Review by Booklist Review
Twenty-five years later, karma has come for Paris Peralta. She is arrested in her own bathroom, found with a straight razor in her hand and covered in blood. Her celebrity husband, Jimmy Peralta, is dead in the bathtub. He was the love of this life, the one she built from the ashes of her old one. The police and Jimmy's adoring public assume she did it, and the terms of Jimmy's new will give her a motive. However, her bigger fear is that Ruby Reyes will catch up with her. Ruby, "The Ice Queen," convicted of murdering her lover, knows all of Paris' secrets from that other life and has unexpectedly been released from jail. In this follow-up to Little Secrets (2020), Hillier creates an absolute monster in Ruby and spins a compelling tale backward and forward through time. The big reveals may not come as complete surprises, but psychological thriller fans won't mind all that much, and they will be satisfied when everything comes full circle at the end.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of this taut if flawed psychological thriller from Hillier (Little Secrets), the police find Paris Peralta in her Seattle home holding a bloody razor over her husband, comedian Jimmy Peralta, who's lying dead in the bathtub, and arrest her. Because Jimmy was on the cusp of launching a much anticipated comeback, the media attention surrounding the case threatens to expose Paris's long-hidden secrets to a ruthless blackmailer. Meanwhile, Drew Malcolm, a journalist turned crime podcaster, receives word that notorious killer Ruby Reyes (aka the Ice Queen), now perceived as a victim of sexual abuse, is about to be freed on parole after serving 25 years of a life sentence for the murder of her rich married lover. Drew knew Ruby's teenage daughter, who became a drifter after her mother went to prison and later died in a mysterious fire, and decides to focus his latest podcast on the Reyes case. Some readers may find the use of flashbacks to reveal the obvious connection between the two stories cumbersome, and the solution to Jimmy's murder may strike others as perfunctory. Still, this heartfelt account of one woman's attempt to break free of an abusive childhood will resonate with many. Agent: Victoria Skurnick, Levine Greenberg. (July)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Jimmy Peralta is dead, and his wife was found next to his body holding the straight razor that killed him. Paris Peralta has a troubled past, but she swears she didn't kill her husband. Through flashbacks and changing perspectives, readers learn not only about Paris and Jimmy's relationship but also about Paris's life before Jimmy--a life that included abuse, murder, and a different identity. Hillier (Jar of Hearts) has created another twisty thriller, albeit a more predictable one than in her previous novels. The writing is superb, but the timing of the reveals is drawn out to the point that the ending feels too abrupt. Still, with mentions of streaming comedy shows and true crime podcasts and told by unreliable narrators, this novel has wide appeal. VERDICT Readers of Megan Goldin and Lisa Jewell will enjoy this thrilling take on a character reinventing herself but unable to run away from the past. Hillier is a must-read for the mystery genre.--Natalie Browning
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The violent death of a Seattle comedian looking for a comeback opens the door to a full-bore investigation of his wife, who has every reason to dread the spotlight. In his time, Jimmy Peralta was the star of the successful TV show The Prince of Poughkeepsie. His time was quite a while ago, but after years of retirement, a chance remark at an awards dinner has paved the way for Jimmy's return on the streaming platform Quan…until he's found in his bathtub with his femoral artery slashed. Also found in the bathroom is his fifth wife, yoga instructor Paris Peralta, who tells Jimmy's oldest friend, attorney Elsie Dixon, that she returned from a work conference in Vancouver to find him dead and grabbed his straight-edged razor in confusion. Since the surveillance monitors that could confirm what time Paris crossed the border have gone dead, Elsie prepares her client to dig in for a difficult trial. The lawyer doesn't know that this isn't Paris' first rodeo. She fled Toronto many years ago under an assumed name in the wake of a basement fire that claimed the life of stripper Joelle Reyes, whose mother, Ruby Reyes, was already doing time for killing her married lover, bank president Charles Baxter, under circumstances that left her with the nickname the Ice Queen. As Ruby, who's about to be paroled after 25 years, sends Paris a series of escalating blackmail demands, journalist Drew Malcolm, who has his own uncomfortable ties to Joey Reyes, seizes on Paris' arrest as fodder for his true-crime podcast, Things We Do in the Dark, that might help exorcise his personal demons. But that exorcism stands at the end of a long and twisty road. Gripping enough to make you accept every contrivance and beg for more. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
