Review by New York Times Review
IN FICTION, as in life, a violent crime can tear a family apart. In Karin Slaughter's PRETTY GIRLS (Morrow/HarperCollins, $27.99), a hell-raising thriller that departs from her previous soft-boiled investigative procedurals, a murder brings two estranged sisters back together - making them a much better target for a killer who's been stalking the whole family. Claire Scott's pampered existence as the prized wife of a wealthy Atlanta architect comes to a cruel end when her husband, Paul, is fatally stabbed during a mugging. Except for an icky tendency toward extravagant declarations of devotion, Paul seems like an O.K. guy. But when Claire searches his computer for his work files, she's horrified to discover graphic snuff films. And after finding her sister, Lydia, standing over Paul's grave and cursing him, she reconsiders the matter that has kept them apart for 18 years - her refusal to believe Lydia's claim that Paul tried to rape her. The plot perks up once Lydia (whose nickname was "Pepper" back in high school, when she was in a girl band) shows up, with her regret-filled history of too much drugs and liquor and one-night stands, as well as her prickly sense of humor. Hearing her teenage daughter's announcement that she has some bad news, Lydia's first guesses are: "pregnant, failing biology, gambling debts, meth habit, genital warts." And it's Lydia the hellion, not Princess Claire, who's still haunted by the loss of their sister, Julia, abducted during her freshman year of college. But once the sisters bond over those torture-porn videos, Claire takes the lead in exposing her husband's secret life and possibly criminal past. Slaughter executes a number of tricky plot twists, some clever and others preposterous. (Would the F.B.I. really offer witness protection to someone who's a "borderline psychopath"?) But all these sweaty maneuvers are in the service of a genuinely exciting narrative driven by strong-willed female characters who can't wait around until the boys shake the lead out of their shoes. IT'S BEEN AGES since there's been a serial killer in the English city of Brighton, where Peter James sets his fanatically well-researched police procedurals starring Detective Superintendent Roy Grace. They don't know what they're missing - until an authentic specimen comes to this seaside resort in YOU ARE DEAD (Minotaur, $27.99) and begins doing unspeakable things to young women with long dark hair. There's plenty of explicit violence here, as there is in other novels in this series; but that's beside the point. Despite the horrific nature of the crimes, this is no guts-and-gore potboiler, but a meticulous study of police work as it's conducted at the station houses, crime scenes, mortuaries and forensic labs outside the big cities. (Among other fun facts, these cops have to be granted permission for the "use of firearms in a spontaneous incident.") Following the protocol for a good procedural, the narrative dotes on Roy Grace, but it also tracks the work done by other members of the homicide team, like his salt-of-the-earth partner, Detective Inspector Glenn Branson. In that soap opera D.S. Grace calls his life, he's still gaga over his second wife and their new baby, but there's a fascinating development involving the fate of his first wife, long missing and presumed dead. IN THE CHILD GARDEN (Midnight Ink, $24.99), Catriona McPherson draws a warmhearted character study of a woman who stoically copes with the truly awful hand fate has dealt her. Gloria Harkness works in (and lives alone near) the grounds of a nursing home that shelters both her severely handicapped son and the old woman whose generosity makes it possible for Gloria to board him there. But once upon a time the big country house was a private school called Eden - until a pupil died under mysterious circumstances. When an old schoolmate shows up on her doorstep, pursued by a stalker, Gloria takes him in and soon finds herself caught up in that sad, long-ago mystery. McPherson writes with the firm but delicate touch of a spider testing the strength of its web. Her account of what happens when good little children tell big, bad lies is a tale that shivers with suspense and more than a touch of horror. A LOST, FRIGHTENED boy confesses that he has just murdered his foster father, who was abusing his brother. Now what do you do with him? In Stuart Neville's bruising new novel, THOSE WE LEFT BEHIND (Soho Crime, $27.95), 12-year-old Ciaran Devine is sent to a Belfast prison, only to emerge seven years later as the same lost, frightened boy. During those years his older brother, Thomas, has grown into a vicious bully; once they're reunited, he firmly instructs Ciaran to distrust every figure of authority who tries to help him. These people are their enemies, even Paula Cunningham, Ciaran's kind and caring probation officer, and Detective Chief Inspector Serena Flanagan, who knows a child murderer when she sees one and doesn't think Ciaran fits the profile. Neville's books are dark but elegantly written case studies of the roots of violence, and here he writes thoughtfully, even tenderly, about children who come from the streets, go through the foster programs and the prison system, and are either reborn or dragged back into the sorrows that are their inheritance.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 4, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review
In McPherson's latest stand-alone thriller (following Come to Harm, 2015), single-mum Gloria is the last person who would ever want to borrow trouble. She spends her days as a village registrar, bearing witness to the happy occasions of others, and her nights sitting at the bedside of her institutionalized son. (Nicky is perpetually sedated to prevent the violent seizures and spasms that characterize his rare disease from overtaking him.) One night, however, trouble finds Gloria. A childhood friend, Stephen Tarrant, arrives on her doorstep with a wild tale about a stalker from his days at the progressive school that used to occupy the grounds where Nicky's nursing home now stands. The stalker ends up dead, and Stephen appears set up to take the fall. Gloria believes her old friend is innocent and uncovers a pattern of mysterious deaths among the students of the ill-named Eden school. A fascinating, dark village thriller with a heroine who is nowhere near the milquetoast mother she appears at first glance.--Keefe, Karen Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Civil servant Gloria Harkness, the narrator of this disturbing standalone from Edgar-finalist McPherson (Come to Harm), receives an unexpected visitor one rainy night at her secluded Scottish country house: an old primary schoolmate of hers, Stephen "Stig" Tarrant, who's still haunted by the drowning of a boy at Eden, the boarding school the then-11-year-old Stig attended. The drowning occurred while Stig, the dead boy, and several other classmates were out camping together. Eden, forced to close down by the scandal, was turned into the same institution where Gloria's 15-year-old son, who suffers from a neurodegenerative disease, lies in a vegetative state. After Gloria and Stig happen to uncover the corpse of a classmate of Stig's, Stig becomes the police's prime suspect. Gloria decides to undertake her own investigation and discovers that a number of the students present on the night of the drowning have either killed themselves or suffered hardships. One surprising plot twist after another leads to a shocking ending. Agent: Lisa Moylett, Coombs Moylett Literary Agency. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
On a stormy night driving back from visiting her invalid son at his care home, Gloria Harkness is almost run off the road by a man she has not seen in over 30 years. Stig of the Dump, as he was called, is really Stephen Tarrant, who's being stalked by April, a former classmate from the alternative school known as Eden. The facility shut down after a student drowned. When Glo and Stig find April's body, and Glo discovers several other students are all dead, the question becomes: Who is killing the children of Eden? -VERDICT Better known for her "Dandy -Gilver" cozies, McPherson has written a terrific stand-alone that is complex, haunting, and magical. Readers who appreciate Kate -Atkinson or Audrey Niffeneger for their intricate plotting and character development will be sure to pounce on this stunning title. © Copyright 2015. 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
A divorced woman with a severely disabled teenage son gets sucked into a mystery that will change her forever. Gloria lives in a farmhouse on the remnants of a large Scottish estate. For the owner, who lives in the nursing home created out of the main house, her most important job is rocking the ancient stone in the garden 12 times a day to prevent the devil trapped inside from escaping. In addition, she takes care of the house and its dog and cats. In return, she can afford to keep her son, Nicky, in the same home. Stephen "Stig" Tarrant, a grade school pal, turns up on her doorstep saying he's being stalked by April Cowan, one of his fellow students from Eden, an alternative high school once based on the estate, and asks Gloria to go with him to a meeting April demanded. When they find April dead in a small stone hut on the estate, Stig slowly reveals a terrible story about the death of a boy at the school. He was found floating in the nearby river the night of Beltane, when the students had a cookout and slept outsideall but Stig, who claims he was sick after eating undercooked sausages and knows only parts of the story. Although the death was ruled an accident, the school was closed, the headmistress's reputation ruined, and the students scattered. April's body vanishes before they decide to tell the police, and Stig becomes a person of interest, hiding in Gloria's house and cooking gourmet meals while Gloria sleuths. Believing Stig's story of being set up, Gloria, whose job as a registrar gives her access to private information, starts to search for the other students and soon learns that most of them were apparent suicides. She's horrified to realize that her ex-husband was one of them, one of the few still left alive. McPherson's newest stand-alone (Come to Harm, 2015, etc.) is a stunning combination of creepy thriller and classic mystery with a startling denouement. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
