Chilling and Twisty: New Thriller from Erin Kelly, HE SAID/SHE SAID

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“The twists in what “love” means and how people create their own strange moral universes are classic Kelly, and reminiscent of Barbara Vine at her spookiest.”

 

Minotaur’s reprint of Erin Kelly’s 2018 thriller makes this British page-turner available on the American side of “the pond” and demonstrates once again that Kelly is a true master of psychological suspense and chilling twists. As the author has said of herself, “My job is to imagine a strange situation and ask the question that will make it stranger still.”

 

In 2015, the charming young couple Kit and Laura live in London, expecting twins. He’s still going to travel, in order to witness a solar eclipse, the theme of his life so far—but he’s planned it carefully and made sure Laura will have support and protection while he’s gone. It’s not just the somewhat risky twin pregnancy that worried him: More than 15 years ago, when the two met at a summertime eclipse festival, Laura had witnessed a crime, and the trauma still haunts them both. The victim, clearly terribly disturbed, has stalked and hunted them to such an extent that they now live as close to “off the grid” as urban people can manage: no social media, assumed names, and more.

 

But will the very frightening “Beth” be able to identify them, now that Laura’s photo has shown up briefly on a media site, and Kit is predictably headed to the eclipse event? She knows about his lifelong passion—will she track him down?

 

Kelly frames this thriller around the phases of a solar eclipse, mimicking in plot what the sun’s disappearance does: an edge of overlap, a sparkling ring allowed for a bit, then total darkness, and the slow journey back to normal. For Laura in particular, this involves recapitulating the trial in which she’d taken part, the crime itself, the levels of threat.

 

With his voice alternating to tell another side, Kit reveals how threatened he feels by upcoming fatherhood and being potentially eclipsed himself by the babies on the way. Kelly’s use of first-person narratives means the of 15 years earlier are presented repeatedly. Kit fingers a knife, contemplating how far he’d go to protect his wife: “Would I tell Laura? Could I tell Laura? Could she live with me? Even knowing I only acted for her, would she still love me?”

 

But there’s an alternate set of facts hidden in the shadows, and only the small question of self-doubt from Kelly’s characters will begin to reveal what’s been transformed by time and lies.

 

The twists in what “love” means and how people create their own strange moral universes are classic Kelly, and reminiscent of Barbara Vine at her spookiest. Strands of deceit creep out of the narratives like ectoplasm in a séance, curling into the air and bringing lies back to life. There are few innocents in He Said/She Said—other than those twins on the way. Good luck spotting the others, before the house of cards comes tumbling down in blood and manipulation.

 

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

Disappeared or Dead? THE DEATHWATCH BEETLE (Ann Lindell 9) from Kjell Erickson

 [Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“As more violence enters her tense investigation, and the inner madness of others takes on outer forms, how will Ann choose her own life themes? Does she need to remain lost, to stand aside from love?”

The Deathwatch Beetle is the ninth in Kjell Erickson’s Ann Lindell crime novels, and Lindell has actually left her job as a police inspector. But because she receives a tip that presumed-dead victim Cecilia Karlsson’s been seen alive, four years after the woman’s disappearance from the Swedish island of Gräsö, Ann steps back into investigating the cold case. Her motives are more mixed than that—she’s at a stage when she needs to sort out some things about herself—and maybe that’s a good way to walk among the personalities of this baffling set of crimes, open to emerging secrets and sorrow. And, incidentally, love.

Local consensus on the island is that Cecilia’s friend Casper died in the water, and Cecilia followed suit. When Ann decides to probe Cecilia’s death, she begins with a visit to the young woman’s parents—who are sure Cissi will come back some day—and then visits the men who’d once formed a circle of attention around Cecilia. When she starts with the area’s gossip, Robert, he tells her, “She’s dead. She took Casper’s death hard, unexpectedly hard, and followed him into the water. That’s the way you die here, if you choose to go voluntarily.”

But if she’s dead, why do the questions she left behind keep coming back to life? Ann identifies with disappearing—she did it herself, once—and the strand of her own life that keeps an unexpected life is the former investigator in her. She needs to solve Cecilia’s situation, in hopes of figuring out her own. “She could become a parish constable, move in with Edvard and live the rest of her life on the island. Daydreams, she understood that. The reality looked different.”

This is an elegantly written crime novel, with a sultry pace, translated as if it were high poetry, by Paul Norlen. Insects appear, mate, are eaten or vanish; the ticking of a deathwatch beetle invades the night in a half-hidden cabin; spiders and butterflies take center meaning in scenes. Slow layer by layer, with many shifts of viewpoint, the real story of Cecilia is laid bare—and it’s sordid and chilled.

Ann identified with this missing woman at the start of The Deathwatch Beetle. As more violence enters her tense investigation, and the inner madness of others takes on outer forms, how will Ann choose her own life themes? Does she need to remain lost, to stand aside from love?

Although The Deathwatch Beetle is far less gory than its characters’ souls seem to be, it frames a northern desperation that will feel familiar to readers of both Henning Mankell and Karin Fossum. The book can’t be rushed through; it demands attentive, focused reading.

Eriksson’s moody island of revelation is memorable, and as he did in his earlier award-winning novel, The Princess of Burundi, he paints murder here in layers that correspond to the shells and diversions of the soul. Perhaps we all long to be lost sometimes; will we agree, however, to be found?

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

Chilling Debut Mystery, British, from Sandie Jones, THE OTHER WOMAN

[Originally published in the New York Journal of Books]

British author Sandie Jones brings out her debut crime novel The Other Woman as one of the creepiest “fall in love and step into danger” books ever. With a tang of Stephen King in its horror passages (especially his title Misery), this book requires a good light on and the doors securely locked. Because, yes, it’s terrifying.

Jones provides a half-page prologue in the voice of someone who’s going to make sure a wedding doesn’t happen. Then she leaps to the opening of the first chapter, which puts the possibility of trouble right out front, in Emily’s view: “There weren’t many things that I didn’t like about Adam when I first saw him across the crowded bar at the Grosvenor Hotel in London, aside from his lack of empathy. I’d just come out of an incredibly dull ‘Future of Recruitment’ conference and needed a drink far more than he or the barman realized.”

Emily Havistock, whose voice and point of view take over the rest of this thriller, believes she’s found the man of her dreams in Adam. He’s perfect (she’s willing to set aside that strange lack of empathy), tender, adores her. She adores him. But there are secrets in his past and his family (a doting mother, a close brother) that keep tripping Emily into waves of doubt. What’s the story on the woman Adam expected to marry earlier in his life, Rebecca, whom he “misses every day”? Is James trying to warm Emily that Adam can be hurtful? And how should they handle Adam’s mother Pammie, who’s doing so many things to make Emily ill at ease and even to capsize the planned wedding? Emily tries to talk this through with Adam’s brother James:

 ’Any ideas on what we can do about your mother?’ I asked, aware that I might be crossing a line. I screwed up my face as I waited for his response.

‘She’ll get over it,’ he said softly.

I smiled. ‘I don’t think it’ll be anytime soon. You know what your mum’s like. She’ll drag it out for as long as she can.’ I wasn’t sure whether I’d meant to say that out loud.

‘Her bark’s worse than her bite,” he said, after a long pause. ‘She’ll come around.’ 

But what if Pammie had something to do with the earlier death of Rebecca? What if Emily now wears that target herself? And—gulp—would the target also apply to other people Emily loves, including a possible infant? More pressing, why isn’t Adam doing anything about this? How can he let Pammie repeatedly exclude Emma from “family photos” and more? Her heart’s breaking.

Of course, Emily has a few secrets of her own, one of whom shows up for the “hen party” before the wedding. Gulp.

Read this one as a page-turner, a creepy set of circumstances that keep getting more threatening. Don’t expect depth of character, and don’t expect to “solve” the crime, as Jones hasn’t set up the plotting for reader access to the truth until the final twists take place.

That said, it’s intense, compelling, and very British, a good palate-cleanser to restore a full range of flavor after watching too many sweet happy-every-after films (newly released The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society?) or kindly books (this is much more aggressive than even the darkest Agatha Christie!). And The Other Woman proves conclusively that Hitchcock’s talent for threat and terror in the unfolding of each scene can just as well emerge in this up-to-date and clever London author. (From Minotaur.)

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