At first, Hank Phillippi Ryan’s “Mother Daughter Sister Stranger” seems pretty straightforward. In fact, after the first few chapters, I was wondering how she would make this really suspenseful when it’s about a woman who is taking care of her 11-year-old niece for a week while her sister is on vacation. And her sister doesn’t show up on the day she was supposed to.
For those looking for a brilliantly crafted thriller, “Three Reasons for Revenge,” by Dervla McTiernan will suit perfectly. The main character is deliciously imperfect as are all the other characters. Detective Sergeant Judith Lee is a single, forty-year-old woman with only one good friend. She’s not close with her mother, who married an abuser. When the abuser also beat Judith at the age of fifteen and then tried to kill her mother, Judith took a golf club and killed him.
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From almost the first page, Sarah Pekkanen’s “The Women in White” is both compelling and gripping. From the start we feel connected to the main character Riley. Her first person narrative in the present grounds us as we read some chapters narrated in third person about the four other women who are also at the center of this fascinating story about research into psychic abilities.
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In Lisa Jewell’s newest psychological thriller, “It Could Have Been Her,” she brings back a character from her last thriller, “Don’t Let Him In.” In that novel, Jane Trevally was a minor character, an older woman who helped solve the mystery. In this new release, Jane makes a fabulous, complex, very relatable main character, and her Jessica Fletcher-like investigation into a missing woman uncovers chilling secrets that a family had desperately tried to hide.
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Regarding author C.B. Everett’s sort-of mystery/suspense novel, “The Final Chapter”: Yes, there is an element of traditional mystery novelization and, as expected, a significant group of surprises in one of the two primary stories comprising this brilliant, puzzling, confusing, two-novels-in-one work of art. And if the preceding sentence already has you a bit confused, hold onto your seat because you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
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What does it take to have it all? And what does one give up in order to keep it? These are questions that Hank Phillippi Ryan explores in her newest mystery, “All This Could Be Yours.” There are many meanings in that seemingly simple titular phrase, and we see the many permutations along the way as we follow main character and debut author Tessa Calloway on her best-selling novel’s book tour.
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With “We Are All Guilty Here,” acclaimed author Karin Slaughter kicks off a new series set in rural Georgia and featuring Emmy Clifton, a deputy sheriff. There’s something very satisfying about reading the first book in a new series by a favorite author. The first book in a series provides important background information about the characters and their relationships and their backstories. Subsequent mysteries will, of course, fill in enough details so that future stories make sense on their own, but I believe having read the very first novel provides special insight.
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There are so many reasons to recommend “Other People’s Houses” by Clare Mackintosh; when a mystery features characters who are so likable and relatable that their situation and relationships become equally as important as the actual mystery, you know it’s going to be a winner. And on top of that, jumping in to read the third book in the series without having read the first two books did not feel as if anything was missing.
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In Sarah Pekkanen’s latest, suspense-filled novel “The Locked Ward,” we meet two sisters, Georgia and Amanda, twins actually, who were separated at birth but now find themselves entangled in a web of deceit. The writing is ingenious as Pekkanen uses two different points of view to share the sisters’ stories. Amanda’s story is told in first person, each chapter labeled with her nickname “Mandy,” while Georgia’s narrative is shared in second person narrative. The second person narrative is a bit unsettling at first, but it quickly becomes apparent that by relating Georgia’s story as if it is happening to us, we feel deeply involved and a part of the action.
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In her latest murder mystery, “The Last Time She Saw Him,” New York Times bestselling author Kate White chooses an unusual relationship between the victim and the person investigating his death. Kiki Reed is a complicated person with a complicated past, and her latest complication is Jamie Larsson, the really nice, standup guy she was engaged to and whom she broke up with before the marriage. He was deeply in love with Kiki, but she realized that while she loved him, she wasn’t in love with him. His family and friends have not forgiven her.
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In “The New Couple in 5B,” author Lisa Unger brings us a tale which will remind those of us of a certain age of Ira Levin’s work, namely “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Sliver.” As I was reading this very gripping novel, I kept thinking about those intriguing and slightly horror-filled novels, and how echoes of those came to my mind.
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Why do women lawyers represent rapists? In “Her, Too,” Bonnie Kistler faces this question head on, and the twists she presents in this action-filled legal and moral drama make for page-turning reading. In fact, by the time you’ve finished the second chapter, you will be hooked.
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