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Summary
Summary
In such a small community as the Falkland Islands, a missing child is unheard of. In such a dangerous landscape it can only be a terrible tragedy, surely...
When another child goes missing, and then a third, it's no longer possible to believe that their deaths were accidental, and the villagers must admit that there is a murderer among them. Even Catrin Quinn, a damaged woman living a reclusive life after the accidental deaths of her own two sons a few years ago, gets involved in the searches and the speculation.
And suddenly, in this wild and beautiful place that generations have called home, no one feels safe and the hysteria begins to rise.
But three islanders--Catrin, her childhood best friend, Rachel, and her ex-lover Callum--are hiding terrible secrets. And they have two things in common: all three of them are grieving, and none of them trust anyone, not even themselves.
In Little Black Lies , her most shocking and engaging suspense novel to date, Sharon Bolton will keep the reader guessing until the very last page.
Author Notes
SHARON BOLTON is a Mary Higgins Clark Award winner and an ITW Thriller Award, CWA Gold Dagger and Barry Award nominee. She lives near London, England. Sharon Bolton was previously published as S.J. Bolton.
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this nail-biter set in the Falkland Islands from Mary Higgins Clark Award-finalist Bolton (Blood Harvest), Catrin Quinn's young sons, Kit and Ned, are killed in a car accident caused by her best friend since childhood, Rachel Grimwood. The only thing that keeps the bereft Catrin functioning is her hatred of Rachel and her vow to kill Rachel to avenge the deaths of her sons. Rachel falls into a deep depression resulting from her overwhelming guilt and the loss of Catrin's friendship. And Callum Murray, who witnessed the accident and failed in his attempt to rescue Kit and Ned, experiences the PTSD that he suffered after fighting for the British in the Falkland Islands war. When a small boy disappears from Stanley-the third boy missing in three years-the townspeople become vigilantes determined to find and punish the abductor. This brilliantly plotted thriller, filled with lies and betrayals, builds to an unexpected, mesmerizing ending. Agent: Anne-Marie Doulton, Ampersand Agency (U.K.). (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The Falkland Islands makes for an unusual setting in this twisty tale of missing children. Catrin Quinn hasn't been the same since her two children died while in the care of her best friend, Rachel. It was an accidental death, but it cost Catrin not only her daughters but also her husband, Ben, and her friendship with Rachel. Catrin's former lover, Callen, feels helpless; he's still in love with Catrin but not sure how to reach her, and he, too, has his own psychic wounds: PTSD, a holdover from the Falklands War. When a young boy goes missing, the local police chief is hesitant to blame locals and wants to protect the tourism trade. But he is the third child to go missing in about a year. Then a fourth child disappears Rachel's youngest boy and Catrin becomes the chief suspect. A pod of beached whales adds another powerful layer of horror to the story, and the proposed plan to euthanize the whales is not one that will please animal activists. Each of the main characters has a strong and compelling voice; the story unfolds in sections, each from the point of view of a different character, which adds texture and depth to what is a suspenseful and psychologically rich thriller, much in the mold of Tana French's The Secret Place (2014). Sharon Bolton also writes as S. J. Bolton.--Alesi, Stacy Copyright 2015 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
WALTER MOSLEY breaks every rule in the private-detective-story stylebook in his new mystery featuring Leonid McGill, AND SOMETIMES I WONDER ABOUT YOU (Doubleday, $26.95). His New York sleuth's disorderly domestic affairs keep threatening to overwhelm the crime elements, and a vital piece of the plot isn't introduced until midway through the book. And when Mosley does wrap things up, he makes no effort to connect any of the multiple subplots. So why the devotion? To begin with, McGill is one of the most humane (and likable) P.I.s in the business. He's a short man, and every time a male character is introduced McGill automatically estimates his height. ("Just a centimeter or two north of six feet"; "Standing face to face, we were the same height" ; "Medium-sized. ... but with bad posture.") Although he hesitates to call himself a family man, he's dedicated to his clinically depressed wife and the brood of grown children he considers his own. And despite being a hard man with a rough past, he does his best by his clients, even taking on the posthumous case of a despondent man he regrets turning away: "I could afford to do a good deed for some poor schlub down on his luck." Like his messy personal life, McGill's casebook is totally disorganized. The job that most interests him (once he begins an affair with his client) concerns a femme fatale being pursued by the rich fiancé she ditched after selling his engagement ring. The most bizarre plot thread involves a Fagin-like villain who runs a criminal network of child thieves from an underground lair by the Hudson River. But Mosley's strengths have less to do with plot than with the colorful characters he puts in his protagonist's path, like the retired hit man McGill advises to take up meditation (as a way of resisting the itch to kill), or the gunman he personally hires over a game of chess. With Mosley, there's always the surprise factor - a cutting image or a bracing line of dialogue. McGill is about to bid farewell to a woman he loves when: "It struck me that we'd not discussed literature." He's also gratified to trace a clue to a 13th-century edition of Herodotus' "Histories." As a final treat, the story ends with a wedding in a boxing gym. SHARON BOLTON has tried her hand at police procedurals and supernatural thrillers, among other genres, but her sharpest skills are in play with her suspense novel LITTLE BLACK LIES (Minotaur, $25.99). The story takes place in a small community on one of the remote Falkland Islands, a harsh and beautiful setting that she views with the keen vision of a naturalist. Her crafty plotting produces an intricately detailed mystery about the disappearances of three little boys that can't be chalked up to the usual distressing deaths of children who fall off cliffs or wander into boggy marshes. And her deft characterizations respect the psychological complexities of the three islanders who serve as narrators. Catrin Quinn, whose two sons died in a dreadful accident three years earlier, plans to kill the person responsible for their deaths. ("After all, I come from a long line of murderers," she explains, referring to the Nantucket whalers who were her ancestors.) Rachel Duncan was Catrin's best friend in childhood but is now the object of her hatred. Callum Murray tries frantically to save both women, but his own emotional instability holds him back. The tension of their interplay fuels the suspense, but in the end - literally, on the last page - it's the plot that thrills. NEW YORK, NEW YORK. It's always been a helluva town. When Lyndsay Faye's latest historical novel, THE FATAL FLAME (Putnam, $26.95), opens in 1848, the docks are swarming with human cargo from the great ships putting into port. But Timothy Wilde, a proud "copper star" with the newly established police force, has eyes only for the scoundrels who entrap immigrant Irish girls and set them to laboring in brothels and shoddily built "manufactories." When an arsonist begins torching these sweatshops, the police action unnerves Timothy, who bears a disfiguring scar from the great fire of 1845. But together with his swashbuckling brother, Valentine ("a man of appetites"), he rallies to defend a radical named Sally Woods, who's accused of the crime. Sally's crusading stance for the rights of downtrodden women is simplistically presented, but, as always in this series, the research is impeccable and the period ambience dazzling. "NO WAR WAS ever won on sarcasm," Colin Cotterill reminds us in SIX AND A HALF DEADLY SINS (Soho Crime, $26.95), another bizarre adventure for Dr. Siri Paiboun, the retired coroner for the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Ever since the Communists took over, Dr. Siri and his misfit friends have relied on caustic humor to stay sane. But on Dec. 25, 1978, Vietnam invades Cambodia - and China, another of Laos's bellicose neighbors, isn't at all pleased. It's hardly a good time for Dr. Siri to finagle a trip to the unsettled north, but he's determined to find out who sent him a human finger sewn into the hem of a pha sin, a traditional skirt worn in that region. Dr. Siri is so busy searching for the weaver, he doesn't realize that China has invaded Vietnam until it's too late to head for home. The question is: Can his cynical sense of humor get him out of this jam?
Guardian Review
The Living and the Dead in Winsford by Hakan Nesser; Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton; In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware; Smaller and Smaller Circles by FH Batacan; The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan Sadly, Swedish author Hakan Nesser's excellent Inspector Van Veeteren series has now come to an end, but his latest novel, The Living and the Dead in Winsford (translated by Laurie Thompson, Mantle, [pound]12.99) is a standalone that certainly won't disappoint. As far as her children and friends are concerned, Swedish former TV presenter Maria Holinek is in Morocco with her "literary colossus" of a husband, Martin, who, in the wake of a scandal, has gone there to write a book about an important event in his past. In fact, she is holed up, alone but for her dog, in the Exmoor village of Winsford. Maria pretends to the locals that she is an author seeking peace and quiet, but her sole intention is to outlive her pet. The revelation of exactly what it is that she is trying to escape and why she intends to end her life is gradual and utterly intriguing. Told in the first person, this is a superb evocation of a woman in the grip of a major emotional and moral crisis, set against a well-evoked moorland landscape. Also existing provisionally is marine biologist Catrin Quinn, one of three main characters in Sharon Bolton's latest novel, Little Black Lies (Bantam, [pound]14.99), which is set on the Falkland Islands 12 years after the conflict, in a community still feeling the effects of the invasion. Catrin's young sons, Kit and Ned, were killed while in the care of Rachel, her best friend since childhood. Three years on, Catrin, whose marriage fell apart after the tragedy, is brittle and furious, and the only thing keeping her functional is the desire for revenge. Several boys have disappeared since the deaths of Kit and Ned, and the townspeople turn vigilante in their attempts to find the culprit. The story is told from the points of view of Catrin, former paratrooper and sufferer of post-traumatic stress disorder Callum Murray, and Rachel herself, lonely and overwhelmed by guilt. It is a well-crafted cat's cradle of lies and betrayals, but what makes this book special is Bolton's vivid and sympathetic depiction of the place itself, whether it be the wildlife or the claustrophobic nature of human existence on a small island. Old friendships also come unstuck in Ruth Ware's debut, In a Dark, Dark Wood (Harvill Secker, [pound]12.99), which begins with a woman, Leonora, regaining consciousness after an accident. The events leading up to it are revealed in a series of flashbacks, seen through Leonora's eyes, as her solitary, well-ordered writer's life is interrupted by an invitation to an old school friend's weekend-long hen party. Leonora hasn't seen Clare in 10 years, and is dismayed to discover that her old BFF, the prettiest, most popular and most manipulative girl in the class, has never really managed to leave the playground behind. Now, her acolyte is the alarmingly intense Florence, and as the party is being held at an isolated house in rural Northumberland, the atmosphere gets pretty eerie pretty quickly. Even though it's easy to guess what's going to happen, some excellent characterisation gives the ending a mesmerising, slow-motion car-crash appeal. Smaller and Smaller Circles by FH Batacan (Soho Crime, [pound]7.99) is not only the author's first novel, it's also considered to be the first work of Filipino crime fiction. This is a good, old-fashioned serial killer novel set in Quezon City. The narrative is serviceable, but what's fascinating is the glimpse into a conservative and pious society, full of obstructive officials, both clerical and secular, who are more interested in preserving the status quo than in revealing uncomfortable truths. They, and the killer, are outsmarted by a dogged pair who are a welcome addition to the ranks of ecclesiastical sleuths: forensic anthropologist Father Gus Saenz and psychologist Father Jerome Lucero. The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra (Mulholland, [pound]12.99) is the first book in a projected series by Vaseem Khan. An entertaining feel-good read in the tradition of Alexander McCall Smith, it introduces Ashwin Chopra who, on the eve of his retirement from the Mumbai police, finds himself in receipt of a dejected baby elephant, courtesy of his late uncle. As if having to deal with the doleful pachyderm weren't enough, Chopra's last case, that of a young man who drowned in mysterious circumstances, continues to trouble him. Fearing that his successor won't bother to investigate it properly, he decides to tackle the matter as a civilian. Chopra, diligent, incorruptible and not entirely at ease with shiny new India, is a delight, as is his redoubtable wife, Poppy -- and Ganesh the elephant, once he has cheered up a bit, proves a very useful ally indeed. Utterly charming -- those in search of a gentle holiday read need look no further. * Laura Wilson's latest novel is The Wrong Girl (Quercus). - Laura Wilson.
Kirkus Review
Bolton (A Dark and Twisted Tide, 2014, etc.) offers three different tellings of much the same tale, set in the stark beauty of the remote Falkland Islands.Catrin Quinn's job at Falkland Conservation is to protect the sea life in the Falklands' fragile ecology. Why would her goal, her passion, lie in nursing a plan to kill her former best friend, Rachel Grimwood? The answer unfolds in three strands. As Catrin glides among the fur seals and pilot whales, she reveals the unending source of her pain: her two young sons, Ned and Kit, left alone in a car parked on a cliff, fell to their deaths in the same sea whose wildlife she now protects. Her ex-husband, Ben, has moved on, remarried, and started a second family. Only her former lover Callum Murray, a Scottish soldier who came to defend the Falklands during the Argentine invasion, understands who Catrin has become. In his narrative, he tries to woo Catrin back into the world. In spite of his own struggles with PTSD, he tempts her into the hero's role, searching for a toddler who's gone missing from a tour-boat holiday. But trying to save another mother's child provides scant relief for Catrin, who trains her sights ever more narrowly on Rachel, the woman who left Ned and Kit in the vehicle that became their coffin. Bolton leaves it to Catrin's intended victim to bring her story home, but Rachel's narrative lacks the bite of the earlier two. In the end, what might have been a searching look into the fine line between mishap and crime ends in a cascade of improbability. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Catrin Coffin, a whale researcher, is part of a close-knit community in the remote Falkland Islands. When her best friend Rachel accidentally causes the death of Catrin's two children, Catrin sinks into profound depression; three years later she is plotting a revenge killing. Then children begin disappearing. When Catrin has to euthanize nearly 200 beached whales, the village suspects she could be another kind of killer. After Rachel's youngest child disappears, Catrin confesses. Then Rachel confesses. Then Catrin's boyfriend, a veteran of the 1982 British-Argentine conflict who suffers post-traumatic stress blackouts, also confesses. VERDICT In her new stand-alone (after Sacrifice) Bolton, author of the Lacey Flint mystery series (A Dark and Twisted Tide), continues to delve into the dark side of complex, sympathetic characters, each of whom offer their perspective on the same events. Although the lyrical descriptions of a distant and strange place are striking, it's the skillfully developed suspense and the portrait of parents' terror when a child goes missing that grips throughout this tale. [See Prepub Alert, 11/24/14.]-Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.