Locust Lane

August 1, 2022

In Amidon's Locust Lane, a young woman is found dead in the more fashionable section of a New England suburb, and the three teenagers who were with her that night are now suspects in her murder (100,000-copy first printing). From Carlsson, youngest winner of the Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year, the internationally best-selling Blaze Me a Sun features a serial killer in a small Swedish town who commits his first murder the same night in 1986 when Prime Minister Olof Palme is assassinated. In a continuation of Cosimano's USA Today best-selling and Edgar--nominated series starring author and single mom Finlay Donovan, readers will find that Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun; unexpectedly owing Russian mobsters a favor, she must help them identify a contract killer before the cops do, especially crucial because the killer might actually be a cop. In The Motion Picture Teller, a stand-alone from CWA Dagger winner Cotterill set in 1996 Bangkok, postman Supot and his best friend, video store owner Ali, discover a mysterious film titled Bangkok 2010 that no one seems to know anything about--and that might be cursed. In Jane Harper's Exiles, Australian federal investigator Aaron Falk--whom readers know from the New York Times best-selling Dry--senses fault lines among the close group of attendees at a party in South Australian wine country, owing to the disappearance of a friend whose baby was found abandoned at a busy festival. From the Edgar Award--winning Jordan Harper, Everybody Knows features publicist Mae Pruett, who makes sure that everybody doesn't know about the shady dealings of the lawyers and private security firms for which she works, now trying to discover the secret her boss took to his death. In You Must Remember This, from Edgar-nominated YA author Rosenfield, Miriam Gardiner's fall through thin ice one Christmas Eve in the spot where decades ago she used to meet a lover might be an accident or suicide, but motives for murder emerge when daughter Delphine starts looking into the entire family. In the New York Times best-selling Tracy's The Devil You Know, LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan faces a tough case with the suspicious death of popular actor Evan Hobbes in a Malibu rockslide just 24 hours after a fake video smashes up his career; the subsequent murder of his agent's brother-in-law suggests evil intent.

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October 31, 2022
At the start of this uneven mystery from Amidon (The Real Justine), Patrick Noone, whose life went off the rails after his teenage daughter fatally overdosed on heroin, hits a dog late one late night while driving impaired in Emerson, Mass. When he tries to tend to the animal, he spots a man hiding in some trees. He thinks little of the incident until he learns that the house the man had been lurking near was the site of the recent bludgeoning murder of teenager Eden Perry, the dog’s owner. Meanwhile, the police focus on three of Eden’s peers: spoiled rich boy Jack Parrish; Jack’s girlfriend, Hannah Holt; and Christopher Mahoun, the shy son of an immigrant. As the suspects’ parents try to ascertain the truth and protect their children, Patrick gets drawn into the case. Amidon doesn’t pull punches in his grim resolution of the murder puzzle, but readers should be prepared for some awkward prose (“The thought of that not happening added another small boulder to the sled of sadness he was tugging through the frozen tundra of his life”). This works better as a character study than a whodunit. Agent: Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson, & Lerner Literary.

December 1, 2022
Amidon's latest suburban thriller explores the nature of class privilege and equal justice under the law. The tranquility of the wealthy Boston suburb of Emerson is shattered when the body of Eden Perry is found in a home on tony Locust Lane, where the 20-year-old had been staying as a caretaker and dog walker. Police tell her estranged mother, Danielle, they believe she was murdered. The teenagers partying with Eden on the night of her death--golden-boy-with-a-dark-streak Jack Parrish, his sweet but troubled girlfriend, Hannah Holt, and shy outsider Christopher Mahoun, who had a crush on Eden--lie to their parents and the police about where they were that evening. But when scratches are found on Christopher's neck, he becomes the prime suspect. As a grieving but tough Danielle seeks answers, the other parents take steps to protect their children, even if it comes at the expense of others. The shifting points of view alternate among Celia Parrish, who ignores troubling aspects of her son's personality while relying on her husband to fix the problems Jack causes; successful restaurateur Michel Mahoun, whose ethnicity (Lebanese Maronite Catholic) marks him as a foreigner in the WASPy community; unhappily married Alice Holt, who is convinced her lover Michel's son is innocent and who plies Hannah, her stepdaughter, with wine to get at the truth; local man Patrick Noone, on a downward spiral from his daughter Gabi's fatal overdose, who may have seen the killer on Locust Lane during a late-night drive; and Danielle. Amidon writes smoothly but relies on clich�s for his observations on class differences. With her dyed black hair and tattoos, Danielle is a working-class representative, while the socially prominent Parrishes are stereotypes of class entitlement. It's easy to identify the villains early on. The flipping among perspectives slows the narrative and makes it difficult at times to keep track of the mostly unlikable characters in this plodding thriller. The ambiguous ending may frustrate some readers who like their thrillers neatly wrapped up.

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Starred review from December 1, 2022
Twenty-year-old Eden Perry is dead--murdered--and the inevitable question is, Who killed her? Seventeen-year-old Christopher has been arrested for the crime, but could someone so shy and diffident actually have done the deed? Or was it Eden's so-called friend Jack, a sadistic bully who was present at the scene along with Christopher on the night of the murder? And what about timid Hannah, Jack's girlfriend, who was also present? Jack and Hannah insist they left before the crime, leaving Christopher alone with Eden. But who is the dark, sinister presence lurking in a copse near the scene of the crime, seen by Patrick, a gentle alcoholic? Patrick insists it was Jack, but no one believes him, least of all Jack's odious, rich father, a powerful presence in their small, wealthy community. Christopher's father, Michel, a chef and restaurateur, is convinced of his son's innocence but has a guilty secret: he's having an affair with Hannah's stepmother, Alice, which will compromise his credibility. Clearly the deck is stacked against Christopher, with whom readers will quickly empathize while entertaining the slightest shadow of a doubt about his innocence. Told in the voice of an omniscient narrator, who moves from character to character, Amidon's compulsively readable, richly plotted crime novel is a tour de force that grabs readers' attention and doesn't let go until the final page. Read and enjoy.

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