Category: Mystery

‘The Night Swim’ – Megan Goldin

 

Thank you to the author, publisher St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for granting me access to this prior to publication in exchange for my review. Having just finished, I feel emotionally wrecked – and though the subject for this book will be a trigger for some readers, it’s a must-read in my view.

The first thing I have to make clear is that fans of The Escape Room, or anyone who’s picked this up because it’s marketed as a tense thriller could well be disappointed. It’s tense on occasion, but this struck me as a more complicated mystery and it would be such a shame for readers to feel put-off as they expected something different.

Something I have to state early on is that I loved the narrative of this. Our main character, Rachel, is producing her third series of a popular crime podcast. She has attracted many fans, so for this series opts to head to a small town to cover a live case…that of a potential Olympic swimmer accused of raping a sixteen year old girl known only as K. It poses risks – and as the book begins we sense there’ll be more to it, but I was quite taken aback by the links between this case and one from twenty-five years earlier.

I really don’t want to say too much about either case, as I think the success of this novel depends on us establishing the facts of each case as they’re revealed and – like Rachel – slowly piecing together the links.

I hurt reading this, and that’s no bad thing. Reading the details of the events described, and the behaviour of those in court was tough. Necessary, but draining. I cannot emphasise enough how much I think this book – awful though the subject is – should be read by everyone.

‘The Heatwave’ – Katerina Diamond

I’ve loved the Imogen Grey series so far, so was keen to read this standalone by Diamond. It’s a tricky one to review, as there is a lot going on.

Our main character is someone with something to hide. She catches a news report of a girl going missing in Sidmouth, and though she lives in the Lake District she says she has to travel down to sort out things from her past that she thinks are connected to this disappearance. We know no more than that, but we definitely want answers.

Once she arrives in this picturesque town we get a real sense of something hidden, though not enough to help us piece things together with any certainty. I found it odd that people were so keen to spill details of this missing girl to someone they either didn’t know or only vaguely recollected.

While it offered us insight into the narrator, it felt weird to have the split narrative talking about her time in the town as a teenager. We learnt about her friendship with Felicity, the strange events surrounding her teacher and the mysterious Tim who was befriended by her parents though the reasons for this aren’t clear.

As the story progresses it’s apparent that the events of the past are the ones we should be concerned with. If we learn what happened, then the links to the present day will be clearer. When we eventually reach this point it did feel rather abrupt, which jarred a little. It offered some resolution but not quite as I’d hoped for.

The book itself is a read I’d recommend, and I’m grateful to the publishers for letting me read it in advance of publication, but I was hoping for something a little different.

 

‘Charlie, Presumed Dead’ – Anne Hetzel

The book opens with Aubrey in Paris about to attend the funeral of her boyfriend, Charlie, who is missing, presumed dead, after a plane crash. She is upset…but more so when a young woman called Lena stands at the funeral to talk about Charlie, her boyfriend.

People in this situation may well run a mile. But Aubrey and Lena are curious, and they start talking. They discover that each of them was dating Charlie, and yet they are suspicious that things are not quite as they seem.

What follows is quite absurd. The girls embark on a quite preposterous trip around places of significance. They try to meet people who knew Charlie as they work out what happened. Travelling around the world and putting themselves in increasingly dangerous situations was entertaining to read about, though only if you completely suspend your disbelief.

Where the book became less successful was in the third narrator’s voice, that of Charlie. This is a young man who seemed to be in the grips of some mental breakdown, and definitely not in full control of his faculties. Not quite the victim we think, Charlie knows details about a number of people he knows and is quite happy to torment them as part of a bigger plan. Unfortunately we never quite get to work out the point of it as the focus at the end shifts rather abruptly and we’re left in a dilemma. It seems this should have more to come, but there’s no sign that this is the case, which is more than a little dissatisfying.

 

‘Little White Lies’ – Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Jennifer Lynn Barnes did not disappoint here, in a surprisingly tense mystery rolled up in a beautifully packaged family drama.

Sawyer doesn’t come from the best of backgrounds. She’s used to fending for herself as her mother tends to flit from one thing to another, and their circumstances are tight. So when Sawyer is greeted by a rather glamorous woman who says she’s her grandmother and who offers her half a million dollars if she’ll live with her for nine months, we just know there’s a catch to this opportunity.

Having arrived to a home that is the height of luxury, Sawyer has to prepare for a season as a Deb. She also has the opportunity to find out who her father is, but there’s also a rather odd situation going on concerning some of the girls she’s now expected to ally herself with. Secrets aplenty, and it’s down to Sawyer to work out the extent to which she gets involved.

The story is beyond our wildest dreams, and we switch from this narrative to the group of girls being kept in a jail cell hours before their final ball. Clever plotting keeps the story engaging, and switching between these timelines kept me highly entertained.

 

‘The Wicked Sister’ – Karen Dionne

 

The Wicked Sister is not going to be for everyone, but I found it illuminating.

Our story begins with Rachel, a young woman who has spent the last fifteen years in a mental hospital as she is convinced she killed her parents, discharging herself and heading for her childhood home. Police reports determine that at the age of eleven she could not have committed this crime, but having been found in the woods two weeks after their deaths in a catatonic state it’s easy to see why nobody pushed her to try and recall any details of that day. She heads there with a journalist desperate to find out more about this incident, but bizarrely she doesn’t want to let her sister or aunt know she’s there. Of course, we want to know why.

Once we get this teaser we jump back in time and have a character called Jenny narrating a shocking incident. She recalls the moment a neighbour’s toddler drowned in their pool, and her discovery that her daughter’s clothes were wet though she claimed to know nothing about what happened. This is followed by what seems a rather knee-jerk reaction to take her daughter and move the family to an isolated family hunting lodge. Her rationale is that she and her husband – both biologists – can undertake research and keep their ‘wild child’ away from others.

Initially I found this shift confusing as I wasn’t sure who Jenny was, or her significance. In-between following Rachel through her exploration of her family home in search of clues as to what happened, we learn more about Jenny’s family and their new life.

Watching Jenny and her husband deal with this eight year old manipulator was hard to read. There were so many odd signs about her behaviour and interactions, and I found it odd that they didn’t do more to try and understand their daughter Diane or manage her behaviour. Watching as she throws a stone at a bear cub to see how it reacts might be seen as childish curiosity, but when she is found putting a pillow over her baby sister’s face and reveals she’s done this on countless occasions the alarm bells were ringing loud and clear!

Before too long we work out that the baby sister in this incident is the Rachel also narrating our story. Knowing that whatever we’re reading Jenny talk about will end in the deaths of her and her husband lends a poignancy to so many of these incidents.

The story develops in a way that seems inevitable, though there are indications that different choices along the way could have resulted in a different story. Though there are some graphic depictions of animal cruelty that felt rather unnecessary, I was fascinated by the attempt to portray the mind of a psychopath and to show the impact of this condition in those around the person who has it. What I found frustrating was the countless opportunities so many had to prevent such awful things happening, and I was scared witless by the revelation that sometimes the truly wicked can be hiding in such plain view.

Huge thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this prior to publication.

 

‘We Are All the Same in the Dark’ – Julia Heaberlin

In this small town, we expect there will be secrets. So many people want to know what happened to young Trumanell Branson when she disappeared ten years ago. There are many who believe her brother, Wyatt, was responsible and they are watching, waiting to see if he will ever be found guilty of the crime they think he’s committed.

When he discovers a young girl lying in a field off the highway, it’s hard to know what to think. At this point we’re introduced to his ex-girlfriend, Odette, who happens to work for the police. She is convinced he’s innocent, but on the night Trumanell disappeared Odette had to flee the Branson home and was then in a car crash where she lost her leg. Determined to think good of the man she clearly still has feelings for, Odette helps him out.

As she helps the young girl, known initially as Angel, we uncover more about Odette, Wyatt and the town in which they live. We can see Odette is carrying out her own investigation, one which ultimately has serious repercussions.

Spanning years, this story is one that takes its time to resolve. It shifted and never settled until the closing stages, hinting at possible outcomes and ultimately showing us a pretty bleak stage.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this in advance of its August 11th publication in exchange for my review.

 

‘The Inheritance Games’ – Jennifer Lynn Barnes

If you love puzzles, and putting your wits against seemingly random clues, then you will love The Inheritance Games.

Our story has as its main character a young girl called Avery Grambs. Smart but living in poverty, Avery has not had things easy. When we first meet her she’s been accused of cheating on a school test. Determined to prove herself she retakes the test so when she’s called out of class we assume the events are linked.
We, like Avery, are stunned when we are met with a very strange occurrence. She is asked to attend the reading of the will of Tobias Hawthorne, a man she says she’s never met. Very quickly we learn that Tobias was the head of one of the richest families in the country – wealthy beyond most people’s imaginings – and that she has been made heiress to the majority of his wealth. The only stipulation is that she must live in Hawthorne House for a year, and if any of the family contest the will they get nothing.

Naturally, everyone is curious about Avery. She, like any of us would be in her situation, is quite taken aback by her new-found wealth. While this is a life-changing event you have to love Avery for not being satisfied with this. She wants to know why she’s been put in this situation, so when it seems the letter each of the four grandsons was left holds a clue she is determined to play the game and solve the riddle.

I got completely absorbed in the mission to solve these clues and trying to work out which of this huge cast of characters could be trusted, and which was responsible for the attempts to kill Avery. We get everything here, including hints of romance, but at the fore is the puzzle set by this elderly gentleman who wants to teach a lesson to his family.

As things draw to a close and the puzzle gets solved, it felt (and I feel awful for saying this) a little disappointing. Thank goodness Barnes kept a little something up her sleeve, because the moments when Avery finds her final puzzle pieces suggest things are far from over. They get even more interesting when we see this is simply another part of the bigger picture.

A huge thank you to NetGalley for letting me read this in advance of the scheduled September 2020 publication, and I can’t wait to get my hands on part two…

 

‘When She Was Good’ – Michael Robotham

Call it an oversight on my part, but I have to confess to not having read the first book in this series. While I do think it might have helped me understand better the dynamics between our two main characters, there was enough here for this book to stand alone (and I’m hoping when I go back and read the first book it will offer a different perspective on some events).

The story focuses on psychologist Cyrus Haven who has his own demons, but this time it’s about a young girl – Angel Face, or Evie Cameron as he has come to know her – and Cyrus’s attempts to help her remain hidden when people from her past come looking for her. Through Evie’s memories and Cyrus’s investigations we learn a little more detail about what led to Evie being found at the age of ten in an abandoned house with the dead body of a petty criminal who had been tortured. Nobody is meant to know who the young girl found at this infamous crime scene is, but Cyrus does and through his work someone has come to make the connection.

It’s not giving anything away to say that Evie’s past is closely linked to some very important people and a suspected paedophile ring. We suspect a number of those who Cyrus comes into contact with, but we do eventually get some answers – even if not everything is tied up cleanly.

There are some unpalatable details, and hints of a darkness that is quite unimaginable. Given that a lot of detail is told through Evie’s memories/her perspective we are not given too much (which I’m pretty grateful for), though what we are told is enough to sicken and make the reader root firmly for Cyrus and those trying to put an end to such horrors.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this prior to publication, and I’m looking forward to digging out book one and seeing how it began.

 

‘The Dead Girl Under the Bleachers’ – Donna M. Zadunajsky

The Dead Girl Under the Bleachers opens with the murder of an unnamed girl. We know this event is taking place late at night, before the weekend, and that whoever kills the girl blames her for something. Then we cut back in time to allow the author to build up to the why and where, and dropping little clues about the who.

I think the first thing to say about this story is it’s ridiculously over the top in content and style. The characters walking round in this book are, to put it mildly, deranged and if you were to experience just one hint of the craziness going on here you’d walk away. By the time we get to the end I was almost laughing at how preposterous this story had become.

Our story focuses on a trio of girls. There’s bitchy Mayor’s daughter, Scarlet, who is a bully used to everyone jumping to do her bidding just because. We have her best friend, Rachel, who doesn’t like her all that much but who recognises that small-town popularity has its advantages. Lastly, there’s loner Laura who used to be friends withRachel but who has kept herself to herself since her brother and father were killed in a crash and her mother has become an abusive drunk.

For reasons that make little sense – like much of this – Scarlet decides that she wants to humiliate Laura and tries to befriend her in an attempt to cause maximum hurt. In the process, Rachel and Laura become friendly again and start to unearth some awful secrets about those around them.

There are so many skeletons tumbling out of closets here that it’s hard to know which way to turn. The casual misogyny and use of traumatic experiences for entertainment seems callous – perhaps it’s meant to mean something, but it comes across as cheap. I find it hard to believe such things would take place without anyone being suspicious, but we do build to some answers and some of the worst things are dealt with.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this prior to publication. If you like Pretty Little Liars then this could be up your street, but it really would be a stretch to say I’d enjoyed it or would recommend it to others.

 

‘Home Before Dark’ – Riley Sager

In spite of the relatively eye-watering price it cost to get my hands on this, it was most definitely worth it. Home Before Dark is a book that depends on you not knowing certain details, but even having finished it I think it could stand up to a repeat reading to look for the clues I missed first time round.

Every house has a story to tell and a secret to share we’re told. Maggie Holt’s life has come to be defined by her parents’ ill-fated decision to buy ‘fixer-upper’ Baneberry Hall when she was a child. The family only lived there for 21 days – and something so awful took place within those walls that they fled one night, never to return.

Everyone in the surrounding area – and many others – seems to know the story of Baneberry Hall as Maggie’s father released a book chronicling their short time there. From the time they look around the property we know there is something odd going on. There are the ubiquitous paranormal hints with strange noises, unexplained atmospheric changes and events that would – with no exceptions – have most people scared…snakes appearing from the kitchen ceiling, record players mysteriously starting to play and repetitive thumping noises. The history of the house doesn’t help – with a number of unexplained deaths and the murder/suicide of the most recent owners.

We don’t learn much of this until some time later. Upon the death of her father, Maggie learns that she has now become the owner of Baneberry Hall and although nobody in her family wants her to return, she is determined to do so. Much as I questioned this, I do understand that with so much of her life defined by this book and the events described within its pages she wants answers. And, boy, does she get them!

I loved the way this book told us about Maggie’s experience in the present but interspersed it with excerpts chronicling the story of her father and mother, and what happened to the family. This was a great way of divulging snippets to help establish what happened while maintaining the tension created.

There are – as you might expect – a number of attempts to throw us off the scent. It was, in hindsight, clear that things were not quite as Maggie had been led to believe but I was open-mouthed as we reached the climactic moments…I can’t wait for others I know to read this and then to be able to discuss it with them.
Highly recommended.