NOTE: This title was first published in the UK (March 2020) as Our Little Cruelties. Liz Nugent’s Little Cruelties is a family psychodrama in which Oedipus meets sociopathy. Darkly funny, but not quite soapy enough to make the very long trip through the lives of these very unlikable people wholly worthwhile, it nevertheless provides a…
Loreth Anne White is one of my favourite authors, and I’m always ready to get stuck into a new book by her. Her latest novel, In the Deep, is a fabulous read, a superbly constructed, clever thriller surrounding a murder that takes place in the Agnes Banks area of New South Wales, and I was…
We all have secrets. We all want to keep them. But would we all kill to do so? That’s the question behind Sharil Lapena’s excellent new mystery, The End of Her. Stephanie and Patrick Kilgour are overwhelmed. Their colicky twins seem to never sleep and the duo is operating in a fog of overwhelming weariness….
Yogi Berra famously said, “It ain’t over ’till it’s over.” In some novels, that’s simply not true. You can solve the mystery before you’re halfway through the book. Not so in Invisible Girl, where the twists and turns will have you guessing till the very end. Seventeen year old Saffyre Maddox has been through a…
Heidi Perks came to my attention last year with the publication of her first novel here in the U.S., and I’ve been eagerly awaiting something new from her ever since. Now, Three Perfect Liars has hit the shelves, and I can’t wait for thriller fans everywhere to fall under its spell. The novel centers around…
Kate Riorden’s The Heatwave combines an atmosphere of chilly, all-encompassing doom with stock kid-as-sociopath storytelling, leading to a marginally disappointing and ultimately average thriller. Sylvie lives alone in London with her young daughter, asthmatic and anxious Emma. Their lives are as normal as can be in spite of the trauma they’ve both been through when…
It’s so easy to become overwhelmed by the wide array of thrillers released each month, so I’m here to tell you about one of the best I’ve read this summer. Behind the Red Door is Megan Collins’ second novel, and I was utterly blown away by its depth and complexity. I was completely entranced from…
After reading Lies, Lies, Lies you’ll almost be grateful that Covid has put an end to parties. Almost. Daisy thinks three is the best number. It’s: “the first number that forms a geometrical figure . . . it’s the number most often associated with time past, present and future; beginning, middle, end; birth, death, life.”…
For the sake of being completely transparent, I have to start this review off by saying that I’ve had a hard time buying into the wild plots of some of J.P. Delaney’s previous novels. I read psychological thrillers for pure escapism, but Mr. Delaney’s brand of over-the-top writing hasn’t always worked for me. With Playing…
Samantha Downing’s My Lovely Wife was one of the most original thrillers I’d ever read, making it one of my favorite books of 2019. When I heard she was coming out with something new, I was quite excited, but also a little skeptical of her ability to craft something I’d love as much as last…