Shell games A novel

The latest thriller from the author of House on Fire (2019) and The Cage (2022) begins with an absolutely perfect setup. After a long and very successful career, 70-year-old Kate reunites with her high-school sweetheart; they rekindle the romance and soon they're planning their wedding. On their wedding night, her new husband, Charlie, makes a stunning confession: back in the 1980s, in Chicago, he was the one responsible for lacing bottles of Tylenol with poison and murdering several people. Kate calls in the authorities, who almost immediately reassure her that Charlie couldn't possibly have been the Tylenol murderer. Her daughter, Julie, is faced with a handful of troubling questions. Did her mother imagine Charlie's confession? Is Charlie gaslighting her mother? Did he marry her for her vast fortune? It's worth restating: this is merely the setup to the book; all of this happens in the opening pages. What follows is a wonderfully suspenseful, twist-filled, edge-of-your-seat story that builds to a smashing conclusion. As good as Kistler's previous books were, and they were very good indeed, this is hands down her best novel so far.

There's gaslighting galore in this un-put-downable outing from Kistler (Her, Too), which revolves around the veracity of a septuagenarian's explosive allegations. Widowed Florida real estate developer Kate Sawyer, 71, has long been a staple in local business journals and society pages. Recently, she's reunited with--and gotten engaged to--her high school sweetheart, Charlie Mull. On their wedding night, Kate calls 911 in hysterics, claiming Charlie just confessed to a long-unsolved string of murders from the 1980s. Kate's quiet daughter, Julie, gets caught in the middle when her husband, Eric, hears of the accusations and insists Kate undergo a psych eval, claiming she's been showing signs of dementia. Kate refuses, forcing Julie to weigh in on whether she trusts her mother or thinks she's losing her mind. Kistler masterfully keeps the action thrumming with a series of subtle ground-shifts that force readers to recalculate everyone's motives. The narrative never veers into implausibility as the misdeeds and double-crossings stack up, resulting in the rare page-turner that doesn't deflate in its final act. This will keep readers up all night. Agent: Jennifer Weltz, Jean V. Naggar Literary. (Nov.)