The Son’s Secret     

                              by Daryl Wood Gerber

Maggie Lawson life is pretty stressful. Her job as the dean of a small college in New Orleans involves lots of demanding parents and a couch who is facing sexual harassment charges. Her son’s girlfriend was killed in a hit-and-run accident, and he married his dead girlfriend’s best friend. She has money problems because her house flooded, and she has to pay for her mother’s rather expensive care facility. Her husband divorced her and married his girlfriend. And now her son Aiden seems to be ghosting her. Maggie feels that his conduct isn’t normal for him and starts being afraid that something has happened to him.

At first, everyone tells her that she is overreacting. She feels guilty about being a helicopter mom, but her feeling that he is in trouble grows as she finds out more about his life and feels that his texts to her are not written by him. His wife Celine finally admits that he left her, and she doesn’t know where he is. When her investigative reporter husband is shot, and Aiden doesn’t even get in touch with him it only increases her fear.

I must admit that I found some aspects of this book annoying. It takes quite a while for Maggie to convince herself that there is a problem and a long time to get everyone else on board. Even though it seems obvious that something bad is happening to Aiden, I imagine that it would be hard to convince the police since there isn’t much evidence. But I expected more interest when his father was shot, and no one knows where Aiden is.

When everyone finally gets on board, the book ends up having red herrings, twists and turns, and many people of interest. I became invested in trying to find out what could have possibly happened to Aiden.

Gerber writes a lot of mysteries, cozy mysteries, and Romances. She has several series including the Fairy Garden mystery series which I enjoy reading. Sometimes it’s nice to include a little magic in your reading. Last April she added a fourth book to her fairy series, “A Twinkle of Trouble.” In October 2024 she is starting a new literary dining series with “Murder on the Page.”

Don't miss this great book:

 

 Middle of the Night
          

                              by Riley Sager

Ethan Marsh should have had an idyllic childhood. He was raised in a quiet little cul-de-sac in New Jersey with loving parents. But 30-years ago when he was just ten, Ethan and his best friend Billy were camping out in his backyard when someone cut the tent open with a knife and supposedly kidnapped Billy who was never seen again.

Ethan has returned to his old home only to be plagued by nightmares and sleeplessness. Now that he is back in his old neighborhood he is haunted by his friend’s disappearance and the guilt he feels. He wonders why they took Billy and not him. When he is up late at night obsessing about the past, he sees his neighbors’ motion activated lights go on and off mysteriously as if someone is roaming the neighborhood. He starts finding mysterious things left in his yard that seem tied to Billy. Is the kidnapper back or is Billy’s ghost trying to tell him something?

Although 30 years has past, almost everyone that lived in the area when Billy disappeared still live on the small cul-de-sac. Ethan is driven to try to find answers to Billy’s disappearance and starts asking questions of those neighbors and digging into the past. He quickly finds that digging into the past is painful and dangerous. One of the places that Billy could have gone or been taken to is the wooded area behind Ethan’s house. Just at the outer edge of those woods is a mysterious research facility where Ethan finds out that his mother once worked. He becomes intrigued with the facility and starts digging into its past which could be an error in judgement.

The novel jumps between the present and the past where we get to know a lot more about Billy’s and Ethan’s relationships. The point of view (POV) also changes so that find out more about the events leading up to the disappearance through the eyes of Ethan, Billy, their mothers, and other kids in the neighborhood. Some of those kids are now grownups and still living next door to Ethan including Russ who is now a family man, Ashley who used to babysit Ethan, Ragesh Patel who was known for being a bully and is now a police officer. Ethan questions and badgers everyone who might know anything or be involved in any way until he starts finding out information that he never knew before. As he heads closer to the truth, he finds danger and truths that he may wish he had never uncovered.

Issues regarding secrets, lies, grief, and friendship abound in Riley Sager’s latest thriller.

I like the fact that the book felt real and the emotions understandable. Seeing a ghost is something that happens to people who are under great emotional stress and who feel guilt or just the loss of that person. I felt for Ethan and how haunted he was by the past and all the unanswered questions of that past. It’s not always possible to find all the answers or to quickly come to terms with loss even when you find answers. I’ve talked in the past about the complexity of friendships, and this is certainly the case here. Add in the complexity of dealing with grief and I can understand how this haunted him for over 30 years. He had so many unanswered questions. People often think that grief can be dealt with in a few weeks or a few months. The truth is that sometimes it takes years and sometimes you never fully heal.

This mystery just came out in June and his next book is scheduled for some time next year and should be called “With a Vengeance.”

 

If Something Happens to Me

          

               by Alex Finlay

 

Ryan Richardson has been haunted by his high school girlfriend’s disappearance for five years. Ryan and his girlfriend, Alison Lane, were making out in their version of Lovers’ Lane in Leavenworth, Kansas, when suddenly someone opens the door hitting Ryan on the head and dragging Alison from her car. Alison disappeared and hasn’t been found leaving Ryan under a cloud of suspension and forcing him eventually to leave his hometown, change his name, and attend college out of state. Over the years, Ryan convinces himself that Alison was the perfect girl and cannot move ahead to have a real relationship with anyone else.

While on vacation overseas, Ryan receives the news from his father that Alison’s car was found in the lake with two dead men inside the car and no Alison, but there is a note that begins “If something happens to me” written by Alison. Everything that he’s tried to put behind him but cannot overwhelms him and Ryan becomes convinced that the man who pulled Alison out of the car is in Italy with him. Ryan goes on a journey through Europe to try to figure out how this man fits in with Alison’s disappearance and the two dead men in her car.

Like many modern books, Finlay uses the point of view (POV) technique which follows several characters. The main characters are Ryan, Poppy the newly hired Sheriff’s deputy who is working the case, and a mobster named Shane O’Leary in Philadelphia whose son is being bullied in school. Like most mysteries there are many secrets and life tragedies to be revealed by these characters links to be established.

Poppy McGee is an interesting character with her own secrets and pain which have to do with her recent discharge from the army. She is assigned to follow up on the tips which are coming into the office but finds herself disturbed by the initial investigation’s inconsistencies and asks questions that others don’t want to answer (and don’t even want asked).

There are many complex relationships in this novel and lots of action and emotion which can keep everyone who reads it hooked. Basically, it is a giant puzzle which keeps you reading as fast as possible to discover why each character is broken and what secrets they carry and how they fit into the story. Those relationships and the secrets that are revealed are fascinating. Even though the book has several POVs and timelines, Finlay keeps the story flowing and making sense through it all.

One of the many amazing quotes from “Ted Lasso” is “I hope that either all of us or none of us are judged by the actions of our weakest moments, but rather by the strength we show when and if we're ever given a second chance.” Lasso is all about forgiving and helping others and I always feel that Finlay’s novels have a bit of this type of attitude in them as well. All in all a fine fourth mystery novel by Finlay which continues to show his excellence in the field. I am looking forward to what he does next.

My next great read will be “Middle of the Night” by Riley Sager which is a mystery with a ghostly subtext. Both of these authors write stand-alone novels so you don’t have to worry about starting with the first in the series.

The Kind Worth Killing

           by Peter Swanson

 

I am currently reading “The Kind Worth Killing” by Peter Swanson a book that introduces the Henry Kimball series. The third in the series just came out in June which is “A Talent for Murder” and if Swanson continues the pattern of this series, the fourth book will probably come out June 2025. I’m not sure how I missed reading this series but was quite intrigued by the “Stranger on a Train” vibe when I picked it up. If you missed it, you too might find the series worth your time.

Ted and Lily are two strangers who met not on a train, but at the airport when their flight to Boston is delayed. Ted is outraged because he discovered that his wife is cheating on him with his contractor Brad who is making a ton of money off the remodel of the house Ted bought his new wife. Lily is very sympathetic and when Ted mentions that he is mad enough to murder is wife, Lily jumps in to help get it done.

Lily has no qualms about murder and in fact has a history of murdering those that betray her or may betray her. It started when she was 14 and murdered a guy who seemed to be thinking about raping her and continued with her boyfriend in college Eric who was cheating with a woman named Faith.

Faith ends up being Ted’s new wife now calling herself Miranda. This is where the story really takes off with a lot of plot twists while Lily, Ted, Miranda, and Brad all take a shot at murder by forming unique alliances. Obviously, none of them can really trust each other and being who they are could all kill each other so that only one is standing. As the characters start to die off or disappear, a police detective named Kimball becomes involved in trying to untangle this mess.

I rather enjoyed this bizarre book’s outlook on life which seems to be that everyone is not only capable of murder, but only to ready to commit the act. Not one person in the novel is likable so don’t expect to actually root for anyone. If you’re looking for a hero don’t even bother. The women are lovely and conniving. The men are to say the least not trustworthy. Perhaps they get away with so much because they are mostly attractive people with money.

While Lily and Ted seem to like each other, I would have expected Lily to end up killing Ted if they had stayed together long enough. Honestly, I’ve read a lot of mystery novels and never read one where the characters were more willing to kill. There are simpler methods of getting rid of someone: walk away and never talk to them again or just get a divorce. But I do watch the news and there does seem to be a lot of people who try to solve their problems this way. The detective Henry Kimball steps into the story almost at the end so it’s interesting that this is the beginning of a series about him. He too is a unique character and ends up getting fired for his behavior with this case. I gather in the other books that he is a private detective. I cannot wait to see what those books are like.