New Crime Fiction from Hank Phillippi Ryan, THE FIRST TO LIE

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“This thriller should raise more than goosebumps—it’s a raceway of red flags signaling the possible connections of corrupt officials and money-hungry drug developers.”

The warning is right up front in this wild-ride thriller from TV investigative journalist Hank Phillippi Ryan: “If you could start your adult life over as someone else, would you do it? … To get what you always wanted? Sure, you would. All you have to do is lie.”

And it’s obvious that Nora Quinn at the start of The First to Lie is faking a lot of things. Out on a carefully choreographed date—her own choreography—with a doctor whose clinic promises fertility miracles, she’s tracking possible misuse of a dangerous pharmaceutical. Then there’s a quick switch of narrator, to Ellie Berensen, whose new neighbor in her apartment building seems way too pushy and invasive. If Ellie’s hiding something too, new neighbor Meg Weest seems determined to find it. Maybe Meg is even getting into Ellie’s place when she’s not home. Who’s lying the most, and what are the stakes?

Ryan’s tight-twist plot careens forward, ramping up suspense every couple of pages and putting everyone in danger. When it looks like Meg intends to steal Ellie’s news job as well, the tension grows almost unbearable.

And at that pont, Ryan introduces yet another woman with something at stake: Lacey Vanderwald, marrying into Big Pharma. And her new about-to-be sister-in-law Brooke, victim of the magic drugs her family is marketing. Just how intentionally evil can one profit-motivated family become?

For a while, this thriller switches characters in flashes like a Shakespearean drama, storms and treachery rattling off stage. Then, as the dangers move to center action, the characters spin: All of these women are performing, with deep compelling motives, and none of them is who she pretends to be. “The first to lie”? It’s hard to tell who hasn’t been lying. The motives are life, death, and major money.  Never mind love. By a third of the way into Ryan’s pulse-pounding crime novel, even terror steps forward:

“Ellie stared at the coffee table, at the coffee cup, at the yellow pad and the pencils. What a reporter would use. What she would use. Did use, in fact. The cup, one from the kitchen supplies that came with her apartment, she drank from every morning. … She felt her fingers tingle, and a clench in her chest as if a vise were closing around her lungs. ‘Offi—Officer? I didn’t put that stuff there. I didn’t.’

A siren screamed by outside, the sound fading as it passed.

‘You didn’t?’ Adomako narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Then who did?’”

To anyone watching the scandals of Big Pharma over the past few years, every twist feels like it could have been reported in last week’s news. And in a world now dependent on pharmaceutical companies to develop, spread, and administer a vaccine against the pandemic disease COVID-19, this thriller should raise more than goosebumps—it’s a raceway of red flags signaling the possible connections of corrupt officials and money-hungry drug developers.

Ryan provides an extra tang of satisfaction as all the most potent characters in The First to Lie are tough, savvy, scientifically sharp women with skills that could slide effectively into the original James Bond series. Watch for the money. And then keep a close eye on who’s lying to whom. Because it’s all performance, and it’s all deadly serious.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Joseph Finder's #4 for PI Nick Heller: HOUSE ON FIRE

[originally published in the New York Journal of Books]

“. . . [this is] the charm of a Joseph Finder novel, tugging readers into identifying with the PI, even without ever carrying a weapon or sneaking up on a suspect themselves.”

In book 4 of his Nick Heller series, House on Fire, Joseph Finder merges the traditional private investigator role of his PI protagonist with a dangerous form of industrial espionage: prying into the family secrets of the corporation behind a powerfully addictive opioid. The enormous wealth of the Kimball family, built on their share of the drug economy, is rooted in family guilt as well. And the minute Nick starts prying, he’s a target for those willing to protect their secrets and fortunes by any means possible.

You’d think Nick would realize this and decline the case. But as Finder demonstrates so deftly, Nick’s heartstrings are vulnerable to old loyalties. In this case, the funeral of his army buddy Sean, who saved Nick’s life in the service, summons Nick to support the grieving widow and kids—and sets him up as a target:

“One woman stood out from the other mourners. She was a hippieish woman in her thirties, wearing a busily colored fringed, crochet-knit shawl over a black dress. I’d noticed her before, at the church, sitting off by herself. . . . She didn’t look like she came from here. I couldn’t figure her out. My first thought was that she was a journalist, but then I ruled that out—she was dressed too nicely. I also had the strong feeling she’d been looking at me.”

Susan Kimball, it turns out, is there to recruit Nick to infiltrate her family’s compound and extract an important file of results: ones that showed how addictive the Kimball fortune-making drug would be, well before it gained approval for the marketplace. Susan, or Sukie, wants justice for the drug-related deaths, and is willing to help Nick expose the research hanky-panky.

In the big crowd of guests at the grand estate, unexpectedly Nick finds his his former colleague and lover Maggie. The two can still trust each other, and swap some details, discovering they’ve got parallel assignments to pursue. Good thing to have some companionship, because nothing among the Kimball crowd is as direct or honest as it may look, and by a third of the way through this investigation, Nick and Maggie are dodging murderous plots right and left. Even Sukie might not be playing straight, despite what she’s got to gain from Nick’s potential success.

Finder provides a straightforward suspense thriller in House on Fire, turning up the action and tension with each scene. When Nick tracks down the original whistle-blower for the pharmaceutical scam, the tension goes global, too, with connections to Eastern Europe. Soon one of the other Kimball family members suggests that Nick will need to tackle a necessary murder in order to get through the case: “‘Every document of civilization in also a document of barbarism. The son wants to redeem the sins of the father but at the same time he’s necessarily implicated in them, right?’”

Talk high philosophy to Nick, and you provoke him into questioning everything else he’s getting told—which is the charm of a Joseph Finder novel, tugging readers into identifying with the PI, even without ever carrying a weapon or sneaking up on a suspect themselves.

For those who follow the latest scandals of real-life pharma companies, some of the revelations in House on Fire will seem straight from the news. But fear not, Finder always has another twist ready, and the best of them involve loyalty, friendship, and compassion. Buckle up for a good read.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.