big clue for Weinman, detailed the story of Sally Horner. Indications show that Nabokov originally wanted his character, Humbert Humbert, to come across an account of Sally’s kidnapping, but instead decided to use her story to flesh out the novel that’d been rattling around in his own brain for many years—“Lolita.”

The first half of this book is devoted to Sally Horner’s truly tragic story. Frank La Salle, a mechanic with a history of being attracted to prepubescent girls, saw Sally shoplift when she was only 11. He eventually made her believe that he was an FBI agent and she would go to prison or reform school if she didn’t go into hiding with him. Abusing her as they moved cross country for 21 months, Sally finally made a phone call after being encouraged to do so by a kind woman in a trailer park where they were staying.

I could go on forever about this book, but it’s better to give my advice: Pick up a copy!

Reviewed by Kaye George, Fat Cat Takes the Cake (written as Janet Cantrell), for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: Mercy by Michael Palmer

Mercy by Michael Palmer

The wide-ranging plot of this medical-ethical thriller unfolds gradually, revealing the maddening complexities of the right to die issue.

Dr. Julie Devereux is have problems with her twelve-year-old son since her split from his artist father and her new relationship with Sam, a high school history teacher. Julie has long been an outspoken advocate for death with dignity. However, this works against her when terminal and badly injured patients start dying prematurely in the hospital where she works.

Roman “Romey” Janowki, an unscrupulous manipulator, has brought White Memorial from a second-rate hospital to a well-run model facility since he took over as administrator. His methods don’t always align with ethical behavior, though. He’s gotten his hospital there by concentrating on the bottom line, not by prolonging the lives of expensive patients.

Julie is thrown into a dilemma when her fiance, Sam, is brought in following a car wreck with injuries that will leave him a quadriplegic. When he begs her to end his life, she hesitates while he calls her a hypocrite. More questionable deaths are piling up around her as a representative from Very Much Alive, an organization opposed to assisted death, gets involved. Just as they’ve convinced Julie betray her deepest beliefs and try to save Sam, he dies from an unexpected condition. He has been scared to death. Have the other deaths occurred this way? Julie doesn’t know she’s being closely tracked by an ex-cop with anger management issues.

Excellent suspense, plus explorations of right to die, hospital ethics, and other issues.

Reviewed by Kaye George, Author of Requiem in Red, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: Exposed by Lisa Scottoline

Exposed by Lisa Scottoline

In this, the fifth book in the Rosato & DiNunzio series, the story opens on Mary DiNunzio’s father and his friends from their close-knit South Philly neighborhood calling Mary in, in need of a lawyer.

The group of older men is great comic relief: her deaf father, Matty, and three men named Tony. They are differentiated by their nicknames, Tony “From-Down-the-Block,” Pigeon, and Feet. But the case Mary is called in on is a serious one. A man from her childhood, Simon, has just been fired from his job at OpenSpace, a company that makes cubicles. The reason for his firing was obviously bogus and the timing is horrible. He has lost his insurance just when his baby daughter, Rachel, desperately needs an expensive bone marrow transplant for her ALL (acute lymphoblastic leukemia). Mary says that, of course, she will help him sue OpenSpace.

That’s a problem, though, as her law colleague, the tough, prickly Bennie Rosato, points out. She tells Mary that OpenSpace is owned by Dumbarton, which is a client of their firm. Will Mary have to quit her job with the firm to help the old family friend? Will this come between Mary and Bennie? The latter believes she should not take the case.

There are lawsuits and countersuits that pile on to the complications. Rachel’s illness causes ripples in every direction. As the reader is taken into the sad world of childhood cancer, layers of guilt and deception are uncovered on many levels, and both Bennie and Mary realize that the personal and professional consequences are huge for both of them.

Reviewed by Kaye George, Editor of Day of the Dark: Eclipse Stories, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: In This Grave Hour by Jacqueline Winspear

In This Grave Hour by Jacqueline Winspear

The latest Maisie Dobbs novel begins as Neville Chamberlain declares war with Germany and London starts gearing up with air raid siren tests, allocation of gas masks, and night blackouts. Maisie is hurrying to her friend’s house to hear the anticipated announcement on the radio. War is, of course, unwelcome, as they all remember the last one and everyone has suffered some sort of loss. But, as they remind themselves, they came through it.

A phone call comes for Maisie from an acquaintance who wants to give her some investigation business. The caller, Dr. Francesca Thomas, is calling from inside Maisie’s flat, which she locked when she left.

The business has to do with some happenings during the last war when Great Britain accepted over a quarter of a million Belgian refugees, fleeing from German invasion. Most returned home after the war, but not all. Several thousand stayed, married, took jobs, and some even changed their names. Dr. Thomas herself is Belgian and tells Maisie that one of the former refugees has been murdered, shot in the back of the head. Scotland Yard doesn’t have the personnel to investigate his death and is treating it as a robbery gone wrong. Maisie suspects that Francesca isn’t being completely open with her, especially when another former Belgian is murdered. Maisie must follow the delicate threads from the past that connect the men, hoping her friend Francesca isn’t responsible for some of the death.

Meanwhile children are being evacuated from London in anticipation of the bombing that happened in WWI and some need a place to stay. One girl, brought to the family country estate, has arrived alone and is mute and dark-skinned. No one knows who she is or who her people are. Maisie is drawn to her, maybe dangerously so.

There is much detail here on wartime England and the people who lived through that dark period. History buffs and Maisie fans will love this.

Reviewed by Kaye George, author of Ella and the Ball in Once Upon a Fact, for Suspense Magazine 

Saturdays With Kaye: Night and Day by Iris Johansen

Night and Day by Iris Johansen

From the outset, the reader is tossed into the ongoing action, which is awash in characters. I got the feeling I was late to the party. Because of that, I’d highly recommend reading the first two in this series. This is a paranormal mystery featuring Eve Duncan, a likeable character who is accompanied by an odd assortment of eccentrics and misfits. All the characters are fascinating and fun to read about.

An eleven-year-old girl, Cara, is the center of the initial maelstrom. She was taken in by Eve to shield her from some evil people who want her dead. Little Cara has been through a lot in her short life. On another front, Eva’s older adopted daughter Jane hold the key to finding a golden treasure through a mystical connection with a slave turned actress who escaped Vesuvius, Cira. This gold is the center of the rest of the activity.

Between Mexican cartel bosses and Russian mafia bosses, the little band on the edge of the lake at Gaelkar Scotland battles through impossible odds to fend off the evil doers and survive. There’s a sweet relationship between the young Cara and the somewhat older Jock, a trained killer who is fiercely protective of and dazzled by her. So much so that she is able to convince him that night is day and day is night.

You’ll have fun on this wild ride!

Reviewed by Kaye George, Author of  Death on the Trek, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: Downfall by J. A. Jance

Downfall by J. A. Jance

I was so happy to receive this Joanna Brady mystery for review. It’s been some time since I read one, not for lack of desire, but for lack of time. “Downfall” is fully as good as the last one I read.

It’s the last day of August in the Mule Mountains of SE Arizona. Sheriff Brady, an already busy county official, has a daughter heading to college for the first time, a five-year-old starting kindergarten, and baby girl due in early December. And now she gets word that her parents have been in a serious car wreck. Her stepfather is dead and her mother is in the hospital, victims of a kid with a rifle on the overpass. The kid soon crashed his 4x4 fleeing authorities and she finds herself kneeling next to him, comforting her parents’ shooter as he dies.

Then she’s on to the next crisis, two dead bodies at the base of a steep cliff called Geronimo by some, Black Knob by others, but officially Gold Hill. It’s a place local kids climbed as a rite of passage, situated in rugged terrain that has to be hiked to, making the investigation of the unknown women even more complicated.

When Joanna’s mother dies of her injuries, she mourns their relationship. It was never good, but Joanna felt they were moving toward improvement and now will never get to achieve that.

Who the seemingly unrelated women were and why they are both dead in the same spot is the basis for the mystery that Joanna must untangle against the backdrop of her complicated family life.

A truly satisfying read.

Reviewed by Kaye George, author of Death on the Trek, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: Badlands by C. J. Box

Badlands by C. J. Box

Day One of this thriller starts with a crash-bang, whipping the reader between North Dakota and North Carolina, propelling us, relentlessly, into a breathtaking tale of death, greed, and fear. Days Two, Three, and the rest keep us barreling along.

Cassie Dewell takes a new job and finds herself thrust into a place filled with nasty, brutish people, some of whom live short lives. Besides her tough new job as deputy sheriff in the aptly named town of Grimstad, she has other problems. She is maybe the only person who can identify a serial killer called the Lizard King, so she travels briefly to North Carolina to interview him. He attacks her in the interrogation room, tries to strangle her, and almost kills her. After she returns north, she learns there may not be enough evidence to keep him in jail. If there isn’t, she’s in a great deal of danger.

Meanwhile, back in the cold north winter, a twelve-year-old boy, Kyle Westergaard, is the one the reader fears for the most. He’s a true innocent, a bit slow mentally and unable to speak clearly. He rarely does speak and only a few people can understand him. But he knows everything that is going on. The trouble starts the day he sees too much on his early morning paper route, the worst route because it’s the farthest one out. When he sneaks over and picks up a bundle from the site of a car wreck, he becomes the unwitting target of rival factions who want that bundle, all of them vicious people.

The town of Grimstad is a real place and it did experience the oil boom described here, which serves as background and impetus for dirty deeds. The cold northern plains winter permeates these pages. You may have to read this with a sweater on. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Reviewed by Kaye George, author of Requiem in Red, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: Second Life by S. J. Watson

Second Life by S. J. Watson

This racy, tense suspense novel is set in England and fraught with nerve-wracking suspense. Make sure the edge of your seat is in good shape because it’ll get a good workout.

Julia Plummer is part of a tangled family web that fills her with regret, guilt, and sadness, and that’s before she learns of her sister Kate’s death in Paris. She and her husband are raising Kate’s son, fourteen-year-old Connor, and have had him since he was very young, due to Kate’s dissolute, unorganized lifestyle. As children, they were left to fend for themselves and Julia, the older sister, was always there for Kate. Until she had run away to Berlin while Kate was still young. Until she took her son from her. Until, she feels, she left her to die without her big sister.

Now, Julia wants to make up for everything and find Kate’s killer. Exploring the online dating site Kate had been using before her murder, has unintended consequences. Julia tries to pull away, but is lured by dark urges. She sinks deeper into a situation that she knows she should put a stop to, but is powerless. She’s losing sight of what she needs to do to protect Connor, her husband, and herself. Buried secrets of the past can’t stay buried now, she realizes.

This edgy mystery will keep you guessing and reading, and guessing again, well into the night.

Reviewed by Kaye George, Author of Requiem in Red, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: The Mirror Sisters by V. C. Andrews

The Mirror Sisters by V. C. Andrews

This is classic V. C. Andrews, dark and gothic, with a pair of tormented sisters. In this case, they’re tormented by their mother, who is obsessed with them being identical twins. Not just identical, but absolutely the same in every aspect. Not only their hair and clothing, but the treatment they get, the food they eat, comments made to them, equal hugs and kisses. Kaylee, Haylee’s twin, begins to think that her mother considers them one person: Kaylee-Haylee, Haylee-Kaylee, which is what she often calls them. She always makes sure to say the other name first the next time. The excruciating rituals wear thin on their father, who dares to think that maybe they might want to be considered as individuals some day. He seems to be their only hope for eventually becoming whole persons.

The girls are home-schooled so that nothing and no one can ruin their perfection. Their mother loves the fact that people stare at them when they eat out. They always respond in tandem to comments. Their mother would be upset if they didn’t.

However, the mother relents at last and lets them attend public high school. Predictably, cracks appear in the mirror. We’ve already seen that Haylee is growing adept at creating little eddies of turmoil that reflect badly on her sister. In high school, the eddies turn into dangerous whirlpools.

It’s very good that a second and third installment are planned soon. You’ll see what I mean when you finish the book. It seems to read slowly and there’s a lot of repetition, but the story is always building and the tension increasing. If you like Andrews or gothic horror, you’ll race through this book, shivering with dark delight.

Reviewed by Kaye George, author of Requiem in Red, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: A Time of Torment by John Connolly

A Time of Torment by John Connolly

Former NYPD detective Charlie Parker is back from a fatal encounter with a Neo-Nazi group. He was left for dead and was, actually, dead, but was revived and came back stronger than before. Now he’s patched up and ready to battle demons and particularly evil humans. This book is called a thriller, but it reads like more of a supernatural horror tale of carnage and killing while righting terrible wrongs, and featuring rather graphic violence.

The first character to appear is Roger Ormsby, outwardly a small, colorful man who is well liked and generous in the community. Inwardly, he is the Gray Man, who wants to destroy as many lives as he can, those of cherished, good people, as slowly as possible. This sets the tone for the swirl of complex, interwoven events.

Charlie wades through the tangled weave of evil, backed by two dangerous men, Angel and Louis. Together, the three are a formidable team.

The story centers around a West Virginia place called The Cut, which is home to a rough bunch of primitive people who have been isolated—and inbreeding—for many long years. They serve an entity they call The Dead King. That’s the real enemy Charlie has to try to ferret out and defeat.

Fans of the series will love this new one. Readers new to the series can pick this one up without reading the first twelve. It’s a long book, but a quick read because it’s breathtakingly hard to put down.

Reviewed by Kaye George, author of Death on the Trek, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: Dark Fissures by Matt Coyle

Dark Fissures by Matt Coyle

This third Rick Cahill dark thriller opened with him disgraced, and pulled over. Again. Cahill is an ex-cop, a hard-boiled character with a melty-soft center, especially for his dog, Midnight.

He left the La Jolla Police Department in California under a cloud and Police Chief Tony Moretti has it in for him. Since he has to drive through La Jolla regularly to access his mailbox, Moretti has plenty of chances to target and harass him. Cahill was never charged with his wife’s murder, but he wasn’t cleared, either. He’s implicated in another twisted series of events that happened before the start of this book, but they follow him.

He’s on the verge of losing his house when a beautiful woman drops a case into his lap. They meet at Muldoon’s Steakhouse, the place he calls his office, and Brianne Colton tells him she wants her husband’s supposed suicide investigated. They were separated, but he died in their house and was discovered by their son when he came home from school. Colton doesn’t think that’s what her husband would have done.

The more Cahill looks into it, the more he agrees with her. Up to a point. Some strange things are going on with the band Colton plays in and he’s not sure of her. When he learns the man’s cell phone is missing, he knows he’s on the right track. He must face some of the members of the police force he’s been ousted from in order to get the details. If you like tight, fast, dark thrillers, you’ll do well to follow Coyle into the dark fissure that runs through Cahill’s soul.

Reviewed by Kaye George, author of Requiem in Red, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: City of Strangers by Louise Millar

City of Strangers by Louise Millar

From the land of Agatha Christie comes, instead, a suspense writer worthy of Patricia Highsmith. Any city can seem like a city of strangers, especially when, like Grace Scott, one returns to it after her honeymoon and it no longer holds one who was dear to her, her beloved father. She misses him with an ache her new husband can’t assuage.

When they get home, Mac goes out to get groceries and she enters the new apartment alone—and finds a dead man. She’s a journalist and her camera helps her process her thoughts, so she quickly takes some pictures, then dials the police.

The reader learns, right away, of Mr. Singh’s newsagent shop below the apartment, and the presence of a mysterious man in the storeroom. We revisit him throughout the book as his mental state deteriorates. Grace feels a connection with the poor dead man, as she thinks of him, who has been killed in their place and tries to follow any progress on finding his killer. Mac is much too busy, supervising the conversion of a warehouse into flats, with a restaurant and gym, and a bar-slash-photography-studio-slash rehearsal space.

But the authorities make slow progress. They don’t know the man’s name. She finds a discarded envelope addressed to her. On it, he, or someone, has scribbled the words: I am not that man Lucian Grabole. Running alongside this story is one of two people found dead in other places. One is said to be an Australian tourist and one a drug dealer. Grace, convincing her boss to let her work on the story, embarks on a quest for missing pieces of the puzzle, makes astonishing discoveries, and begins to question everything she knows.

Meanwhile, back in England, the mysterious man still crouches in a small space one floor below her new apartment, hiding.

Lucian Grabole proves to be as illusive in life as in death. Can she trust the people who say they’re helping her track down who he was?

Reviewed by Kaye George, author of Requiem in Red, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays with Kaye: The Marriage Lie by Kimberly Belle

The Marriage Lie by Kimberly Belle

I started reading this while I was in the Atlanta area, by happy coincidence. Will and Iris have been married for just over seven years, but Iris itches only for Will. She considers their relationship still thrilling. Instead of “I love you,” they tell each other, “You are my favorite person on the planet.”

A year ago they bought their dream house in Inman Park, an expensive and historic district in Atlanta, even though the price means it will remain mostly unfurnished for a few years. All goes well and their lives hum along, hers as a counselor at a private school, his as a software engineer—until Will, who is supposed to be on a business trip to Orlando, is reported dead from a plane that crashed on its way to Seattle. Iris goes through the mourning process, starting with denial. That starts to end when she finds that the conference Will was headed for doesn’t exist. Then she learns that he actually bought tickets to both Orlando and Seattle. Anger, the next stage of grief, bubbles to the surface. She redirects it at Liberty Air, the airline whose plane crashed.

Her twin brother Dave moves in to help her through this. Iris, Dave, and their tough dad meet with a representative from the airline, Ann Margaret Myers. When Myers offers Iris a settlement, her anger explodes and she rips up the check.

When she begins to uncover secret after secret that her husband had kept from her, she begins to have trouble mourning him, realizing she didn’t know who he was. As she discovers more about him, her shock increases and the dark past reaches out to snare her.

Reviewed by Kaye George, Author of Death on the Trek, for Suspense Magazine.

Saturdays With Kaye: The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

 

Hardback

This novel is filled with characters who should be unlikeable, but I found myself cheering for…some of them. It’s not a murder mystery, as much of the book is spent planning to commit murder. But the suspense and tension are first notch.

Ted and Lily meet on a flight from London to Boston. As sometimes happens when strangers start talking on airplanes, life stories spill out. Ted confides that he’s just found out his wife is cheating on him and he’s angry enough to want to kill her. Lily, seeming completely serious when she says it, offers to help him. That wife, she says, is the kind worth killing. Lily lays out a plan and they agree to meet in the Boston area later if Ted decides to go through with the scheme.

Lily hasn’t shared her history, though. And it’s twisted. Her Bohemian artsy parents didn’t think to take very good care of their beautiful daughter around the itinerant writers and painters who wandered in and out of their home, many of them obsessed with sex, it seems. The first one Lily tells us about is “Uncle Chet.” After he molests her, she takes matters into her own hands in a truly chilling fashion.

Ted shows up and he and Lily keep meeting and keep making plans. Lily keeps from sharing her history by saying she will do it when Ted’s wife is dead. They are playing a dangerous game which deepens when Ted starts falling in love with Lily. The more we learn about her, the worse this idea seems.

The narrators are switched regularly and, throughout, alternate future paths are hinted at, even laid out. Following the characters along those paths will keep you on the edge of your seat, and guessing. This could end up very badly.

Reviewed by Kaye George, Author of Requiem in Red, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: Chaos by Patricia Cornwell

Chaos by Patricia Cornwell

Cornwell’s fans will welcome the latest Kay Scarpetta mystery. It starts with a public spat between the ever prickly Scarpetta and Bryce, her chief of staff, the day before she’s to give an address at Harvard.  Another complication is her apprehension about her sister Dorothy flying in to be in the audience. She has no idea why her sister is coming since she hasn’t been to Cambridge to see her in eight years. Maybe she wants, at long last, to be friends?

Scarpetta is stunned to find out someone called nine-one-one about her dust up with Bryce. That, and other oddities, lead Pete Marino, a Cambridge Police Investigator, to believe that someone is out to get her. When a young woman she has had a couple of passing encounters with ends up dead, she’s called to the scene to investigate. The area is having an intense heat wave. The decision is made to enclose the area of the park where the mysterious young woman met her death, which is also mysterious, and most of the action of the book takes place inside this chaotic crime scene, stifling hot and full of the stench of death. Her spectacularly mismatched FBI husband is involved in the case, causing another layer of tension. Then there’s the fact that Pete Marino may be wanting to become involved with her sister Dorothy, a thought that horrifies Scarpetta.

Following the twists of the cyber hacking, and the delving into the death of the young woman, will give Cornwell fans another great read with their favorite neurotic medical examiner. Have fun!

Reviewed by Kaye George, Author of Death on the Trek, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: The Lost Woman by Sara Blaedel

The Lost Woman by Sara Blaedel

Paperback

This is a deliciously dark Danish crime thriller, the third in a series featuring Inspector Louise Rick, head of the elite Special Search Agency.

The story begins with a woman being murdered in England—shot through the kitchen window by an unknown killer. Her death uncovers her true identity as a Danish citizen who has been missing for almost twenty years. Rick’s lover, Eik, sneaks over to England and ends up jailed for her murder! The relationship between Louise and Eik has been about to cause some problems in the department, but she finds she has much, much bigger problems now. She doesn’t know if she can trust what Eik says—or does. She doesn’t even know that he didn’t kill Sophie, the woman in England, who turns out to have had a past relationship with her.

Louise Rick’s world turns to quicksand when she doesn’t know who to trust. She encounters mysterious bank accounts and transfers, and more dead people. She also runs headlong into the controversial subject of assisted suicide, and the aspects are examined through different characters, pro and con.

Great tale! Scandinavian through and through.

Reviewed by Kaye George, author of Death on the Trek, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: The Girl Before by JP Delaney

The Girl Before by JP Delaney

Psychological suspense? Only if that category includes an extreme amount of suspense. This begins as a story of two women and one bizarre location, One Folgate Street.

Emma, whose chapters are labeled “Then,” needs a new place to live after a traumatic burglary during which she was threatened with a knife. The rental agent has just the thing, One Folgate Street, a fantastic property, even though the landlord is a bit particular. Jane, whose chapters are “Now,” is looking for a new place with an agent named Camilla, who wants to show her the property first, then explain the drawbacks.

Emma doesn’t have too much trouble getting used to the ultra modern place, where the lights and heat are automatic, and nothing is to be changed. No wastebaskets, no coasters, no cushions, are just a few of the prohibitions. The staircase is a series of stone slabs with no handrail. Emma’s friend Simon likens the sparse, stark place to an upmarket prison cell. Soon Emma realizes that she hasn’t had any panic attacks or flashbacks since moving in. Jane thinks the application process is a bit odd, submitting answers to intrusive questions in order to be approved, although most applicants are rejected. The landlord, she’s told, is looking for honest people.

The questionnaire is given in the book, bit by bit. I had fun trying to answer them as I went. The first one: Please make a list of every possession you consider essential to your life.

The house affects everyone who lives there, molding them and shaping them—changing them. Besides filling out the long list of questions, I found myself wondering who “The Girl Before” really was. Both women delve into the history of the building and the builder. What they find leads to deadly discoveries of birth, death, and terror. I hope you will enjoy this as much as I did. A real edge-of-the-seat read!

Reviewed by Kaye George, author of Requiem in Red, for Suspense Magazine

Saturdays With Kaye: Unpunished by Lisa Black

Unpunished by Lisa Black

The first thing I love about this thriller is the dedication, to the newspapers of America. I, too, would miss my morning paper if it disappeared. Unpunished is the second in a series.

The two main characters are Gardiner and Renner: Maggie Gardiner and Jack Renner, she a forensic investigator, he a law enforcement officer with a vigilante-killer streak that he keeps well concealed. But not from Maggie, who has her own secrets.

The initial crime, a copy editor at the Cleveland Herald being hung above the noisy, churning printing apparatus of the newspaper, sets the stage. The rest of the plot involves digging deep into the news business, finding out why the next murder happens, and trying to stop them before the newspaper is decimated.

If you want to read That Darkness first, it wouldn’t be amiss for a grounding for these complex, appealing characters.

Read carefully. Every page counts in this tightly plotted adventure.

Reviewed by Kaye George, author of Death on the Trek, for Suspense Magazine.