Two fantastic suspense novels

Reprinted from the Citizen:

What makes a good suspense novel? First you need well-drawn characters that the reader cares about. Put those characters in a situation that has a sense of foreboding and danger, and the reader will be drawn into the story. Two recent novels that fit that bill are the subject of this month’s Book Report.

The setting for John Searles’ novel, Her Last Affair is one that will feel familiar to many people in the Auburn area. The story takes place at a drive-in theater (the Finger Lakes Drive-In is one of the few remaining drive-ins left in New York). 

Skyla is a widow who lost her sight shortly after she lost her husband of nearly fifty years in a freak accident. She is looking for a tenant to rent the cottage on her property, right next her own identical cottage on the grounds of the abandoned drive-in theater her husband’s family ran for years.

Brit Teddy Cornwell shows up to rent the cottage, and he and Skyla hit it off immediately. Teddy loves this “brilliant stitch of Americana” and laughs at the only question Skyla asks him - “Have you ever been in love?” She asks nothing about his references or financial situation, just a question about love.

Teddy shares the story of his first love, Linelle, how he loved her more than anyone in his life, even more than his ex-wife. Skyla encourages Teddy to look her up, which he does, tracking Linelle down on Facebook. Linelle is receptive to meeting up with Teddy after all these years since her marriage is unhappy and her life seems to be falling apart.

Jeremy is an unsuccessful writer in New York City, about to be evicted from his apartment when he gets an assignment to write a restaurant review in his hometown of Providence. He returns home and recalls the woman he fell in love with year ago, the woman who broke his heart. Maybe he should look her up.

No one in Her Last Affair is exactly who they seem. Why did Skyla lose her job as a nurse years ago? Why is Teddy hiding out in a cottage on an abandoned drive-in? How Searles weaves the stories of these fascinating, lovelorn characters together is nothing short of brilliant, and I loved his use of movie quotes to open each chapter with insight into what is coming next.

Her Last Affair is a book that builds the suspense with each turn of the page. The twist that Searles throws in will have you gasping as I did. The drive-in setting is perfect, as this is a book that screams to be turned into a movie.

Lisa Lutz’s The Accomplice also has characters you find fascinating within a suspense story that draws the reader in. Owen is a student from a wealthy family when he meets Luna at college. Luna is quiet, keeps mostly to herself, and has a secret in her past that she desperately wants to keep hidden. 

Owen and Luna become best friends, practically inseparable. When Owen dates a woman from  college and breaks up with her, she ends up dead and suspicion falls on Owen. Luna’s past comes into focus as well when the young woman is found dead. They both become outcasts on campus.

Years later, Owen is married to someone else, as is Luna. They live in the same town and are still best friends. When Owen’s wife is found dead, Luna is the one who finds her dead body as she was supposed to go running with her.

The police discover that Owen was having an affair with one of his students, and suspicion once again falls on Owen. Luna’s past also rears its head as well. Did either or both have anything to do with the women’s deaths or is it just a bad coincidence?

Owen and Luna’s relationship is a unique one. They know each other better than they know anyone else- or do they? Are either one of them capable of murder?

Her Last Affair and The Accomplice are both terrific suspense novels that make the reader think. Although these books are both fiction, I think fans of true crime podcasts and television shows like “Dateline” would find these interesting. I highly recommend them both, John Searles and Lisa Lutz are at the top of their game here.

Her Last Affair by John Searles- A

Published by Mariner Books

Hardcover, $27.99, 336 pages

The Accomplice by Lisa Lutz- A

Published by Ballantine Books

Hardcover, $28, 368 pages

August Books from the Book Expo

Every year I attend the Book Expo, one of the biggest publishing conferences in the country where publishers give out copies of the books they will be promoting in the near future. Each month I will post a photo of the books I picked up that will be published that month.
(June books are here.)
(July books are here.)

Here are the books I picked up that publish in August.

 Karen Abbott's The Ghosts of Eden Park recounts the true story of legendary bootlegger George Remus, who owned 35% of all the liquor in 1921. Mabel Willebrandt, a pioneering female prosecutor sets her sights on bringing down Remus' empire, along with her investigator Franklin Dodge. When Dodge begins an affair with Remus' wife, things get really crazy. This one has gotten rave reviews and sounds fantastic for people who like true crime that reads like fiction.

In thriller writer Karen Slaughter's newest novel The Last Widow, Atlanta medical examiner Sara Linton and her partner, Georgia Bureau of  Investigations Will Trent, are tasked with investigating a two deadly bombings when Sara is kidnapped and Will must save her and prevent more bombings from happening. Slaughter is at the top of her game here.

Lisa Lutz's The Swallows is about "a teacher at a New England prep school who ignites a gender war- with deadly consequences". I loved her last novel, The Passenger, and this one looks to be pretty intense and a little controversial.

Sarah M. Broom' memoir The Yellow House is about the shotgun house she and her family of eleven siblings grew up in a poor neighborhood in New Orleans. Her widowed mom raised her family in that house until Hurrican Katrina came along. It's about race, class, inequality and family and it's gotten great reviews.

Rob Hart's novel, The Warehouse, was chosen as one of the Editor's Buzz Books at the Book Expo. Paxton works for Cloud (think Amazon) that has taken over a large portion of the American economy. Zinnia has gone undercover at Cloud trying to discover exactly what is going on there. It sounds fabulous and a little scary.

In Brock Clarke's Who Are You, Calvin Bledsoe, when the titular hero's mother passes away, a mysterious woman shows at her funeral and claims to be his aunt. She convinces Calvin to accompany her to Europe, where he is followed by secret agents, religious fanatics, and his stalker ex-wife. It's  being called a cross between a Wes Anderson movie and John Irving book, with that odd comic sensibility.

 Rick Moody tells the tale of the first month of his second marriage in his memoir The Long Accomplishment. His hope for a smooth matrimonial start is beset by "miscarriages, the death of friends and robberies, just for starters." Moody wrote the book The Ice Storm, so it will interesting to read his take on a real marriage.

See you in September.

How To Start A Fire by Lisa Lutz

How To Start A Fire by Lisa Lutz
Published by Mariner Books ISBN 9780544705180
Trade paperback, $14.95, 352 pages

The first Lisa Lutz's book I read was The Spellman Files, the first in a series of mysteries about a family of private investigators. There is a delightful sense of humor in these books, and if you like Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, you should give The Spellman Files a read.

The next book I read of Lutz's was The Passenger, a tense psychological thriller about a woman on the run after killing her husband. She was already on the run from something else, and when she meets a mysterious woman who saves her life, things get even more complicated. The Passenger made my list of Most Compelling Books of 2016 and I recommend it to everyone.

My friend and bookshop colleague told me I should read Lutz's 2015 novel, How To Start A Fire, and I finally got around to it. Boy, am I glad I did.

Kate and Anna are college freshman. Kate is an orphan who lives with her grandfather and hopes to take over his diner one day, living out her life in familiar surroundings. She finds things fascinating that other might not, like the ancient medical use of leeches. Anna is from a wealthy family back East, always up for an adventure and getting herself (and others) into trouble without much thought.

One night after leaving a frat party, they find a tall young woman lying drunk in the grass. They put her in a shopping cart and bring her back to their dorm. Her name is George, and she is a star athlete, very close to her dad after her mother died.

The three women become best friends, living together and planning their respective futures, which included medical school for Anna if she could get her grades up. We follow the women back and forth through the years. A tragic incident occurs that changes all of their lives and threatens their futures.

Lutz writes her characters so beautifully, and her words on the page are so stunning, I often found myself stopping and rereading them over and over, like this passage:

"Edgar had fallen in love with George's knees first, but he was also a back-of-the-neck man, a breast man, a shoulder man, even a foot man, just not in the fetish-video kind of way. An entire woman was too overwhelming. He preferred them in sections, the way one would study a map."

Lutz's sense of humor is here in smaller doses as well, as when she describes Anna's mother this way:

"Her mother's full-time job for the past nine months had been planning her son's wedding. Somehow Lena Fury had managed to shove aside the mother of the bride and the bride herself to become the chief operating officer of the Fury/Wentworth nuptials."

Kate, Anna and George are truly unforgettable characters, and Lutz tells their story with a compassion and clarity that resonates long after you finish their story. I highly recommend How To Start A Fire, and anything Lisa Lutz has written, in any genre.

Lisa Lutz's website is here.

New in Paperback- The Passenger by Lisa Lutz

The Passenger by Lisa Lutz
Published by Simon & Schuster ISBN 978145686647
Trade paperback, 320 pages, $15.99

Lisa Lutz’s “Spellman Files” series is a comic look at a family of private investigators. Those light-hearted books are a world away from her latest, “The Passenger,” which begins with a woman on the run after her husband dies falling down the stairs. 

It is not the first time Tanya has been on the run. The story of her background slowly unfolds and she has to deal with someone from her past who wants to kill her. But why?

Tanya meets another mysterious woman named Blue, who also appears to be on the run, she claims from an abusive husband. The two reluctantly team up — but is one of them using the other to cover up another crime?

Advertisement

“Tanya” ends up on the run again, taking different identities along the way. She moves from place to place, shedding her identity like a snake sheds its skin. She has to decide who she can trust, and just when Tanya decides she has had enough of life on the run, she returns home to face her past — and Blue is there, too.

“The Passenger” is a twisty, can’t-stop-turning-the-page thriller that will have the reader trying to figure out exactly what happened to start Tanya on this path and what kind of person she truly is. You have to ask yourself, “Would I go as far she did to save myself?”