Review by New York Times Review
HAVING FUN? FEELIN' GROOVY? A new novel by Lars Kepler will wipe that smile off your face. STALKER (Knopf, $27.95) opens with a gruesome crime scene ("a display of extraordinary brutality," in Neil Smith's blunt translation from the Swedish) and becomes more explicit as it creeps along to its conclusion ("suddenly his head rolls over"). But that's the way it goes with Lars Kepler, a pseudonym for the husband and wife team of Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril, who have a taste for the macabre and a surefire recipe for the lurid serial-killer thriller. The essential component of their formula is a worthy villain, someone just like the sieko here, who shoots videos of unsuspecting women to study at his leisure ("He takes his time, enjoys himself"). Once he's whipped himself up into a froth, this merciless madman returns to claim his prey with another horrific murder. The sadistic twist here is that he sends the videos of his future victims to the National Crime headquarters in Stockholm, daring the police to outwit him before he kills again. Margot Silverman, a police expert on serial killers, spree killers and stalkers, is properly worked up by these taunts, which also prods into action Joona Linna, a living legend in crime circles and the heavyweight of the Kepler series. The third member of the team is Erik Maria Bark, a specialist in disaster trauma and an authority in clinical hypnotherapy, who treats us to an impressive example of his skills ("The only thing you're listening to is my voice ... "). This is not a book for anyone on heart medication. Kepler is a virtuoso at delivering scenes of suspense, proving it here with an unnerving sequence in which a woman senses the silent killer who is stalking her. He also loves to drop severed body parts into a story, even when it isn't strictly necessary to advance the plot. But that's the deal with Kepler: If you want the thrills, you've got to expect the chills. PETER ROBINSON writes the kind of mysteries they don't write anymore: smart, civilized whodunits that are intellectually challenging, emotionally engaging and always discreet. Can you imagine a cop who concludes a suspect interview by saying: "Sorry to have bothered you at dinnertime. And I apologize if some of our questions caused you discomfort." That gentlemanly policeman is Alan Banks, a Yorkshire homicide detective who appears in CARELESS LOVE (Morrow/HarperCollins, $26.99), his 25th outing in the series dedicated to his sleuthing. No one expects cops to be au courant with the latest fashions. Nonetheless, Banks knows that a young woman found dead at the scene of an auto accident would not get all dolled up and neglect to take her handbag, and that a man who supposedly fell to his death in a ravine would not have gone for a stroll on Tetchley Moor wearing an expensive suit. The double-sided puzzle, which strikes Banks as "a three-pipe problem," involves, among other things, a sex-trafficking racket. But we also appreciate the well-drawn women, the keen character analysis and, of course, the company of a true gentleman. Wearing red to a wedding reception might seem rude, but wearing red while dead seems downright uncouth. The bride certainly doesn't take it very well when a dead woman in a red dress spoils her big day in THE WEDDING GUEST (Ballantine, $28.99), Jonathan Kellerman's latest mystery featuring Alex Delaware. A child psychologist who is often consulted by the Los Angeles Police Department, Delaware has no children to tend to here, but he does find a lot of childish grownups at the Aura, the former strip joint Brearley and Garrett Burdette whimsically chose for their "Saints and Sinners"-themed party. Although the corpse is admired for her fashion sense - "The dress is Fendi, the shoes are Manolo, and the hair is awesome" - no one seems to know who she is. This means Delaware has a suspect pool of about 100 people, from the mother of the bride ("Botoxed as smooth as a freshly laundered bedsheet") to the busboys. One-on-one interviews are Kellerman's strong suit, so expect some shrewd instant analyses and unwittingly funny observations - like "Destroying a wedding has a personal feeling." "No crazy thoughts allowed," promises the diarist who narrates THE SILENT PATIENT (Celadon, $26.99), a predictable if disturbing first novel by Alex Michaelides. Don't fall for that one; there are plenty of crazy thoughts - and crazier events - in this psychological thriller. The two main characters, both inclined to craziness, are extremely well matched. Alicia Berenson appeared to be a happily married woman when she tied her husband to a chair and shot him five times in the face. Why she did it remains a mystery, because she never spoke again. Theo Faber, her psychotherapist at the institution where she is locked up, seems normal enough at first. And it's obvious that he's giving it his all. But Alicia is a tough nut to crack - "I know all this sounds crazy," she admits in her diary - and therapy increasingly becomes a battle between crazy and crazier. Marilyn STASIO has covered crime fiction for the Book Review since 1988. Her column appears twice a month.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [March 11, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
Yorkshire police make two unsettling discoveries within days of each other in the latest Alan Banks mystery, the twenty-fifth starring the former detective chief inspector and now detective superintendent. The first discovery is the body of a 19-year-old student, dead at the wheel of a Ford Focus, in a remote valley of the Yorkshire Dales. The woman seems to have been killed somewhere else and then placed in the vehicle. The second discovery is that of a man, apparently dead from a fall off a hiking trail on the moors, wearing oddly formal clothes for this rugged hiking area. Banks, assisted by series heroine and his onetime lover, Detective Inspector Annie Cabot, takes on both cases, which span out into a larger case masterminded by one of their old nemeses, who seems to be messaging them through murder. As usual, Robinson provides a solid police procedural enhanced by the rugged Yorkshire setting. Banks himself jazz- and solitude-loving, difficult, somewhat melancholic, unlucky in love is always fascinating. Robinson doesn't give much help to new readers, but, for series fans, this one is a sure bet.--Connie Fletcher Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Det. Supt. Alan Banks has two unusual deaths to investigate early in bestseller Robinson's engrossing 25th outing for the Yorkshire policeman (after 2017's Sleeping in the Ground). A young woman with no marks of violence on her, later identified as college student Adrienne Munro, is found in an abandoned car on a country road. Adrienne is dressed up as if for a party, but she has no cell phone or purse. Meanwhile, a male in his mid-60s, later identified as wealthy banker Laurence Hadfield, appears to have died of injuries due to a fall into a gully in the middle of a moor. Oddly, he's wearing a business suit, and, like Adrienne, has no cell phone. As Banks and his capable team go to work interviewing people who knew the deceased, they wonder what could possibly link the two. A third peculiar death provides some answers. Readers expecting a host of suspects and wild plot twists will be disappointed. Those who enjoy methodical police procedurals that build to a logical, satisfying conclusion will be amply rewarded. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Two suspicious deaths in as many days, seemingly unrelated, have Leeds DCI Alan Banks and his team working to find out what happened to the deceased. The first victim, a university student dressed for an evening out, is discovered in a car that was involved in an accident investigated days before by the police. The second body, that of a London financier, is retrieved from the bottom of a ravine, dead from a broken neck, but clad in a business suit rather than hiking clothes. There is nothing that links the two deaths until Banks and his colleagues start asking questions and a third body, obviously murdered this time, turns up. VERDICT Robinson fans will enjoy the latest entry (after Sleeping in the Ground) in this long-running series. First-time readers will be motivated to seek out the previous titles. Well-written and believable, with recognizable but multifaceted characters and enough twists to keep the story riveting until the mystery is solved. [See Prepub Alert, 8/10/18.]-Lisa O'Hara, Univ. of Manitoba Libs., Winnipeg © Copyright 2019. 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 corpse deposited in a crashed car clearly marked POLICE AWARE kicks off DCI Alan Banks' 25th case.Builder John Kelly drove his van away from the road accident at Belderfell Pass, but Trevor and Nancy Vernon had to leave their undriveable car behind. Imagine their surprise and outrage when a young woman's body turns up behind its wheel the following week. It's pretty clear to Banks and his Homicide and Serious Crimes Team (Sleeping in the Ground, 2017, etc.) that Eastvale College student Adrienne Munro choked to death in her own vomit elsewhere after an overdose of sleeping pills. But nothing else is clear. In fact, when DI Annie Cabbot is called to the spot on Tetchley Moor where semiretired banker Laurence Hadfield fell or was pushed to his death in a deep gulley, the bonds between the two deaths seem more baffling than illuminating. The plot thickens, but it doesn't begin to take logical shape until Banks' friend DCI Ken Blackstone, of the West Yorkshire Homicide and Major Inquiry Team, brings a third corpse to their attention: that of Sarah Chen, a University of Leeds student found beaten to death in an abandoned shack. The deaths of Adrienne Munro and Sarah Chen, both of whom lied about coming into substantial sums of money shortly before they died, seem clearly linked. But what connects either of these promising young women, their lives cut pitifully short, to the well-heeled banker whose own son acknowledges that he had hundreds, perhaps thousands, of enemies?The answers to these questions aren't exactly surprising, but they're eminently logical and all too depressing. And if the solution depends on good luck and good timing rather than mental prowess, that's business as usual for Robinson's all-too-human coppers. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
