The Innocents by Francesca Segal

 

Adam Newman is twenty-eight, a soon to be partner in an investment firm in London and about to be married.  He has known Rachel all his life and they have been dating since high school.  He works for Rachel's father's firm and their social life includes many family functions and gatherings where he knows everyone since their part of London is full of the people he has known all his life.  Adam is excited and feels that he is about to make the final move towards his adult life.  He thinks Rachel will be the perfect wife and the fact that he knows and loves all her family as she does his makes the prospect even more appealing.

Then it happens.  Rachel's cousin, Ellie, comes back to London from New York.  Ellie's mother was killed in a terrorist attack in Israel when she was a young girl and she grew up in Rachel's house.  She is a model and there are rumors that her life has gone off the track.  Her college has asked her to leave.  She has been in an adult film.  She may have been involved with a scandalous older man whose affairs are now being publicized during his messy divorce. 

Regardless, when Adam sees Ellie, he feels an instant connection.  He feels guilty but feels compelled to find situations where he can see her.  He starts to look at Rachel differently, seeing her as provincial rather than his dream partner.  When his attraction is returned by Ellie, Adam must make a decision.  Which woman will he make his life with?

This is Francesca Segal's debut novel and it has been quite successful.  It was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and won the Costa First Novel award as well as the National Jewish Book Award For Fiction.  She was the person behind the Observer's Debut Fiction column.  The characters in this novel are finely drawn and caught up in a dilemma that many young people face; should they strike out for a life totally new or settle into a life very similar to that of their family?  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.

Akin by Emma Donoghue

 

Noah Selvaggio is about to turn eighty.  He is a retired chemistry professor and widower and as he ages his thoughts return to his childhood.  Noah was born in France.  As World War II approached, his father immigrated to the United States while he and his mother stayed behind to attend to his grandfather, a renowned photographer.  When Noah was around four, his mother sent him to join his father, making the long sea voyage by himself.  She stayed in Nice throughout the war, rejoining Noah and his father after the war and having Noah's little sister.

Now Noah is about to return to Nice for the first time and he is quite excited about it.  But right before he is to leave, he is contacted by New York social services.  He has a great nephew he has never met who is eleven and named Michael.  Michael has no one to stay with.  His father died of a drug overdose and his mother is in prison.  He had been staying with his grandmother but she has just died also.  Noah is the only relative who can be located.  Reluctantly, Noah agrees to take Michael with him while social services continues to look for a younger relative who will give Michael a home.

So the two take off, eighty and eleven.  There is a huge gap in knowledge between the two.  Noah knows what an adult knows and is surprised how little of his knowledge Michael has studied.  Michael is appalled at how technology illiterate Noah is and how little he knows of current culture and phrases.  Somehow the two find enough of a common ground to get by.  Once in Nice, Noah revisits scenes from his childhood and he believes that he has discovered a shameful secret about his mother.  Michael helps him with his research into his mother's life and provides a different viewpoint from Noah's.  The two start to gel together but of course this relationship is only temporary.

Emma Donoghue has written a heartwarming novel with memorable characters.  Michael has had about as much bad luck thrown at him as a child can and remains a charming individual overlaid with teenage angst.  Noah is a fairly fussy elderly man whose viewpoint may be changed being around this young boy.  The story of their discoveries both about history and their own natures will charm the reader.  This book is recommended for readers of family relationships and literary fiction.

Lucky Alan by Jonathan Lethem

 

In this anthology, the reader gets a look into the mind of Jonathan Lethem.  There are nine stories.  The first is the title story and is about a theatre director living in Manhattan and a financial investor.  The two meet on the street as they live in the same neighborhood and strike up a friendship.  The director is older but the other man is young and seems wealthy.   After a visit abroad, he returns with an Asian wife who then becomes pregnant.  The man dies soon after his child is born and the director comes to question their friendship.

Some of the stories are obscure and others are very relatable.  My personal favorite was the last story which is titled Pending Vegan.  It is about a family man taking his wife and two daughters to Sea World, unfortunately after deciding to take himself off an antidepressant.  

Jonathan Lethem is considered one of our better novelists.  He was a MacArthur Fellow and has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.  Some of his better known novels include Dissident Gardens, Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress Of Solitude, The Feral Detective and A Gambler's Anatomy.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.

Chaos by Patricia Cornwell

 

Dr. Kay Scarpetta should be feeling fine.  It's a hot summer evening in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and she's walking to a fine restaurant to have supper with her husband.  Along the way, she encounters a young English woman on a bicycle several times and they stop and chat a bit.  Her husband is waiting and they order a wonderful meal.  That's about as good as it gets.

As they sit Kay and her husband both get calls which can only mean a suspicious death has occurred. Kay is the chief medical examiner while her husband is an FBI profiler.  Kay's investigative partner, Pete, comes by and picks her up. They drive to a park and there they find the body of the young woman Kay had met on her stroll, now dead with no apparent cause.

There are other things happening to Kay.  Someone is posting items about her on social media claiming that she is erratic and shouldn't be trusted with such a sensitive job.  Her husband and partner have both been getting false emergency calls, close to the situation implying knowledge but claiming to come from official sources which isn't true.  Kay has been getting threatening emails.  She suspects this could be the psychopath who has been tracking her niece for some time and who is back on the loose after escaping the secured psychiatric hospital where she had been imprisoned.

This is the 24th Kay Scarpetta novel.  Those who have been following the series will be interested in the further events in the lives of the continuing characters.  Those who are reading this as a stand alone will get enough of the background to make it an enjoyable read.  As always, Kay finds a way to solve the intriguing death and the events happening in the background that are the true cause.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

New Teeth by Simon Rich

 

In this anthology, Simon Rich demonstrates what makes him such an up and coming comedy writer.  From pirates who adopt a little girl who makes them mend their wild ways to a giant ape who saved a city but now has no job and feels out of things to a two year old detective on the case of his sister's missing unicorn to the true story of Babe Ruth and how he became the famous ballplayer reimagined, the humor and inventiveness of the author is apparent.  Readers will go from fondly smiling to laugh out loud chortles as they read these delightful stories.

This was a fun book to read.  Simon Rich has written for various television shows such as Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons and Pixar.  He is the creator and showrunner for the shows Man Seeking Woman and Miracle Workers.  The humor is lighthearted and never mean and the best word for this work is joyous.  I listened to it and the various accents and narrations added quite a bit.  This book is recommended for those looking for a light-hearted break.

Criminal by Karin Slaughter

 

Will Trent has never been this confused.  He is in love, he thinks, with Sara Linton, the doctor that has come into his life, but he is still married to Angie.  That marriage is a joke with her disappearing for months at a time but he has known her for most of his life and its hard to break away.  He seems to be in trouble at work since his supervisor, Amanda Wagner, has sent him to the dreaded airport bathroom scene to work instead of using him on criminal cases.

Then several events occur.  A college student has gone missing, a case that Will would normally be all over but Amanda still keeps him away.  Will decides to share more of his past with Sarah and takes her one evening to the ruins of the orphanage house he grew up in between foster families.  He is shocked to encounter Amanda there and they both end up in the basement when a staircase collapses.  Then the worst news.  Will's father, who has been imprisoned for decades after a series of gruesome murders has somehow been paroled.  Amanda has known this and hasn't told Will and he is as angry as he has ever been.  As the story unfolds, more women go missing and the clues point to the father as the killer.  Why was he ever released?

This is the sixth Will Trent novel.  He has been beaten down by life so many times that the reader can't help but cheer for him to get resolution and love.  The reader gets a lot of Will's backstory in this novel and finds out about Will's past as he does.  There is also a great deal of Amanda's backstory and why she picked out Will to mentor when most people would find him an odd choice.  There is much history about the early days of women police and how they banded together to form a network and fight the old boys club.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

Knife Of Chaos by Robert Jordan

 

As the Wheel moves on to the final confrontation that will determine if Earth survives, the major players work towards their destinies.  Rand is busy dealing with the Seanchan who are overrunning various countries that he depends on.  Perrin is desperately searching for the Shaido renegades that have stolen his wife, Faile.  Egwene has been captured and is imprisoned in the White Tower where she has a plan to undermine the false Aes Sedai leader Elaida from within.  Elayne is in Caemlyn, pregnant with Rand's twins and fighting to gain the support she needs to win the Crown she was raised to wear.

There are also new alliances.  Loial the ogre has run from his mother and the elders long enough and he is found and married to his new wife.  He expects regret but is surprised to find that he is excited and proud of his new wife.  Mat is still on the run with the Seanchan Empress, Tuon, and before things are done, he also finds himself married.  The alliances are set.

This is the eleventh book in the Wheel Of Time series.  Things are getting close to the end and the author is setting the characters in their final places and with their final partners and alliances before the ending battle.  The Dark One has had centuries to plan his strategies and gather his strength and the human race must depend on young Rand al'Thor, who isn't sure why he has been chosen to lead them and questions if he will have the strength and determination to win.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.

Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker

 This book discusses the events between World War I and World War II.  It is written in short vignettes that demonstrate how the feeling about the war was cultivated and how opinions of the general populace changed as time went by.  It covers the years between the early 1920s and when the United States declared war after Pearl Harbor.

Speeches and letters by world leaders are used to demonstrate this.  The leaders include Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt and Gandhi.  It discusses the Jewish question and how Germany was not alone in its cruel treatment of the Jewish population although definitely the worst as that nation attempted to perform a genocide that would erase the Jewish people and culture.  But other nations refused to provide a haven, allowing the concentration camps to be established and used.  The personal opinions of Churchill and Roosevelt were also contemptuous of the Jewish people and considered them less than those of their background.

The antiwar movement is covered as is the roundup by England of their German population into camps.  This was one thing I didn't know about and it preceded the American roundup of the Japanese population.  Another surprising thing was the evidence that those high in the United States government had many warnings of the Pearl Harbor disaster and chose not to act.  Some would call it a sacrifice of those men in order to force the American entry into the war.  It also questions the commonly held belief that the Germans were the first to bomb cities.  England was already bombing before Germany began the Blitz.

Nicholson Baker is an author who has written both fiction and nonfiction.  He is also known as an enemy of the now common practice of libraries moving away from physical books and moving to microfilm and ebooks.  In this novel, he enlightens the average person and provides an alternate way of looking at the years leading to the war and the careful grooming of the general population to support it.  The format of short paragraphs illustrating a point and quotes from newspapers and speeches allows the reader to gain knowledge without being overwhelmed.  This book is recommended for nonfiction readers.

Day For Night by Jean McNeil

 

Richard Cottar is a movie director.  His films have brought him critical acclaim.  He is about to start a new movie, a biography of the German Jewish philosopher, Walter Benjamin.  Benjamin fled Germany with the rise of the Nazi's, living in several locations such as Ibiza, Nice and Paris.  He fled France as the Nazi's conquered it, crossing the French-Spanish border with a visa to the United States.  But although the town they entered was supposed to be neutral, Benjamin's group was told upon arrival that they would be turned over to the Germans the next day.  Benjamin committed suicide.

As Richard is about to start work, he is introduced to a young star, Alex.  While he knows Alex is probably too young to portray Benjamin, Richard is always thinking ahead to the next movie and the one after that so is interested in getting to know Alex.  What he doesn't expect is the immediate bond that the two of them encounter despite Richard being more than a quarter of a century older.  He casts Alex as his star and as the two men's friendship deepens, Richard questions if he is in love with Alex.

The book then abruptly moves to his wife's story.  Joanna Cottar had always been Richard's producer.  Richard dies and Joanna decides to make his film after his death to honor his vision.  She develops her own relationship with Alex, leaving the reader to wonder if Alex is a chameleon who becomes whatever the other person needs to see.  

I listened to this novel and the narrators were perfect.  There was both a male and female narrator and they told Richard's and Joanna's story of their marriage and their relationships with Alex in a slow, perceptive manner.  One of the morals of the novel is that we fall in love with a person not so much a gender and we could change the gender of those we are attracted to as our life circumstances change.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

All The Colors Of Darkness by Peter Robinson

 

Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot caught the call.  A man had been found hanging from a tree near a scenic overlook.  When she inspects the scene, she is fairly sure that this is a suicide.  It's never really clear why an individual kills themselves but it's her job to determine the cause.  Her supervisor, DCI Alan Banks is on a well deserved vacation.

Annie soon determines that the man is Mark Hardcastle who is a set designer for the local community theatre.  She can't find next of kin but he did have a relationship and she is told Mark basically lived with his partner so she goes to notify him.  But when she gets to Laurence Sibert's house, a bigger puzzle awaits.  Laurence is lying on the floor of his study, bloody and dead.  

Annie calls Alan back from his vacation since this case will be very public.  Two men are dead and no one knows that much about them.  Laurence is obviously wealthy but it's unclear what his occupation was.  It turns out that much of his money came from his mother and her successful business.  Did Mark kill Laurence and then himself out of remorse? Was one or the other of the men starting a new relationship?   Did someone else kill both of them?

When Alan arrives and he and Annie investigate, several things come to light.  Laurence had been a government worker but the office he worked for was M-16.  Did that prior life have long shadows that reached his current one?  Mark was working on setting up a new theatre group that would pretty much gut the existing one.  Did that play a role?  Alan starts to believe that this was a very cunning murder where the men's minds were manipulated after Alan and his girlfriend watch a Shakespeare play.  Is he right?

This is the eighteenth Alan Banks novel.  As always, Alan is the intellectual policeman, interested in classic literature and all kinds of music, especially classic and folk.  His partner, Annie, is ambitious and determined to make a name for herself.  The two work well together with all the time pressures and directions from above.  This novel is recommended for mystery lovers.

Things We Do In The Dark by Jennifer Hillier

 

Paris has lived a hard life.  As a child, she was the victim of vicious child abuse.  Her mother, it turned out, was a cold-blooded killer known as The Ice Queen after killing her lover.  Paris had testified at the trial and her testimony sent her mother to prison for life with parole possibility after twenty-five years.  Paris was sent to live with relatives who resented her presence.  As soon as she turned eighteen, she ran off and made her way the best she could, a way that included stripping in a men's club.

After a tragedy, Paris ran away again and started another new life.  She put her old life and identity behind her and that's when she became Paris rather than the name she grew up as.  She ran to California and started teaching yoga classes.  Eventually she owned her own studio and that's where she met Jimmy.  Jimmy was much older than she but somehow they clicked.  He was a well-known retired comedian who had had a hit series that everyone knew.  It took a while but he eventually convinced her to marry him.

Returning from a weekend away, Paris finds Jimmy in the bathtub, covered in blood.  She is arrested for his murder although it could have been suicide just as well.  Paris isn't that worried about the murder charge because she knows she wasn't even in the area when his death occurs.  What she is worried about is her mother who has gotten parole and is threatening to reveal Paris' past unless Paris pays her off.  Are some people just meant for tragedy?

Jennifer Hillier is a Canadian author whose crime novels have won many awards.  In this, her eighth novel, she creates a character in Paris that the reader can't help but love and cheer for even as it seems life is determined to drag her down no matter what she does.  Paris is an example of how some people can overcome terrible life events while others drown in them.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

The Moral Lives Of Animals by Dale Peterson

 In this book, author Dale Peterson questions the commonly heard thought that humans are the only creatures with morality.  He suggests that many animals exhibit the same behaviors and cites interesting and pertinent facts that illustrate his theories.  

In Part 1, Peterson defines morality with chapters on words, orientations, definitions and structures.  He talks about the definite hierarchies that animals establish when they live with each other or just encounter each other.  Part 2 explores the rules that animals have when living together with topics such as authority, violence, sex, possession and communication.  Part 3 talks about attachments and has chapters on cooperation and kindness.  The last section talks about the future of morality.

This is a fascinating look at animals and how they structure their lives  It is perhaps especially relevant as wild animals continue to vanish and as household pets currently have a status almost never seen before with millions of dollars spent annually on them.  Peterson is the official biographer of Jane Goodall and her groundbreaking work on animals and has written extensively on animals, computers and other topics.  One of his prior books received a New York Times Notable Book Award.  This book is recommended for nonfiction readers who are interested in animals and their social organizations.

Caught by Harlan Coben

 

Wendy Tynes is a TV reporter who has a teenager about to start college, which means she needs to be sure she stays employed.  That's not easy in a profession that idolizes youth and has ten applicants for every job.  When a local high school girl goes missing, Wendy is all over the story as is the rest of the media.  But she also has other irons in the fire.

One of her most popular features is one where she goes undercover online, pretending to be a teenage girl and then trapping on camera the middle-aged men who want to meet a young girl.  She is sure she has a good candidate in Dan Mercer.  Wendy gets a tip about him and sets up a meet.  Dan is the director of a troubled youth center and he thinks he is going to help one of his charges who texts him and asks for help.  But when he goes to the address, he is confronted with bright lights and shouting questions about his lust for young girls.  Dan insists he has been set up but when the police search his house and find porn, he is done for.  He loses his job and is the target of attacks by vigilantes.  

Wendy is hesitant about whether she was right about Dan but when he is tied by forensic evidence to the missing teenager, she is sure again that she is right.  Is she or is she part of the setup of an innocent man?

Harlan Coben is one of the masters of the mystery world.  In this novel the reader will be tossed back and forth in their belief about Dan as the story twists and turns.  Their feelings about Wendy will also change as the story progresses.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan

 

Police inspector Alec Nichols has never in his career seen anything like this.  Sixteen horses have been killed, their heads buried with one eye open to the sun.  When he gets the call from one of the small farms that make up the rural community he lives in, he is shocked and appalled.  Who could have done such a thing?  What was their purpose?

The incident is so shocking and it makes the national news.  Local police decide to bring in a veterinary forensics expert, Cooper Allen.  Cooper is used to coming in to an area, helping the police solve a crime and then moving on.  She expects that this time will be the same.

But it is not the same.  Soon anyone who was anywhere near the farm starts to get sick and it is determined that there is an outbreak of anthrax.  More abuse cases are discovered, each cruel and seeming to be targeted at the police and local residents to cause as much fear and panic as possible.  Many are hospitalized and Alec is involved in a wreck, possibly from the effects of the contamination.  His teenage son is with him and cannot be found afterwards.  Cooper, who has developed feelings for Alec she never expected, stays on to try to solve the case without him.  Can the culprits be found before more people are affected?

This is a debut novel and if Buchanan writes more this well, he should have a long, successful career.  The feeling of the novel is dense, confusing as if a fog were swirling around all the characters.  These are not men and women who wear their hearts on their sleeves but rather quiet and purposeful people who wrest a living from an inhospitable land.  I listened to this novel and the narrator carried out the feeling of the book successfully.  This novel is recommended for mystery readers.

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

 

After her mother's death in a car accident, Bree Matthews, sixteen, is determined to get away.  She can't stay in her home and town where every sight reminds her of her loss.  An opportunity comes her way and she and a friend are accepted into a program at the University of North Carolina for teenagers where they can move ahead and take college courses.  They will live in a dorm.  Although her father is reluctant for her to leave, he thinks it could be good for her.

Their first night the two girls go with a friend to an off-campus activity.  That is against the rules but what happens is worse.  The party is broken up by a odd light that Bree can see but others can't.  That is, except for the fighters who rush to take care of the beast from another world.

Bree meets Nick and he introduces her to the society.  It is based on Arthurian legend and its mission is to protect humans from the beasts from another dimension.  Nick is this generation's Arthur and will eventually rule the society.  He is in love with Bree and she falls under his spell.  There is also Sel, Nick's protector and a mighty warrior.  He is suspicious of Bree and thinks she might be a threat.  Bree is not but her native ability plus her connection to root magic through her bloodline make her something different, something the society has never seen.  Will she get her answers before the beasts can take over the world?

This is a YA fantasy.  The author knows the world of UNC and Chapel Hill where the university is located well and readers from the area will delight in the references to well known landmarks.  It is the first in what is planned as a two book series.  The twist at the end of the novel will insure that there is plenty of material for a second book and the references to the Arthurian legend will play well with younger readers.  This book is recommended for YA and fantasy readers.

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

 

Black Swan Green is a small town in Worcestershire.  In 1982, thirteen year old Jason Taylor spends a year there which is momentous in his family life.  Jason lives there with his parents and older sister Julia.  He has the typical concerns of a teenage boy.  Will he be popular or at least have a group of guys to hang around with?  Will he ever find a girl to kiss?  Will the elusive and tantalizing Dawn ever look his way?  

Jason has a speech impediment; he is a stammerer.  That lets him in for teasing at school but he is going to therapy and working on it.  He is a poet although he doesn't tell people since writing poetry is for sissies in the opinion of the guys he lives among.  At home, his sister is about to head off to university and Jason wonders what the house will be like when he is there just with his parents.  They seem to be having issues as well and there are frequent silences.  His mother goes back to work although his father is opposed.  She seems to love her job so that is a plus.

Then there are other events going on in the world.  The biggest is the war in the Falklands.  Of course at first everyone thinks it will be a cakewalk and some of the local guys who are older are involved.  That optimistic viewpoint changes as English casualties start to mount and the truth of war is brought home to those left behind.  

David Mitchell is a frequent author on the Booker Prize lists.  His previous novels include Cloud Atlas, Number9 Dream, Slade House, The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet, The Bone Clocks and Utopia Avenue.  In this novel, he captures perfectly the angst and joys of being a teenager finding their place in the world and readers will find Jason endearing.  I would highly recommend it.  This novel is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

Fallen by Karin Slaughter

 

Will Trent and Faith Mitchell have been partners for a while now and they trust each other.  That may seem to be a given but Will was responsible for Faith's mother being forced into early retirement from the police force.  Evelyn headed up the drug squad and when it was found to be riddled with corruption, she had to go also.  These days Evelyn is babysitting Faith's newborn baby.

When Faith goes to pick up the baby this day, she notices something is wrong right away.  There is blood on the carport and the door handle going in and rock music is blaring.  Evelyn is missing and the baby is nowhere to be found.  Before Faith can call it in, she finds one man lying dead and shoots another who is about to kill a third.  Then she ends up killing the third man when he escapes and threatens the neighbors.  Once the police arrive, the baby is found but Evelyn is not.  There is, however, a fourth dead man stashed in Evelyn's car trunk.

What is going on?  Will and his boss Amanda are determined to find the truth and find Evelyn before whoever took her kills her.  Faith is put on the sidelines to hold her family together while the investigation progresses.  Amanda is Evelyn's oldest friend and will do anything to find the truth although that doesn't seem to include telling Will all their old secrets.  Will is also distracted by the growing attraction between him and Dr. Sarah Linton.  Can she love a man like Will?  Can he break free of the toxic marriage he is involved in?

This is the fifth Will Trent novel.  Readers will be glad that he is finally getting something good out of life with his new relationship with Sarah.  But the mystery he finds himself entangled in is twisty and secretive and tests his bonds with his partner and his boss, both of whom want the same outcome but still want to protect old secrets.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

Great Stories Of Suspense, edited by Ross Macdonald

 

This anthology, published in 1974, contains both short stories and several novellas.  The novellas include What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! by Agatha Christie, Enquiry by Dick Francis, The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And My Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson and The Far Side Of The Dollar by Ross Macdonald.  Short story authors include John Collier, Kenneth Fearing, Stanley Ellin, Graham Greene, Dashiell Hammett, John Cheever, James M. Cain, Margaret Millar, Roald Dahl, Michael Gilbert, Patricia Highsmith and Flannery O'Connor.  Although almost fifty years old, the stories have held up well although there are times when the reader can tell where police technology has moved on or social mores have changed.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

The Killer's Wife by Bill Floyd

 

Nina Mosley has lived an incredible life.  She married young, a man named Randall Moseley, Randy to his friends.  Randy traveled for his work but when he was home, the couple was happy.  They had a son and Nina thought everything was fine.  Then Randy began to change and eventually, she began to suspect him and found evidence that he was a serial killer.  His trademark was to remove the eyes of his victims and replace the eyes with various items such as marbles or nuts.  Nina went to the police and testified at Randy's trial.  Now he sits on Death Row waiting for his execution date.

Nina is left behind to support herself and raise her son alone.  She moves across the country from the West Coast to North Carolina and changes her name to Leigh Wren.  Leigh finds a job and over the years is promoted until she has a good position.  She has friends and even dates a bit.  But all that changes one night.

Leigh is grocery shopping when she is approached by an older man.  He tells her that he knows who she is because Randy killed his daughter and he doesn't believe she never knew what Randy was doing.  He has hired private detectives to find her and plans to publicize who she is.  He does just that, accusing Leigh of being involved in the murders.  Leigh's life is blown up.  Everyone knows who she is and her son now knows his father is a serial killer.  Worse, a copycat killer is now recreating Randy's crimes and he also knows where the woman who testified against his mentor is.  Can Leigh and the police find this new killer before he finds Leigh?

This book was released in 2008 and was the debut novel of the author.  I can find no evidence that he wrote any more novels which is a shame as this was a good start.  The author got Leigh's personality down pat, how someone could be fooled and then find out an earthshaking secret that required them to completely reinvent themselves.  The twist at the end is well done.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.

The Guilt Trip by Sandie Jones

 

Will and Allie are getting married in a fantastic destination wedding trip on an island.  Allie had worked for Will's brother, Jack, who had introduced them.  Jack is married to Rachel and they have one son.  Jack and Rachel's best friends, Paige and Noah, are also going although they aren't that close to the bride and groom.

It seems like it would be a marvelous trip but there are undercurrents everywhere.  Jack and Allie seem to have tension between them for some reason.  Rachel notices that and chalks it up to Jack's recent distance from them all.  She knows he is working something out and is giving him space to do so.  While Paige is Rachel's best friend, she has known Noah longer and the two of them had been best friends for quite a while.  Perhaps because of this, Jack and Noah have never been close and seem at times to be hostile to each other.

Once on the island, things are still strange.  Rachel starts to believe that Jack is having an affair with Allie.  He had spread a rumor about Allie and another man at work but what if that was just camouflage?  Then there is Noah.  He has decided now is the time to tell Rachel he still loves her and that he believes Rachel and Jack's son is actually his, an idea that could possibly be true.  Paige is ready to go for Allie on any grounds as they are oil and water.  Will this marriage ever take place?

Sandie Jones has written a twisty tale that leaves the reader changing their viewpoint over and over again.  Each person seems to have secrets and as these are slowly revealed, the relationships change also.  Some are lying but how to determine the truth?  This book is recommended for psychological thriller readers.