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Where Are You Now?

Mary Higgins Clark

7.3 (6 Ratings) Rate It

Book

From America's Queen of Suspense comes a gripping tale of a young woman trying to unravel the...

Mayhawke (97 KP) rated Wilde Lake in Books

Feb 13, 2018

Wilde Lake

Laura Lippman | 2017 | Crime, Thriller

8.5

(2 Ratings)

Book Rating

A gripping thriller chronicling the awful collision of events past and present for a newly inaugurated District Attorney

Thank you to Andrew at Faber & Faber for the ARC.

OK - so my first admission here is that, although I read a lot of crime I have somehow managed to remain completely oblivious to the (quite large!) body of work from Ms. Lippman!

That said the, fact that there exists such a body to give evidence to her long experience as a writer goes someway to explaining the smooth skill with which the story of newly-appointed State's Attorney, Lu Brandt, is unpackaged and delivered to the reader.
The story is told in a combination of first- and third-person relating current and past events. I found this a slightly odd and unsettling, though effective, way to use the voice of the narrator, and I was constantly bothered by who was narrating in the third-person sequences.

Lu Brandt, scion of a former and legendary State's Attorney , grew up in the experimental new town of Columbia, in a house on the edge of Wilde Lake. For me she is one of the most realistic characters I have ever read, and I felt a strong empathy for the child Lu in the historic sequences, though she was far smarter than I ever was!

Her mother's death early in Lu's life, her father's immersion in his job and the age gap between Lu and her older brother left the precocious Lu with the feeling of always being an outsider in her own life, yet one with a unique and largely over-looked position from which to view the events of all their lives. In childhood this externalism simply confused her: as an adult she misconstrues it as casual and unintentional neglect - nothing she can't overcome or forgive with an adult's perspective.

The plotline is simple: The first case to land on Lu's desk in her new job is a mundane but nasty murder. Directing the police to be more thorough than her predecessor demanded Lu finds occasional links back to her earlier life in Colombia. At first these seem like nothing more than the kind of inter-connection of lives that is to be expected in small town, but the further she digs the closer to home the connections appear to come, and her earlier childhood observations begin to take on a more menacing cast.
This is not an original format or even a particularly uncommon story but it is in the details and the delivery that Lippman's skill is brought to bear. The steady rhythm with which the facts and fictions, truth and lies are laid before the reader; the characters, who are developed from bright-eyed high-schoolers, through college and into more cynical middle-age; the events that carry those same characters to that darker stage of their lives - all of these aspects of the story are delivered with a style and depth that make this one of the most thoroughly engaging books I have read this year.

This is a good representation of the book I would like all my ARC's and proofs to be.

Kudos

Hazel (1853 KP) rated Broken Realms (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, #1) in Books

Dec 7, 2018

This eBook was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Broken Realms is a brilliant science fiction novel and first installment of The Chronicles of Mara Lantern by D. W. Moneypenny. Set in present day Oregon it deals with metaphysical ideas and bizarre creatures – a very intriguing read.

Mara Lantern is a young adult who has left school to work in a gadget repair shop where her amazing natural talent for restoring machinery is put to good use. At the commencement of the book she is being driven to the airport by her New Age obsessed mother in order to fly out to San Francisco to visit her father. Once the plane is airborne it is clear there is something terribly wrong. Bright blue light flashes throughout the aircraft and the passengers around Mara appear to be distorting: growing fangs and snouts, and changing eye colour. What is even stranger is a redheaded boy is running down the aisle closely pursued by a clone of Mara.

In an attempt at an emergency landing, the plane crashes into the Columbia River – a crash impossible to survive – however everyone does. All the passengers and crew are pulled out of the river unharmed; all except Mara who is strangely found unconscious on the pavement with a head wound.

Detective Daniel Bohannon is assigned to the case investigating the cause of the crash, but when some of the survivors start displaying super-human or animalistic traits it becomes clear this was no ordinary situation.

Whilst the investigation continues, Mara begins to deal with what she saw on the plane. With the help of a fellow survivor, Ping, and the redheaded boy, Sam (who claims he is her brother) she begins to learn that her world, her life and human existence in general is not all she believed it to be.

Although Broken Realms is accurately described as a science fiction and fantasy novel there were times, particularly during the police investigations, that it also felt a little like a crime thriller. There is nothing particularly bad about that but to begin with it was as though there were two different genres competing with each other depending on which character point of view was being read.

What helped to make this book so great were the excellent writing skills of D. W. Moneypenny. It was written so clearly that vivid images came to mind whilst reading. The pace of the narrative was fairly quick and at no point did it ever stop being exciting.

Another good thing (admittedly others may not see it as such) was that there were no romantic attachments between any of the characters to detract from the main storyline. This meant the novel was completely focused on the plot without any unnecessary interruptions.

Broken Realms is a highly recommended book for science fiction and fantasy lovers. It does, however, leave the reader wanting to know what is going to happen next. So now the wait for the next book in The Chronicles of Mara Lantern begins.