Monthly Archives: December 2019

character, head, heart, mystery, reviews, style, thriller

Lisa Unger — The Stranger Inside

A character-driven psychological thriller, this novel grabs your attention and keeps it to the end.

Three children meet a monster in the woods—a huge, mean man with a huge, mean dog. Rain fights off man and dog, runs, and hides in the roots of a tree. Physically injured and traumatized, she stays hidden for hours, unable to move, call out, or go for help. Her two friends, Hank and Tess are dragged away by the monster. Hank is brutalized but survives. Tess doesn’t make it.

The story follows Rain and Hank as adults. Rain is a journalist who has quit her job to be a stay-at-home wife and mother, and Hank is a psychologist who treats traumatized children. Both lead fairly normal lives but carry scars from their childhood abduction and loss of their friend. Rain has a loving husband and a beautiful daughter that she adores. Hank is a kind and gentle doctor helping his patients. But Rain carries heavy guilt about not going for help to save her friends, and Hank has a second personality, cruel and vindictive. Both Hank and Rain become involved in the investigation of an apparent vigilante serial killer whose first victim may have been their abductor. Enough of the plot. Any more would be a spoiler.

Unger’s character development makes this book outstanding. She covers the two main characters in depth, good and bad. Unlike many books I’ve read recently, their personalities, although warped, are believable and held my interest from beginning to end.

character, mystery, reviews, setting, thriller

Candice Fox — Fall

An angry serial killer is loose, killing beautiful female runners in the parks of Sydney Australia. In this third novel of Fox’s series about police partners Frank Bennett and Eden Archer, I learned more about Eden’s background and her vigilantism. Fox also focuses on Hookey, a teen who is helping the police with her technical skills.

Eden and Archer spend more time together in this book. It’s a bit hard to understand their relationship. Sometimes there’s between them and other times distrust and even fear. All of the characters are twisted and broken.

I enjoyed Fall more than the second book, Eden. The plot was less convoluted. The killer was not a surprise, but there was a major twist at the end.

character, head, mystery, reviews, setting, strange, thriller

Candice Fox — Eden

This mystery/thriller/crime novel takes place in the underbelly of Sydney, Australia. The author creates unique descriptions of places and characters, even the minor ones. A dark story filled with dark people—addicts, prostitutes, gangsters, killers, corrupt cops, and more. The second book in a series, I didn’t feel I missed anything by not reading the first, Hades.

Three girls have gone missing, and police detective Eden goes undercover to a farm where all three have lived at different times. Her partner Frank gets involved in a side job for Eden’s father, Hades, to identify a stalker and to solve an old cold case of a missing woman.

Although grim, the story kept my attention to the end. I was surprised by the ending.

Good writing.