Here we are, still on Lockdown, and you’d like to escape into something twisty and maybe a little naughty? First, I’d recommend a happy hour Vesper, a lovely cocktail with gin, elderflower liqueur, and a twist of lemon peel (please chill both the gin and the up glass you will serve your drink in unless you are a total savage). And what goes with a swanky summer cocktail better than something dark and discomfiting? Well, that’s the way we do it on my front porch: if you want to pair something else with your psychological suspense, it’s your party.
The Swap, Robyn Harding (Gallery/Scout Press)
A new book from Harding is always a treat, in part because she is one of the few crime writers I can think of who doesn’t only theorize her characters having sex, she writes actual sex scenes. Thus the swap of the title is exactly what you would think of if I said key parties or swingers: two women, best friends, sleep with each other’s husbands on a night they have also all indulged in some powerful psychedelic drugs. But while plain Jamie agonizes over her night with her glamorous best friend Freya’s husband, Max, Freya is not done playing games with Jamie and her husband, Brian. Closely observing the scene and obsessed with Freya is local teenager Low, who offers her photography skills to aspiring Instagram celeb Freya just so she can spend time with her.
This Little Family, Ines Bayard (Other Press)
Let the French show you: this is how you start an intense psychological thriller. At a company-wide event Marie is assaulted by her new boss, a powerful CEO who doesn’t even need to threaten her to keep her quiet. The assault severely impairs her marriage to the steadfast Laurent—especially when she discovers she’s pregnant and is sure the father of her child is not her husband but her rapist. Bayard’s bare bones story makes up for its sparseness with its emotional brutality.
The Dilemma, B.A. Paris (St. Martins)
For a few glorious years you could set your calendar by B.A. Paris’s summer thrillers: 2016’s Behind Closed Doors was one of my favorite debuts of the year; and although 2017’s The Breakdown and 2018’s Bring Me Back were not as sensational as Doors they were both more than serviceable. I’m happy to report Paris is back to form with The Dilemma, a slow burn of a book that takes place at the 40th birthday party of a woman named Livia. By the end of the evening both Livia and her husband, Adam, are holding on to some nasty secrets, and the unraveling makes for a great suspenseful read.
The Girl from Widow Hills, Megan Miranda (Simon & Schuster)
I admit it: I was inclined to like The Girl from Widow Hills when I found out its source material was the story of Baby Jessica, an incident I remember distinctly. A young girl went missing, and the whole country watched as the authorities searched and found her at the bottom of a well. Miranda has given her heroine, Arden Maynor, a similar backstory: when she was six years old she was lost while sleepwalking during a storm. She was found alive, with much rejoicing, and the incident defined her life. Her mother wrote a book about it, and everyone wanted to see the little girl who survived such a horrible ordeal. When we encounter her as an adult, Arden has changed her name to Olivia and moved across the country. But the 20-year anniversary of her rescue is coming up, and Olivia feels as if she’s being watched; even more disturbingly, she’s started sleepwalking again, and one night she stumbles into someone she knew from her past.
Nothing Can Hurt You, Nicola Maye Goldberg (Bloomsbury)
Goldberg’s debut is a quiet but powerful meditation about how crime ties disparate people together. Sara Morgan was murdered in 1997 in the woods near her college in upstate New York. Her boyfriend, Blake Campbell, confessed to the crime and pled temporary insanity. When he is acquitted, the case continues to live in the minds of several people involved with the crime and its aftermath: the woman who found the body; Sara’s half-sister, bent on justice; and an ambitious reporter who ties Sara’s murder to a local serial killer, John Logan. Nothing Can Hurt You is also beautifully and sparsely written, lending it a profundity not often found in genre fiction.
