June 1, 2018
This fifth book in the New York Times best-selling "Under Suspicion" series finds TV producer Laurie Moran probing an unsolved murder, which threatens her own life: now she's got a stalker.
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
October 22, 2018
In MWA Grand Master Clark and Burke’s formulaic fifth novel starring Laurie Moran (after 2017’s Every Breath You Take), Laurie, who works for a reality TV show, Under Suspicion, investigating cases that have stymied the police, is put in a difficult position by Robert and Cynthia Bell. Five years earlier, the Bells’ physician son, Martin, was gunned down in the driveway of his Manhattan townhouse. Though Martin’s wife, Kendra, reputed to be a substance abuser, became the main person of interest, she was never charged. The Bells beseech Laurie to revisit her initial refusal to look into Martin’s murder, in the hope of proving Kendra guilty. Despite some suspicious equivocation, Kendra consents to be interviewed, even as her kids’ lives are under threat from an unidentified man. Laurie comes to believe that there are other leads worth pursuing, and, predictably, she ends up in harm’s way. Character depth isn’t the series’ strong suit, and this entry is most likely to appeal to series fans who are invested in the lead character. Agent: Bob Barnett, Williams & Connolly.
November 1, 2018
Under Suspicion producer Laurie Moran's fifth dive into crimes past has to overcome a major obstacle: the reluctance of the leading suspect to participate in the enterprise.When hotshot New York neurologist Dr. Martin Bell was shot when he was about to enter his home five years ago, suspicion immediately fixed on his wife. It's not likely that Kendra Bell pulled the trigger since her children's nanny, Caroline Radcliffe, recalls that she was once again so zoned out from depression or drinking or drugs at the time that the police had to struggle to awaken her enough to tell her that she was now a very wealthy widow. But Kendra could surely have hired a hit on the husband who'd talked her out of her own medical career by insisting, along with his smothering parents, that she stay home with the children. Now Robert and Cynthia Bell, a hard couple to like despite having lost their only child, want Laurie to reopen the case for her TV audience. Kendra, who's never admitted to her in-laws that she refused from the beginning to cooperate with Under Suspicion, has told them instead that Laurie declined to reopen the case, and they plead stiffly with her to reconsider. Taking the interfering, normally unsympathetic Under Suspicion host Ryan Nichols with her, Laurie immediately calls on Kendra, threatens to tell the Bells the truth she's concealed from them, and pressures her into allowing Laurie and her staff to take the case. She doesn't know that Kendra's been paying off an unknown blackmailer for five years, wondering every day, "Will I ever know if I had my husband killed?"Clark and Burke (Every Breath You Take, 2017, etc.) develop their suspects with so much more subtlety and conviction than usual that the climactic revelation, which is more and less surprising than you'd expect, feels especially disappointing. Sometimes it's better to travel hopefully than to arrest.
COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
November 15, 2018
A new Laurie Moran book from authors Clark and Burke is a must-buy for public libraries, and for good reason: their stories are first-rate. In this fast-moving sequel to Every Breath You Take ? (2017), the widowed Moran finally has it all. Her cold-case TV series is a hit, and she's about to marry her second great love. Then a case the show passed on earlier threatens to take over her personal and professional life as those involved won't let go. The suspense, intrigue, and powerful characters this duo's fans have come to expect are all here; readers will be absorbed by the twists the tale takes and the new subplots that unexpectedly emerge. There's a minor inconsistency in the galley of the work?a character mentions that she considered someone a murder suspect and then rejected that idea, but the book later twice says that she never considered him?but readers will overlook that given the excitement the tale generates. This will sell itself to the authors' devotees.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)