Tag: suspense

Review 2754: The Dead Room

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

I like Catriona McPherson’s thrillers. I call them cozy thrillers because they usually involve a friendly community. The Dead Room is a little more dire than usual, and one plot point didn’t work for me at all, but I still enjoyed it.

Lindsay Hale in her mid-thirties is a new widow, her beloved husband Kai having died from a brain tumor. When he was dying, her old friend Chloe came out to their home in Hawaii to help. Finally, between her brother John and Chloe, she was convinced to move back to Scotland, to her hometown which she has never revisited since she left. There are hints of a traumatic childhood.

Lindsay arrives a day earlier than expected, and when she gets to her hometown, she breaks down while talking to an old lady, Peggy Marsh. Peggy takes her inside her beautiful, old, slightly rundown house and gives her tea. She falls asleep and arrives at her brother’s house very late, surprising her relatives.

Lindsay wants to find a house, but her brother tries to convince her to stay with them. Despite their welcoming, they seem to be concerned about her behavior. It is true that Lindsay starts having some visual perception problems and also doesn’t recognize people she’s supposed to know, but her behavior seems pretty normal for a recent widow, and her family overly concerned. They seemed to be trying to make her doubt herself.

A few days later, Lindsay returns to Peggy’s home only to find it empty. When she asks a neighbor about it, he is hostile. A while later, she learns that Peggy entered a nursing home and died shortly afterward, but when she goes to the nursing home, the man at the desk is hostile and the home oddly empty-seeming.

Lindsay begins to believe that she has something wrong with herself. She is able to buy Peggy’s house, but she hears noises at night as if someone has come in and actually sees a man leaving her house at night. But all the doors are locked, and the police obviously think she is being silly.

Periodically, we hear from someone else who is being held prisoner. Is it Lindsay at a later time or someone else?

My biggest problem with the book is that the gaslighting seemed so obvious to me, and it seemed as though Lindsay was too quick to doubt herself. Also—spoiler alert—once the plot comes out, it’s almost impossible to believe that some people would have wanted her to return to Scotland. Despite a brief statement of explanation, it makes no sense.

Despite my caveats, the novel is suspenseful and the main character appealing. I would just rate it slightly lower than some of McPherson’s more compelling cozy thrillers.

Related Posts

Strangers at the Gate

Gingerbread House

Deep Beneath Us

Review 2752: They Came to Baghdad

~ whatmeread ~ 5 Comments

British officials are awaiting the arrival of their man Carmichael in Baghdad. He is being sought after everywhere as others try to capture him before he can pass on important information leading up to the summit meeting that includes the President of the United States and the Premier of the USSR.

But then we return to London and the activities of two women. The mysterious Anna Scheele is being followed, while Victoria Jones is being fired from her job as a stenographer/typist.

In Covent Garden Victoria meets a young man named Edward and is immediately smitten, but he says he is leaving for a job in Baghdad the next day. Victoria decides she must go to Baghdad, but she has no money. She ends up taking a job to help a woman on her way to Iraq who has broken her arm.

Once in Baghdad, Victoria realizes she doesn’t know how to find Edward. She doesn’t even know his last name. Then, in her hotel room at night, a bleeding man dressed as an Arab breaks in and asks her to hide him. She puts him behind her pillows in her bed while a policeman searches her room, but when she uncovers him, he is almost dead. He whispers some words and dies. This is Carmichael, who has made it all the way to Baghdad only to be ambushed.

Mr. Dakin, a British official, appears almost immediately but is dismayed when he learns Carmichael is dead. He is forced to explain a bit of what is going on. Since Victoria is going to a charity called The Olive Tree to find Edward, and this place seems to Dakin to be a focus of activity, he asks Victoria to keep her eyes open. He also asks her to look for evidence of Anna Scheele.

The big plot in this book is a silly one, but I found it otherwise a lot more entertaining than Christie’s other espionage-based novels. It includes exotic scenery, kidnapping, and murders, an engaging heroine, and some interesting descriptions of the area and of archaeological digs.

Related Posts

The Man in the Brown Suit

Passenger to Frankfurt

Destination Unknown

Review 2749: The Keeper

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

The Keeper is Tana French’s third Cal Hooper novel. Cal is an ex-Chicago cop who moved to the small village of Ardnakelty, Ireland, when he retired.

Cal has settled down to what he deems a pleasant life. Trey, the girl he helped in the first book, is now 17. She works with him building furniture and splits her time between his home and her mother’s. He’s having a comfortable affair with Lena based to some extent on maintaining each other’s privacy.

In the village store, the gossip is about the engagement of Rachel, an innocent and well-liked young woman, and Eugene, the spoiled son of the most powerful man in town, Tommy Moynihan. They are seen having a disagreement. Later, Rachel calls on Lena, apparently with the intention of confiding something or asking advice. However, Lena has made a habit of staying out of the business of the village, which she thinks is toxic, to the point of even avoiding her own sister and her old friends, so she does not encourage Rachel to confide.

Late that night, neighbors call Cal asking him to join a search for Rachel, who has disappeared. She is later found dead in the river, but she has antifreeze in her system. Rumors immediately begin circulating. Did she commit suicide, or did Eugene kill her?

Trey is concerned about what really happened to Rachel, so Lena decides to find out. Breaking the habit of years, she calls on various women trying to find out what they know. She eventually learns that Tommy Moynihan plans to force many of the local farmers off their land to make way for a giant development. This plan involves getting Eugene elected to a government position. Rachel found out about this plan and was trying to get Eugene to stop it.

Lena is soon being threatened by Tommy Moynihan, who says if she tells what she’s heard, he’ll have her declared insane and locked up, and he has already started rumors that she is unstable. Because she’s kept away from the village for years, some people are ready to believe it, and a Garda even comes to see her, because Tommy has the Gardas in his pocket. So she reverts to her former behavior, even staying away from Cal.

Cal doesn’t understand what’s happening, but he stays away from her. He and his elderly neighbor Mart are conducting their own investigation and begin to believe that Tommy killed Rachel.

This book is one that rapidly develops that sense of dread. My only problem with it is that it depends a lot on what Roger Ebert called “the idiot plot.” That is, that if Cal and Lena talked to each other, a lot of confusion could have been avoided, both in their relationship and the investigation.

Related Posts

The Trespasser

The Hunter

The Searcher

Review 2747: A Box Full of Darkness

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

In A Box Full of Darkness, Simone St. James returns to the eerie town of Fell, NY, where The Sun Down Motel is set. This novel has as its protagonists the three siblings of the Esmie family, whose original home is in Fell.

Violet Esmie sees dead people. She does in her work cleaning houses after the owner has died, but terrifyingly, she did in her parents’ house growing up. She was hospitalized for her “delusions,” and her ex used that to get custody of their daughter, Lisette.

Violet receives a call from the landscapers taking care of the family grounds in Fell. They are quitting because of sighting a boy on the grounds who says, “Come home.” Violet knows that this boy is her little brother Ben, who disappeared when he was six during a game of hide and seek and was never found. She summons her brother and sister to go to Fell.

Vail Esmie had experiences in childhood that made him believe in alien abductions. So, he works as an investigator in cases where people think they have seen aliens.

Dodie Esmie is a model who purposefully keeps removed from men by only going on first dates. She has just had a first date with Ethan when she gets the call from Violet.

The neighborhood in Fell is creepy. Two houses are vacant, one recently so, and there is only one family there, in what should be an upscale area.

Violet finds that Sister, a spirit who haunted her childhood, is there in the house and dangerous. She has never told her siblings about Sister, whereas Vail has never told them about the bright lights, and Dodie about the feeling of drowning—all these events at night unless Ben was sleeping with them. Almost as soon as they arrive, they begin experiencing odd and frightening events that eventually make them realize they need to figure out what happened to Ben.

This novel is fast moving and engaging, with scary and intriguing events. I don’t think there is any writer these days who handles ghost stories as well as St. James.

Related Posts

The Sun Down Motel

The Book of Cold Cases

Silence for the Dead

Review 2746: The Jealous One

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments

Celia Fremlin does it again! This time, a puzzling, suspenseful story in which you’re never sure how much to like the main character.

Rosamund awakens from a feverish dream in which she pushes Lindy off a cliff. When she awakens, she is still ill with the flu but relieved to find it was a dream. Her husband Geoffrey bursts in, saying that Lindy is missing. Then the novel returns to the day they met Lindy.

Rosamund and Geoffrey are happily married. Maybe they’re not the nicest people in the world, because they enjoy making fun of their neighbors, but they share many tastes and like talking things over.

Rosamund’s first glimpse of their new neighbor is of a dowdy woman with ugly furniture and a Pekinese (they prefer cats). They both agree there’s plenty to amuse themselves there. Rosamund sends Geoffrey over to invite the neighbor to dinner, but instead she invites them.

When they arrive, the room looks lovely and Lindy is attractive, charismatic, and outgoing. But Rosamund can’t help noticing that there are hidden barbs in what Lindy says, especially toward her sister, Eileen.

Already by the end of the first evening, Rosamund realizes there will be none of the usual post-party discussions. Geoffrey is enchanted.

The friendship continues with Geoffrey spending time gardening for Lindy and Lindy popping into their house at all hours. She calls them Geoff and Rosie, which Rosamund hates. Suddenly, there’s nothing funny about owning a Pekinese or growing tulips (which the couple used to dislike). Geoffrey’s pride in not owning a car but enjoying walking or taking a train disappears because Lindy has a car. Geoffrey is either with Lindy or Lindy is with them. Even Rosamund’s particular pleasure in visiting her mother-in-law is disturbed by Lindy first offering them a ride and then by her being included in their visits.

Rosamund is determined to show no jealousy, but she can see her marriage eroding, while Geoffrey remains blind to any problems. One of Lindy’s favorite topics of conversation is to blame the wives for any problems with a marriage. Even working wives, she says, should have dinner on the table for their husbands and be sure to make housework look effortless so their husbands don’t feel bad about not helping!!!

Rosamund is back and forth on whether Lindy is trying to ruin her marriage or is just oblivious. No one else seems to notice anything amiss. Everyone loves Lindy, but Rosamund is starting to hate her.

Returning to the present, Lindy remains missing, and Rosamund realizes she can’t remember the events of Tuesday, the first day of her flu, past a morning party she attended at a friend’s house. She thinks she was in bed, but then why are her shoes muddy? And why did she find Lindy’s new purse with her own coat on the bedroom floor?

Rosamund begins to worry that her nasty dream might be real. Did she kill Lindy? Surely not.

The suspense builds as we sympathize more and more with Rosamund and begin to see Lindy as a malevolent force. But did Rosamund kill her?

As always, Fremlin takes her time building her characters and situations, but she’s really good at hooking our attention and reeling us in for the dramatic finish. I’m happy to see that Faber is apparently publishing three more books by her that I haven’t read yet.

Related Posts

Uncle Paul

The Hours Before Dawn

The Long Shadow

Review 2735: Wild Dark Shore

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments

I have a fascination, at least in fiction, with islands and wild untamed places. That’s why Wild Dark Shore seemed like a great book for me.

A woman comes ashore, nearly drowned and badly injured, on a remote island south of Tasmania during a terrible storm. The island is only occupied by its caretaker, Dominic, and his three children. When she awakens, the woman, Rowan, claims she was not on the way there, but there is nowhere else she could have been going. Dominic feels she is lying. But Rowan thinks the family is hiding something.

Fairly quickly, we learn that Rowan is the wife of Hank, one of the scientists on the island. But Dominic tells her the scientists left the island, and someone wrecked all the comms (communication devices). The family and Rowan are trapped there without the ability to communicate until the next boat comes in eight weeks.

What Rowan doesn’t say is that she received a letter from Hank saying his life was in danger. Rowan can’t understand why he would have left the island without telling her.

Rowan begins to get to know and love the island, which is teeming with wildlife, and the family. There is Raffi, 18, a young man with a reading problem who plays the violin and likes to record whale songs; Fen, 17, who is fascinated by the seals and spends most of her time with them. She seems haunted, though, and won’t spend the night in the lighthouse where the family lives. Then there is Orly, a brilliant boy who loves botany but is still a nine-year-old. Dominic, a widower, still hears his wife and feels her near him.

Rowan learns that the reason the scientists left is that sea levels are rising and the seed bank on the island, an important repository of millions of seeds, is being shut down. Dominic is packing the seeds that are to be removed when the ship comes, but many will be lost. Rowan can’t understand why Hank, who was in charge of the seed bank, would have left.

This novel is terrific. It has all the things I look for in a really good book—an involving story, interesting characters, a palpable sense of setting, and a strong evocation of emotion. I loved it.

Related Posts

Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands

Wolfe Island

Island

Review 2710: Heartwood

~ whatmeread ~ 10 Comments

Hiker Valerie Gillis has vanished in the Maine woods while hiking the Appalachian Trail. She has failed to check in with her husband at the agreed-upon location for a few days before he reports her missing, because she has often been late. Did Valerie wander off the trail or has something else happened?

This story is narrated from the viewpoints of several characters. Valerie herself is keeping a journal that eventually reveals what happened. Lieutenant Bev Miller is the game warden in charge of the search. Santo is a black New Yorker who was Valerie’s hiking buddy on part of the trek. Finally, there is Lena, a retired wheelchair-bound scientist who sees something online that helps the search.

This novel is interesting on several fronts. Readers get to know these main characters very well and feel affection for some of them. There is a lot of detail about the wildness of the Maine forests and how searches are conducted. And the tension mounts as the search continues well beyond the usual time it takes to find someone. The book is fairly hard to put down.

Finally, it has a touching ending.

Related Posts

The Berry Pickers

This Other Eden

A Walk in the Woods

Review 2684: Wolfe Island

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

For quite a while, I wasn’t sure whether Wolfe Island is a contemporary novel or a dystopian one set in the near future. Eventually, it became clear that it is dystopian. It was published in 2019, but we are so much nearer now to its reality that it’s scary.

Kitty Hawke has lived on Wolfe Island in Chesapeake Bay almost all her life. It was once thriving, the home of watermen and their families and summer tourists. Now, with the rising waters, she is the only person left. She is an artist who makes sculptures out of found objects, and her only company is her wolf-dog Girl. All the houses on the island but hers are ruins.

Kitty tried to live off the island when she married Hart, but away from the marshes she couldn’t create, and she felt like an outsider. Once her daughter Claudie was a teenager, she left her family to return to the island, causing a break with Claudie.

During a storm, some people arrive on the island, three teenagers—two boys and a girl—and a little girl. Kitty recognizes the teenage girl as one who asked her questions when a school field trip came to the island. It turns out, she is Kitty’s granddaughter Cat, whom Kitty has never met. With her are her boyfriend Josh and Luis, a Hispanic young man, and his little sister Alejandra. Cat explains that she and Josh illegally drive people north, but they need to lie low for a while.

Luis and Alejandra are illegal aliens. Their father disappeared and their mother has been arrested. They are trying to find their mother, in a climate where ordinary citizens are challenging people to produce their papers and men are running around shooting anyone who looks foreign. Rising waters have ruined the soil of many farms, places are abandoned, and people are flocking north.

The young people move into a nearby house, and they stay there for several months while Cat is pregnant and eventually has the baby. But soon afterward, it becomes clear that someone has found them.

This is a really engaging and occasionally exciting novel. I’m having to eat my words about being sick of dystopian novels, as two of the best novels I read lately are dystopian, and this is one of them.

Related Posts

Prophet Song

Greenwood

Salt Creek

Review 2663: The Hours Before Dawn

~ whatmeread ~ 11 Comments

Boy, if you like a good thriller, this Celia Fremlin is terrific! I wonder why I never heard of her before. Since the summer before last, I had been trying to find a reasonably priced copy of her Uncle Paul. In May, another blogger told me she had found one, so I looked again and ended up with a set of three novels. One more to go!

Louise is exhausted. She has a young baby, Michael, who won’t sleep through the night and two girls, ages six and eight. In with the times, her husband, Mark, isn’t much help and even complains about the baby and the untidy house. Louise also has some objectionable neighbors. Mrs. Philips, who shares a wall, complains every day about the noise her children make. Mrs. Hooper has a talent for roping Louise into things she doesn’t want to do, like taking care of her baby, Christine. Mrs. Morgan is always condoling with her and criticizing the others, but Louise knows she does the same with the others.

Louise and Mark have decided to rent a room on their top floor, but Louise is surprised when Mis Brandon shows up to take it. She looks too prosperous and respectable to need to rent someone’s room, and there is something intense about her. But she teaches school at a local primary and is too respectable for Louise to turn away.

Louise begins to have strange dreams, but there are also some odd events that occur, and Louise is so tired, she thinks she may be imagining things. Tony Hooper, a young boy, tells her Miss Brandon is a spy, because he saw her going through Mark’s desk as well as his own mother’s. Then one night Louise takes Michael out for a walk so as not to disturb Mrs. Philips and falls asleep on a park bench. When she awakens, Michael and his pram are gone. She goes to the police and incoherently tells them her story only to find Michael and his pram at home, the baby asleep in his bed.

Now she feels she is branded not just a poor housewife but a lunatic. Mark is angry with her because he thinks she is jealous of Miss Brandon on his behalf. But Louise is determined to investigate her lodger.

This is a terrific little thriller that builds suspense throughout and ends with a bang. I’m really enjoying these books.

Related Posts

Uncle Paul

Lady Living Alone

The Circular Staircase

Review 2645: #RIP XX! Uncle Paul

~ whatmeread ~ 9 Comments

Why have I never heard of Celia Fremlin before? This book is great! When I first read a review of it last year, I could only find an expensive used copy, but another blogger this year (sorry, I don’t remember who) set me looking again, and I found an inexpensive set of three novels, including this one.

Meg gets an urgent message from her older sister Isabel asking her to drop everything and come see her at a vacation caravan site on the seaside. The telegram simply tells her that Mildred, their much older half-sister, is in trouble.

After talking it over with her friend, Freddy, Meg travels to the run-down caravan park to learn that Mildred’s problems have to do with Uncle Paul. Fifteen years ago, when Meg was a child, Mildred married Uncle Paul, and they spent their honeymoon in a cottage just a few miles away. It turned out, however, that Uncle Paul was not only already married but he was wanted for attempted murder of his wife for her money, and Mildred was also wealthy.

Now it is the end of Uncle Paul’s 15-year sentence. Mildred seems to think he will be coming to get his revenge, but she has perversely rented their old holiday cottage.

Both of Meg’s sisters seem permanently distressed. Isabel worries constantly about her husband Philip’s reaction to everything, while Mildred is often alarmed enough to scream. Meg talks Mildred into returning to town and looking for different lodging, which she finds for her at a comfortable hotel. She also finds Freddy there.

Her sisters’ alarm seems to be contagious, though. When she arrived at the cottage, she found Mildred all aquiver because she had been hearing footsteps—Uncle Paul’s footsteps. Isabel is hardly less nervous. And Meg learns that she may also be in danger, because she was the one who recognized Uncle Paul in an old newspaper.

Fremlin manages to work a good deal of suspense from what seems like trivial incidents, and from fears that Uncle Paul could be any of several men around. But just when I was deciding that everything was in their heads, things got going.

This book reminded me of a lot of Mary Stewart’s combinations of suspense and a bit of romance that I’ve always loved. The writing style is sprightly, the dialogue is witty, and the characters are vivid. Finally, Meg is an engaging, intelligent heroine.

Related Posts

The Unforgotten

Touch Not the Cat

The Lace Reader