I must admit I find Robotham’s clinical psychologist protagonist Joe O’Loughlin quite irritating, and I prefer the novels he is not in, like The Secrets She Keeps. In this novel O’Loughlin maintains his usual fairly inexplicable appeal to women while charging headlessly and relentlessly towards disaster. He is attacked in a hospital, at a bus […]
Thriller
The Geography Of Friendship by Sally Piper
Oooh, this is a good one. Piper’s beautiful writing elevates this novel above so many thrillers. Her description of the Australian bush and the three women tramping through it are utterly free from cliche, and quite mesmerising. By the end we feel we know all the women well, especially Samantha. The three women, friends from […]
Need to know by Karen Cleveland
What do you do when you’re a CIA analyst and you find out your husband is a Russian agent, a ‘sleeper’. It’s a sad indictment of the American system when the CIA analyst in question, Vivian Miller, can’t turn her Russian spy husband in because, amongst other things, she would lose her job and the […]
The Death Of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware
This mildly interesting little thriller attempts to go deeper than Ware’s previous novels, In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10. There’s a whole family of characters to get to know and a deeply mysterious housekeeper who Knows More Than She’s Saying. There’s a multitude of mysteries to be solved, and the […]
In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
Some quite odd, neurotic and generally unlikeable people gather in an isolated cabin in the woods for a hen’s weekend. Inevitably, things go horribly wrong. The moral is: don’t accept an invitation to a hen’s weekend from someone you haven’t seen in ten years. Derr. This is a quick read for people who like their […]
The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
Well plotted, this one, and speaks to our primal fear of defenceless babies been taken. None of the characters seem quite real, but then this isn’t the sort of book you read for deep characterisation. It’s all about the plot, baby. And there are some quite awesome twists and turns. Great fodder for a long […]
An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena
A good one if you’re after the sort of swift, atmospheric read Lapena is the master of. Heavy on fast paced plotting; not so thorough on creating three dimensional characters. The setting is a plush, out of the way hotel in the Catskills with no internet connectivity. It’s all quite lovely for the ten guests […]
Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy
Be warned; this novel is much more profound, and therefore much more disturbing, than your average thriller. Two American familes on a cruise meet up with an Argentinian family; between them they have six children. In an unnamed Central American country an onshore excursion turns disastrous when all their children go missing. Their story intersects […]