EXILES an Australian Crime Novel Of Buried Secrets and Murder

Exiles by Jane Harper is set in the wine country of South Australia, where a close-knit community still deals with the oppressive aftermaths of a local woman's disappearance and a man's hit-and-run death.

Federal Police agent Aaron Falk is on a personal visit to see old friends in the small town of Marralee. But he is slowly drawn into the past mysteries that yet cast a pall over the whole town.

A year earlier, young mother Kim Gillespie vanished without a trace from a fairground, her infant daughter left abandoned in a parked stroller. Five years before that, local accountant Dean Tozer was run down by a driver who was never found.

As Falk becomes more involved with the tight circle of family and friends connected to both Kim and Tozer, he begins to sense false notes that warn him someone among them may be a sociopathic killer.

Exiles is not a fast paced thriller. It is a character-driven, psychological crime novel that builds slowly toward harsh revelations. An engrossing and thoughtful mystery read.

Stormy Mystery Swirls in Jane Harper's THE SURVIVORS

Set in the beach village of Evelyn Bay on the Australian island of Tasmania, The Survivors by Jane Harper is a tangled murder mystery that twists between the past and the present. 

The novel is narrated through the main character of Kieran Elliott, a local resident whose life is haunted by a tragic family incident from when he was a teenager. When the body of a young woman is recently found on the beach one morning, it sets off a police investigation that dredges up dark memories from Kieran's past.

Twelve years earlier, a massive storm hit the village, resulting in the boating death of Kieran's older brother, Finn. A young girl named Gabby Birch also disappeared in the same storm and no trace of her was ever found.

Now, in the present day, links begin to emerge between the body on the beach and the earlier case of Gabby Birch. As new facts come to light, Kieran is forced to question all his previous assumptions about the day of the great storm and what really happened then. The current murder case brings him to new suspicions about local residents. Someone he thought he knew may be a killer.

The Survivors is a brooding mystery that uncoils piece by piece as each new layer of false truth is peeled away. The novel is an addictive read that fans of author Jane Harper should enjoy.

 

ONE BY ONE a Chilling Murder Mystery

 One By One by Ruth Ware is a gripping murder puzzle with the classic Agatha Christie set-up of a group of clashing characters trapped together in an isolated setting, and one of them is a killer.

The setting is a vacation chalet high up in the snowy French Alps. Eight team members from a popular social media app company are at the chalet for a retreat. Tensions flare over a surprise offer to sell the company's app property. Some people there will make a lot of money from the offer. Some will instead just lose their jobs.

When a sudden avalanche slams into the chalet, everyone is trapped inside, cut off from outside help. Then the deaths begin to occur, one by one.

The plot unfolds in alternating first person chapters as seen from the viewpoints of two main characters: Erin, a hostess employed at the chalet, and Liz, a low level personal assistant with the company. As the two women narrate their thoughts, pieces of the murder puzzle slowly come together.

Careful readers may begin to pick up tell-tale clues and spot the killer before the he/she is unmasked. One complaint with the plot is the withholding of key information by the author, and some readers may feel misled on that account.

Nonetheless, One By One is an addictive read with a nail biting climax and Ruth Ware fans should be well entertained by the book.

WIND RIVER a Powerful Western Crime Drama

Wind River is a gripping crime movie that is newly released on DVD. Set in the rugged, winter mountain terrain of Wyoming, the movie follows a storyline as harsh and unforgiving as the backdrop of its spectacular landscape.

The body of a young Indian woman is found frozen in the middle of a snowy wilderness. She is barefoot, her feet blackened by frostbite, as if she had been running from something for miles until her lungs burst from the below zero air and she dropped dead.

Because the death happened on Indian reservation land, an FBI agent is sent in to investigate. She is out of her depth in that country and she quickly asks for the aid of a local state game warden tracker. As they follow leads, a second body is found deep in the icy backwoods. This new body is a white male who worked at a nearby oil drilling site.

Things move from there toward events that are shocking in their unforeseen, suddenly explosive violence. Wind River is a powerful drama whose spare, tersely written screenplay reflects the hard realities of reservation life and Western self-reliance to survive.

This movie deserves to be on Best Picture lists this year.

THE WOMAN IN CABIN 10 an Eerie Mystery

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware is an eerie psychological mystery set within the claustrophobic confines of a huge luxury yacht.

Lo Blacklock is a travel journalist assigned to cover the week long cruise of the Aurora on the North Sea. The handful of passengers are a mix of wealthy or celebrity guests invited on the luxurious cruise. But it all changes when Lo thinks she sees a woman thrown overboard one night.

Lo's report of what she saw is not believed. No one from the passengers or crew is missing. Lo herself has had problems with drinking and use of anti-depressants. She suffers from sudden panic attacks. Is the lost woman all in Lo's head, or is there a cover-up going on of a real murder aboard the boat?

The Woman in Cabin 10 starts slowly, but builds in intensity as a paranoid Lo suspects everyone around her, until a startling plot twist changes everything that went before. The novel is the kind of story that fans of seemingly insoluble mystery situations will enjoy.


A CHILLING SUSPENSE THRILLER BY WILLIAM WILDE




Don't ever go into that room.

Now available in Paperback and eBook at Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008BY7BG8#nav-subnav

BROADCHURCH Returns With Season 2 Mystery

Broadchurch (BBC America Cable) is back for Season 2 of this gripping British mystery series.

Season 1 dealt with the investigation of a boy's murder in the small English seaside town of Broadchurch. Teamed on the case were detectives Alec Hardy and Ellie Miller. Hardy was an outsider assigned to the case, Miller a local native of the town. Miller personally knew many of the town residents, one of whom was secretly a killer.

The first season ended with a shocker: Detective Miller's own husband, Joe, turned out to be the killer. He was arrested and confessed to the crime as his wife reacted with stunned fury. She was sleeping right next to the killer all the time and never knew it. Case closed, right? Not so fast, it seems.

In the new season, Joe Miller suddenly pleads not guilty in  court, throwing the case into renewed chaos. A full criminal trial is begun, forcing the town, and Detective Miller, to relive all the agonizing emotions of the boy's murder.

The trial threatens to expose previously unknown revelations about the murder case and suggests new trouble ahead for detectives Hardy and Miller. The unexpected trial is a wrenching plot twist on a case that viewers thought was solved and done with. But there seems to be more coming that we never knew about before.

Another bonus is the prickly, entertaining chemistry between the two detectives as they face the pressures around them. With a cast of characters with hidden secrets of their own, Broadchurch is an engrossing drama of sinister psychological mystery at its best.

DEFENDING JACOB a Troubling Legal Mystery

Defending Jacob by William Landay is both an engrossing legal mystery and a troubled picture of a family cracking apart under the stress of a murder indictment against one of its members.

Andy Barber is an Assistant D.A. who is taken off a sensational murder case when his own teenage son, Jacob, becomes a prime suspect. One of Jacob's classmates is murdered in a local park. Evidence uncovered leads to Jacob's arrest and trial for the killing. Jacob insists he is innocent.

Andy Barber and his wife, Laurie, support their son even as the family become despised outcasts in their own community. But as the Barbers endure the trial testimony, they are forced toward a stark choice: either Jacob is entirely innocent, or their son is a deceptive, emotionless sociopath.

Defending Jacob is a compelling, disturbing read with a hideous twist at the end. Rich in character, the novel is a moral mystery with no comfortable answer.

BEACH RATING:  4 Palm Trees