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Livy and Will have some problems in their marriage; Will had an affair and lucky Livy gets to meet the ex-mistress at Will’s holiday work party. She’s stressing about it and ignores her best friend Julia’s texts that night.

Livy and Julia have been friends for 18 years, since Livy’s sister Kara was murdered walking home from a college party. They have plans for lunch the next day but when Livy gets there, she finds Julia dead on the sofa. The police rule it a suicide but Livy isn’t buying it.

Then Livy meets Julia’s secret boyfriend, and they team up to try to figure out what really happened. They delve into Julia’s life, and Livy is shocked to learn that Julia was obsessed with Kara’s unresolved murder and had never given up trying to find her killer.

Interspersed throughout the book are memoir type chapters written by the murderer so we can see how he evolves into a serial killer. Almost every person in Julia’s life becomes a suspect at one point or another, but the ending is a bit of a stretch in this suburban UK nightmare.

Copyright ©2015 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

4/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

YOU CAN TRUST ME by Sophie McKenzie. St. Martin’s Press (April 14, 2015). ISBN 978-1250033994. 304p.

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Dr. Eric Parrish is Chief of the psychiatric unit at a top rated hospital outside Philadelphia. His wife has filed for divorce and he is trying to remain the caring and involved dad he’s always been to their seven year old daughter. He is called to consult on a patient, an elderly woman dying of cancer, but quickly realizes it’s her caretaker, her 17 year-old grandson Max, who really needs the consult.

Max is suffering from a severe case of OCD, complete with rituals every fifteen minutes, plus depression issues exacerbated by his alcoholic mother and terminally ill grandmother. Max agrees to treatment, and a few sessions in he loses his grandmother and admits to having fantasies of killing a young woman – who ends up dead. Then he disappears.

Eric is extremely empathetic, an excellent quality in a psychiatrist, but becomes way too involved in searching for his missing patient and putting himself in harm’s way. By invoking doctor-patient privilege, he incurs the wrath of the police department and becomes a person of interest himself, getting suspended from his job and giving his wife ammunition in the child custody battle.

Occasional chapters from the killer’s viewpoint seem to lead the reader towards an obvious conclusion, but Scottoline has plenty of tricks up her sleeve, making this story twist and turn with one surprise after another. Every Fifteen Minutes is a standalone departure from her usual, should please her readers but also earn her some new fans.

Copyright ©2015 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

4/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES by Lisa Scottoline.  St. Martin’s Press (April 14, 2015).  ISBN 978-1250010117. 448p.

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Jack Dana is a star student of history at Yale University with a probable future in the academic world when he changes course right after the events of 9/11. He joins the Marines as an infantry officer and receives training in the world of damaging and killing other human beings; a far cry from the staid world of academia. He serves in both Iraq and Afghanistan and is seriously wounded in the field.

While recuperating from the wound he begins writing a book about his military experiences. Jack is invited to move in with his uncle Harry, his surrogate father, in New York’s Manhattan borough. He completes the novel while there, and with help from Harry finds a publisher who buys the book. He writes another novel and succeeds in selling that also.

Jack decides that with the success of two books he is entitled to a vacation and goes to Brazil staying at a ranch there for three months. Ultimately bored with the quiet life he flies home but an e-mail arrives indicating that uncle Harry has committed suicide by hanging himself in a home that he owns in Sag Harbor on Long Island.

Jack starts to delve into the apparent suicide and begins unearthing indications that Harry had begun gathering data about an Abner Brown who is the most important client for the law firm Harry worked for. In the course of Jack’s investigation he meets Kerry Black, a young woman employed by Harry’s law firm, with whom he strikes up a serious romance. He also gets help in his investigations from a college friend of his who now works for the CIA and realizes that uncle Harry was murdered in order to silence him from revealing what he has learned about Abner Brown’s real activities.

Begley keeps you reading, and although this is not an all nighter since there is little suspense in the story, it still is a good novel. The ending is expected but definitely sets the scene for more Jack Dana books incorporating the background intelligence he has with the ability to do physical damage to his enemies.

4/15 Paul Lane

KILLER COME HITHER by Louis Begley. Nan A. Talese (April 7, 2015). ISBN 978-0385539142. 256p.

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Andrew Gross returns to his detective Ty Hauck to bring us a novel replete with twists and turns and set in what has become oil country, Aspen, Colorado, thanks to the new technique of fracking. The area is rich in resources, but in a drought situation during the time of Gross’ story.

Dani Haller, college educated, has become a guide for a Whitewater rafting business enjoying the life as opposed to working at a desk for some large company. Leading a tour down the rapids near Aspen she comes upon the dead body of a close friend.

Trey Watkins’s death is ruled an accident by the authorities called to the scene, but Dani in returning to the area finds evidence that that is not the case. She takes her suspicions to Wade Dunn, the local chief of police, who is coincidentally her step father having married her mother when her real father died. Wade insists that the case is closed and is an accident. But Dani talks to a balloon operator who insists that that is not the case and witnessed something while flying over the area where Trey was killed.

Before “Rooster”, the balloon operator, can talk to Dani, he is killed along with four passengers by a seemingly freak accident to his balloon. Bringing her further suspicions of foul play to Wade Dunn causes the chief of police to jail her, seemingly for her own protection.

Dani’s father, currently working on a project in South America, calls on Ty Hauck to help his daughter. Hauck is coincidentally related to her and leaves a long term vacation he is on to go and help Dani. The descriptions of Ty are perhaps the best part of Gross’ handling of the events. The detective is portrayed as a human being, not the hard nosed sleuth of other books. He has been wounded in a previous novel and still recuperating from it, is not omnipotent by any means, does not possess super human strength and works in a logical and plodding manner to get to the crux of the matter. He is a person that can be seen as normal, possessing average intelligence, but instilled with the desire to see things to their conclusion.

In the course of the novel, Andrew Gross provides the reader with a description of what fracking for oil entails. He also indicates that rumors that this process poisons the land are not true, and that properly handled can bring the United States independence of supplies from the OPEC countries and lower costs to consumers and industry as well. The ending leaves Hauck in a position to take on more work, and the probable lead in future books by Gross. Well done and certainly one to lead the reader awaiting further Ty Hauck books.

4/15 Paul Lane

ONE MILE UNDER by Andrew Gross. William Morrow (April 7, 2015). ISBN 978-0061655999. 400p.

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Max Revere Novels, Book 2

Investigative reporter Maxine Revere returns in this terrific follow up to Notorious.

Serial killer Adam Bachman is on trial for five murders, but Max thinks there are more bodies to be uncovered. She specializes in missing persons cases that have gone cold, determined to bring closure to the families.

She’s suspicious that Bachman is responsible for the disappearance of a couple vacationing in New York City, but the D.A. doesn’t want to hear it, he just wants to get his conviction. Max scores a brief, pre-trial interview with the defendant and becomes convinced that he knows something about the missing couple. She also thinks he wasn’t working alone but can’t persuade the police to investigate further, so she investigates herself, along with her bodyguard, David, and her young intern, Riley.

They find enough evidence that one cop is willing to search further, with devastating consequences for all of them. The pacing is relentless and the suspense just keeps building until the satisfying ending. An excellent addition to the series.

Copyright ©2015 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

4/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

COMPULSION by Allison Brennan. Minotaur Books (April 7, 2015). ISBN 978-1250035028. 384p.