Review by New York Times Review
SOONER OR LATER, a historical crime novel is bound to drag you down some dark alley and into the nastiest, most lawless precincts of the period. Jean Zimmerman followed this tradition in her first novel, "The Orphanmaster," a descent into the hellish criminal haunts of 17th-century New Amsterdam. In SAVAGE GIRL (Viking, $27.95), this canny author puts all that aside and turns to the Gilded Age for a sweeping narrative, set within the cloistered ranks of high society in 19th-century Manhattan, that raises touchy questions about what it means to be civilized. Even in this exclusive world, the Delegate family is more privileged than most. The paterfamilias, Friedrich-August-Heinrich (also known as Freddy), has taken his family and a retinue of servants on his private, sumptuously appointed 12-car railroad train to Virginia City, Nev., to visit the silver mine that's boosting his already considerable fortune. But when the Delegates depart from this brawling Wild West boom town, they have an additional passenger, a beautiful, feral young woman from a land that's "savage, wild, forsaken by God and man" - who's said to have been raised by wolves. Found at a side-show, she'll be the ideal experimental subject, Freddy thinks, for the nature-or-nurture debate roiling his intellectual set. Using Freddy's intelligent but decidedly peculiar son Hugo as narrator adds another layer of suspense to the story. A student of anatomy at Harvard, this young man has an unhealthy fondness for knives and a vivid imagination when it comes to Bronwyn, as the "Savij Girl" comes to be known. But who's to say where imagination leaves off and obsession takes over, once the family is back in its Fifth Avenue mansion and the "Pygmalion"-like process of civilizing Bronwyn (who keeps her own set of razor-like steel claws and creeps out of the house to visit the wild animals at the zoo) begins in earnest. The wondrous sights Zimmerman rolls out for us - a picnic on the banks of the Great Salt Lake, a stopover at the "fabulous, glorious" Palmer House hotel in Chicago and visits to mansions up and down the East Coast - are all the more piquant when Bronwyn's admirers begin turning up, cut to ribbons, at almost every whistle stop. If this is civilization, bring on the wolves. ALWAYS SURPRISING and never dull. That's the bottom line on Michael Robotham's psychological suspense novels, which star a sympathetic clinical psychologist named Joe O'Loughlin and feature the walking wounded on his challenging client list. Currently on the couch in WATCHING YOU (Mulholland/Little Brown, $26) is Marnie Logan, who's been in a state of "existential anxiety" for a little over a year, ever since her husband disappeared. Crushed by bills and unable to draw on his accounts, collect his insurance or pay off his gambling debts, Marnie hasn't the smarts or the gumption to fight off the predators making life miserable for her and her two demanding children. What Marnie doesn't know is that she has a stalker, a creepy guardian angel who's been watching over her ever since she was a child. But when her tormentors are murdered one by one, it's Marnie, not her secret sharer, who becomes the prime suspect. Only O'Loughlin, fighting his own demons, seems to have the compassion to work with such a fatalistic victim. The plot is so twisted and the psychology so perverse, even the most alert reader might misread the clues. But don't feel bad. O'Loughlin doesn't get it entirely right either. IT'S HARD TO KEEP TRACK of all the detectives and their significant others in Mari Jungstedt's Swedish mysteries, which are set on Gotland, a picturesque but forbidding island in the Baltic Sea. Detective Superintendent Anders Knutas, one of those dedicated career cops who validate the genre credentials of procedural mysteries, is clearly the top investigator. Johan Berg, a TV reporter, is more of a pest than a bona fide sleuth. And then there's Knutas's deputy, Karin Jacobsson, who takes the lead in THE DEAD OF SUMMER (Stockholm Text, paper, $14.95), while the boss is vacationing in Denmark. Despite her weak stomach at gross crime scenes - as when a bullet-riddled corpse is found floating in the sea by two schoolboys, who swim right into it - Jacobsson is a competent and likable police officer. More critically, she's true to herself, to the point of resolving this terribly sad case in a way that not even Knutas would dare. I BEND MY KNEE to any hard-boiled male author with the sang-froid to note that a woman's French pedicure is shot through with "tiny crystal inlays that glittered like shattered glass at the scene of an accident." That kind of imagery comes naturally to Loren D. Estleman, who can't be unmanned by a pretty piece of writing. His latest Amos Walker mystery, DON'T LOOK FOR ME (Forge/Tom Doherty, $26.99), is SO old-school, with its world-weary private eye, cynical villains and sultry dames, that it's new again. The slick plot sends Walker on a wild-goose chase after an investment banker's missing wife, a health nut who goes around with so many bottles of vitamin pills that "her purse rattled like a used car." But the case takes a sinister turn when the lady's source of supplements turns out to be selling heroin, not herbs. Given the markup on vitamins, the heroin sounds like a bargain.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [March 23, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Aussie thriller master Robotham starts with a touch readers have seen before. Every person who does wrong by the hero, therapist Joe O'Loughlin, has something awful happen to them, and all Joe knows is that he didn't do it. Meanwhile, Marnie Logan could use help. Abandoned by her husband, raising two children, and behind in the rent, she joins an escort service. Her pimp beats her. She visits a banker to beg that her husband's money be released. The jerk sneers her out the door. All her life Marnie has had a sense she's being watched by someone who stays in shadows and disappears when she turns on a light. Now she's sure. Scared, she confides in her friend, O'Loughlin, who does some detective-style investigating and learns that suddenly, like Marnie, he seems to have someone looking over his shoulder, too. This is where Robotham slowly, expertly begins tightening the screws in a deadpan style as sneaky as Joe's shadow friend. Revelations increase rather than release tension until the last page delivers the final chill. It will be a long time before memories of this one retreat back into the shadows.--Crinklaw, Don Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In Robotham's disturbing eighth thriller featuring London-based psychologist Joe O'Loughlin and retired detective Vincent Ruiz (after 2012's Say You're Sorry), O'Loughlin has a troubled new patient, Marnie Logan. Marnie has a slew of problems-her husband has gone missing, which has forced her to work as an escort to support her children; she's plagued by "mind slips"; and it appears someone is following her. The good-hearted O'Loughlin maintains Marnie's innocence after she becomes a suspect in a murder case, but when his office is broken into and only Marnie's file is stolen, he turns to Ruiz for help. As Ruiz and O'Loughlin hunt for answers, they discover Marnie has a dark past, full of erratic, vindictive behavior, as well as a history of mental illness. Might Marnie be the real culprit? This is a steady and commanding book with an ending that's sure to give even the most jaded reader a shock. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Marnie Logan's husband, Daniel, has been missing for over a year, leaving her in financial limbo. She can't access any of his accounts, and he has left behind a large debt, previously unknown to her, that she is expected to pay. When the debt collector is found murdered, the police turn their attention to Marnie as the last person to have seen him alive. Soon they discover a disturbing pattern: anyone who has caused Marnie harm has been paid back in spades. Her psychologist, Joe O'Laughlin, is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, perhaps risking his own life. VERDICT Robotham's newest thriller (after Say You're Sorry) is full of surprises. Well written and slightly creepy, it will keep readers intrigued to the final page. [See Prepub Alert, 9/16/13.]-Lisa O'Hara, Univ. of Manitoba Libs., Winnipeg (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Robotham, an Australian-based writer who specializes in edge-of-your-seat thrillers, turns in a complicated story that centers around a group of individuals who are not what they seem. Marnie is a beautiful woman who has fallen on hard times. In addition to the untimely and unexplained disappearance of her journalist husband, Daniel, she's struggling with a moody teenage daughter, a fragile young son and debts that are driving her into a demeaning lifestyle. Since she can't provide Daniel's death certificate, Marnie can't collect his life insurance, nor can she access his personal information or accounts. Even his employer refuses to hand over his personal effects. And that's not the worst problem with which Marnie must deal: Daniel's gambling habit has left him thousands in debt to a gangster who is determined to make his wife pay what is owed him. After he threatens her, her children and her elderly father, Marnie reluctantly agrees to work as an escort for a man who would not hesitate to order her death. About the only thing Marnie has going for her is her psychologist, Robotham's longtime character Joe O'Loughlin. The psychologist has worked with police on sensitive cases in the past, and he knows his way around trauma victims, but while he does well with helping the helpless put their own lives together, his own remains a mess. O'Loughlin also suffers from a worsening case of Parkinson's. Soon after starting Marnie's treatment, he begins to suspect there is more to Marnie than she admits, and when people start turning up dead, he knows he's dealing with more than just another victim. Robotham's writing remains solid. His latest, while not his best, will convert new readers and make his fans happy.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
