Dear Daughter by Elizabeth Little

Janie Jenkins was imprisoned at 17 for the murder of her socialite mother, but now she’s been freed on a technicality. In a whirlwind of bad press, hounded by a vengeful blogger who offers a reward for information about her location, Jenkins slips under the radar and goes sleuthing in disguise.  Is she searching for the real killer? Or for herself?

She no longer remembers exactly what happened that night. She only knows that she and her cold, manipulative mother never got along, and that her memories begin in a pool of blood. Not knowing is worse than anything, and she can’t let go of the past until she finds out for sure. Who was her mother? Where did she come from? And what got her killed?

Dear Daughter is a fast-moving thriller with a kick-ass potty-mouthed jailbird heroine, and a few good twists that will keep you asking questions up to the end. Poor little rich girl gone bad? Or gone good? Wouldn’t you like to know?

In the Blood by Lisa Unger

Lana is a psychology major at a private liberal arts college in upstate New York. She’s alienated, lonely, and overcoming a past dark with blood and confusing memories. Stabilized by medications and the loving but not entirely welcome ministrations of her aunt, she’s been trying to blend into the real world-- or at least the tiny protected bubble of small town academia that is The Hollows.

Encouraged by Langdon, her advisor, Lana accepts a job caring for a troubled young boy who soon embroils Lana in mind-games that, disturbingly, refer to pieces of Lana’s troubled past. At the same time, Lana’s roommate and best friend, Beck, disappears. Beck has always been a free-spirit, often going off-the-grid for days at a time, so Lana tells herself not to worry. But Beck’s parents don’t feel the same way, and when the police are called in, suspicion falls upon Lana.

Lana flinches from the truth about her past, about herself, and about her relationships, so her narration is unreliable right from the start, but her vulnerability and the predators who seem to circle her make her a sympathetic and fascinating character. In the end, will she be smart enough to put together the clues, and brave enough to face the truth?

Lisa Unger is a New York Times bestselling author who has also written under the name Lisa Miscione.  Her novel In the Blood is a stay-up-all-night thriller that will have you rooting for Lana even as you wonder, “Is there evil in her blood?”

Spinoff series from an old favorite

I’ve always admired Harlan Coben’s writing, and enjoyed many of his stand-alone mysteries and thrillers, like Gone for Good and Six Years. But I’ve largely avoided his well-known and popular Myron Bolitar series. I have no interest in the world of celebrity athletes, and Bolitar runs a sports agency, so I assumed the plots would be too sports-centered. However, Coben is a great writer, and I like books with teen protagonists, and so I’m edging up to the Bolitar series from the other side—from the point of view of Myron’s fifteen-year-old nephew, Mickey.

In Shelter, the first book of this spin-off Bolitar series, Mickey has just moved in with Uncle Myron and started attending high school as an incoming sophomore. His parents are out of the picture, but not out of his thoughts-- Mickey’s dad died in a car crash the previous year, and his mother, unable to cope, turned to drugs and is currently in rehab. Grief, confusion, and self-loathing run underneath Mickey’s generally easygoing exterior as he tries to move forward. He has a few things common with his newly-found uncle—one is, they’re both very tall, gifted basketball players. But an old rift in the family has left them awkward with one another, and Mickey keeps Myron at a distance, even as Myron tries to respect his space and be a responsible guardian at the same time.

Alas, Mickey and Myron are not left in peace to work things out. When Mickey’s new sort-of-girlfriend stops showing up at school, and her parents claim never to have heard of her, Mickey tries to track her down, drawing three new friends from his high school into the search. They learn that Ashley wasn’t at all what she seemed-- and she’s in danger that’s way over their heads.

Meanwhile, a neighbor known as “Crazy Bat Lady” tells Mickey that his father’s not dead. She locks herself back into her house before he can react. It drives Mickey crazy with heartache and curiosity, leading him to break into the bat lady’s house in a desperate attempt to find out if she's just loopy, or if she might know something. This makes him the target of a great deal of interest from an intimidating bald man in a black car, who turns up wherever Mickey goes.

Coben deftly draws out the multiple plot-lines, focusing on Mickey’s new friendships, which are a source of great strength as events force him into crisis mode. One of his new friends is annoyingly two-dimensional, but otherwise the secondary characters are well-developed. Coben is big on principled heroes, and Mickey is no exception, showing an idealistic devotion to standing up for others and seeing through outward appearances. But he’s also hotheaded, confused, and willing to break rules when necessary—someone most teenagers—or heck, most adults—can relate to. Mickey’s a likeable character, and when you reach the end of Shelter, you’ll be glad to know the second book, Seconds Away, is also available.

As a matter of fact, I liked this book so much, I think I’m going to have to set aside my sports-agency aversion and give the older Bolitar a chance.

The Thicket by Joe R. Lansdale

“I didn’t suspect the day Grandfather came out and got me and my sister, Lula, and hauled us off toward the ferry that I’d soon end up with worse things happening than had already come upon us or that I’d take up with a gun-shooting dwarf, the son of a slave, and a big angry hog, let alone find true love and kill someone, but that’s exactly how it was.” ~Jack Parker, The Thicket


The Thicket is a dark and gory frontier tale about a boy out to rescue his sister, even though he’s not sure if there will be anything left to save.

Jack and Lula just lost their parents to smallpox, and when their grandfather loads up the wagon to deliver them to an unknown aunt, they discover someone’s gone and burnt the bridge over the river. The only way across is the brand new ferry, and Jack doesn’t like the way the other passengers are looking at his sister Lula. A twister hits the river just as Grandpa and one of the men start fighting, a gun is pulled, and next thing Jack knows, Grandpa’s shot, the ferry’s going down, one of the mules is flying through the air, and Jack’s separated from Lula and trying not to drown.

The cast of characters is truly a collection of sorry misfits, from Shorty the lonely and cynical little person, to Eustace the hog-owning drunk, to Jimmie Sue, retired prostitute and Jack’s true love. Lansdale’s language is rife with profanity yet lyrical—the story brings to mind the movie O Brother Where Art Thou, for the whimsicality and eccentric characters, as well as the TV show Deadwood, for the rough poetry, the quick violence, and the gore. There are no supernatural elements, but Jack’s coming-of-age tale has a Grimm’s fairytale feel.

The Thicket is a wonderful read for fans of dark western stories, anti-hero stories, and gritty coming-of-age tales. Very well written, and if you’re a wimp like me, you can skim over the gory parts without missing anything. (Note: Even if you do that, it’s still very R-rated—definitely not for the squeamish.)

The 9th Girl by Tami Hoag

On a frigid New Year’s Eve in Minneapolis, the driver of a rented limo is so distracted by the half-drunk and half-dressed bachelorette party taking place behind him, he’s not paying attention to the road—until a grotesque bloodied figure, with a half-melted face, tumbles from the trunk of the car ahead of him. He screeches the brakes, but too late—the limo plows into the disfigured body soon to be known in sensationalist headlines as Zombie Doe. In the ensuing chaos, the vehicle she fell from disappears.

Is Zombie Doe the ninth victim and first slip-up of a serial killer known as Doc Holiday, who’s been hunting across the Midwest but so far left no trace? Or do the differences in the murders mean that a second mad killer is on the loose, maybe one with a more personal grudge? Detectives Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska must identify her, and fast.

I expected The 9th Girl to be cheesy, slick, and shallow because of the packaging and the “Zombie Doe” angle, but it’s a readable, solidly plotted thriller, with a common theme well-threaded through the plot and subplots, and distinctive and largely believable characters. There was a focus on relationships between mothers and teenaged children from various angles that I enjoyed, and enough twists and tension to keep the pages turning quickly throughout. 

This book can stand alone, but it is the fourth book Tami Hoag’s Kovac & Liska series.

1.  Ashes to Ashes
2.  Dust to Dust
3.  Prior Bad Acts 
4.  The 9th Girl

The Uninvited by Liz Jensen

Liz Jensen’s The Uninvited is a fascinating new thriller with an apocalyptic twist.

Corporate investigator Hesketh Lock is a brilliant man, adept at pattern recognition and mental origami. He’s also “wired differently,” showing many signs of Asperger’s syndrome, a type of high-functioning autism characterized in part by difficulty with social skills. Lock uses Venn diagrams to discover order in the world by categorizing events, relationships, and people in overlapping shapes. Despite his inability to experience or express common emotional reactions in a conventional way, he feels some emotions deeply. In the first person narrative, his close observations of the world have a deceptively simple poetry. Lock’s character, his voice—they make this book extraordinary.

The book opens with Lock returning to his isolated island home from a business trip in which he identified an anonymous saboteur at a Chinese factory. We learn that Lock has recently left his girlfriend. We learn that he misses his seven-year-old not-quite-stepson. We learn that the saboteur has killed himself. We learn that the media is full of the story of a sweet and beloved little girl who deliberately killed two family members with a nail gun, out of the blue. Each anecdote is offered in short bursts, as if enclosed in a Venn diagram, seeking organization and meaning. I will not hint to you how all the parts are connected, or why I said “apocalyptic”—you'll have to find out for yourself.

My only criticism: the ending fell a little flat for me: possibly it was the disappointment of having a good book end too soon, possibly the sad truth that a mystery is almost always more compelling than an explanation.  In any case, this was heavily outweighed by the characterization of Hesketh Lock, who I will not forget, and the quality of the writing.

Liz Jensen is the author of several other books, including one we have at Newport: The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, which I plan to put on hold immediately.