(Image from Amazon)

When cancer steals her mother's life before she has even turned sixty, 38-year-old Kal feels surprisingly adrift.  Over the years, she's gotten used to the fact that her mercurial mother never loved her.  Elena MacKenzie had plenty of affection for her younger daughter, Alice, but none for Kal.  Grief-stricken by the loss of a woman she never understood, Kal is thrown for a shocking loop when she finds a stack of mysterious postcards in her mother's things.  Going back more than 20 years, each was written on the same day of the year and signed the same way by the same Canadian woman:  "Thinking of you."  Kal knows Elena studied marine biology in North America before marrying and moving to England, but she knows little about those early years and she's never heard her mother mention a woman named Susannah Gillespie.  Who was this Canadian artist to Elena?  Why did she send a postcard every year?  What's the significance of the date on the cards?  

Already feeling bruised from suspicions that her husband is cheating on her, Kal makes an impulsive decision to travel to British Columbia and find Susannah.  With her toddler in tow, she sets out for remote Spring Tide Island, hoping to find the answers she so desperately seeks.  Meeting Susannah, a potter who claims to have been Elena's best friend, just creates more questions.  The woman, who seems to have been obsessed with Kal's mother, has also formed a strange attachment to Kal's son, 18-month-old Finn.  Despite frantic calls from her husband and warnings from her father to stay away from Susannah, Kal refuses to leave Canada until she understands who her mother was and what happened between her and her old BFF.  The more Kal learns, the more distressed she grows.  Something horrible happened to Elena, that much is clear and—as Kal finally realizes—the past is about to repeat itself if she can't get herself and Finn off the island.  With a storm threatening to cut off all communication with the mainland, Kal will have to risk her own life to save them both. 

Everyone who hangs out around here knows I can't resist an atmospheric thriller.  The moodier and broodier, the better.  The Missing One, a 2014 debut by journalist Lucy Atkins, certainly qualifies.  Atkins does an excellent job painting Spring Tide Island in thick, foggy grays that make it feel cold, isolated, and eerie.  It's a shivery backdrop, perfect for a gripping psychological thriller, which is exactly what The Missing One is.  The book is not an edge-of-your-seat kind of read (at least not until the end), but it is engrossing and compelling.  Overly long, yes, but not boring.  Predictable to a point, indeed, but not without its plot surprises.  As far as characters go, it's tough to find a truly likable one in this story.  They're a pretty messed up group, with plenty of selfish obsessiveness to go around.  While Kal is the most appealing of the bunch, I still found her irrational, whiny, and slow on the uptake.  Still, I definitely wanted to find out what was going to happen to her.  That need to know kept me reading.  In the end, then, I liked The Missing One well enough, but I can't say I loved it.  I'm up for more from Atkins, though, and that's saying a lot.

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of books by Peter May, Carol Goodman, and Ruth Ware)

Jackie "Jax" Metcalf has always lived in the shadow of her older sister's illness.  She spent her childhood caught up in Lexie's manic episodes and depressive cycles, so focused on keeping her sister's moods balanced that she hardly had a life of her own.  Now a psychologist and a social worker, 28-year-old Jax knows the value of boundaries.  Living in Seattle helps her keep her distance—both physically and emotionally—from Lexie's constant drama.

When Jax finds a string of missed calls from Lexie on her phone, she figures her sister's off her meds again.  The truth is much worse: Lexie is dead.  Although she was an excellent swimmer, Lexie drowned in the spring-fed swimming pool at Sparrow Crest, the remote Vermont estate she inherited from her grandmother.  Shocked and grief-stricken, Jax returns to the place where she and Lexie spent every summer, only to find the house littered with research materials about the Metcalfs and Sparrow Crest.  Tempted to dismiss the project as another one of Lexie's many flights of fancy, Jax instead starts combing through the information, which reveals strange details about Gram's unique swimming pool.  The murky water always held a strange fascination for Lexie; it gives Jax the creeps.  As she's increasingly drawn to its eerie edges, the pool begins to reveal its chilling secrets, secrets it's kept for a very, very long time ...

Jennifer McMahon specializes in shuddery, suspenseful stories sure to send chills tingling down your spine.  Her newest, The Drowning Kind (available April 6, 2021), is no exception.  It offers an atmospheric Gothic setting, complex characters, and a riveting plot.  I read it fast and furious, totally sucked in by McMahon's masterful storytelling.  The ending surprised me and not necessarily in a good way.  I didn't love it.  Even though The Drowning Kind isn't my favorite of this author's novels, it's still an engrossing, entertaining read.  If you like shivery ghost stories, definitely add this one to your TBR list.  

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of other books by Jennifer McMahon as well as those by Carol Goodman and Emily Carpenter)

I started watching Longmire, a crime series on Netflix, without realizing it was based on a set of books.  Since I'm a staunch the-book-is-always-better-than-the-movie person, I immediately stopped watching and got to reading The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson.  In this first installment, we're introduced to Walt Longmire, who's been sheriff of (fictional) Absaroka County, Wyoming, for 25 years.  Although the venerable old cowboy loves his job, retirement is starting to sound mighty good.  With an election on the horizon, he just might get his wish.  In the meantime, it's up to him to deal with the murder of a local bad boy.

No one is too surprised or too saddened by the shooting death of Cody Pritchard.  The young man was no altar boy.  In fact, he was known for making racist cracks about Native Americans and being involved in the vicious gang rape of Melissa Little Bird, a Cheyenne girl with learning disabilities, three years ago.  Cody received only a light sentence for his part in the crime, an outcome that pleased the smug boy and outraged both Walt and his county's Indian community.  An eagle feather found by Cody's corpse seems to indicate that someone with Native blood is seeking justice in their own way.  While Walt isn't about to shed a tear over the likes of Cody Pritchard, it's his job to find out who killed the kid and stop the murderer from executing the rest of Melissa's rapists.  With the help of Victoria "Vic" Moretti, his tough-talking deputy and protégé, the sheriff sets about to do just that.  As Walt digs deeper into the secrets of his small town friends and neighbors, he finds himself in increasing danger.  He won't stop until he finds the answers he seeks, even if it means stepping into the killer's crosshairs himself. 

I've heard The Cold Dish described as a "literary" mystery.  While I'm not sure it's as high-brow as all that, it's certainly more than your typical, run-of-the-mill police procedural.  For one thing, Johnson imbues the novel with a very strong sense of place.  You can feel his love for the American West—its landscape, its people, its contradictions—in every word he writes.  In addition, the story is much more about community than crime.  Johnson focuses on Walt's relationships with the people around him more than on the job he's doing.  The result is a folksy, long-winded novel that's enjoyable more for the journey than the destination.  While the plot takes a long time to get anywhere, which makes the story sag in places, there's still plenty in the way of humor, quirky characters, and local color to keep the reader entertained.  The killer's identity also surprised me, which doesn't happen all that often for this veteran mystery reader.  However, the most appealing thing about The Cold Dish by far is its hero.  Walt Longmire is an endearing character on many levels.  Not only is he brave, compassionate, and committed, but he's also fallible and self-deprecating.  It's impossible not to like him.  All these things considered, it's easy to see why this book has garnered so many fans since its publication in 2004.  While it's hardly an edge-of-your-seat thriller, it's an entertaining read.  The real question for me is, do I want to continue with the series?  Maybe, maybe not is my answer.  While I enjoy character-driven crime fiction, I prefer the kind that also features a taut, focused plot.  This is not that, so we'll see if I continue on with the series or not...

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of C.J. Box's Joe Pickett series, Margaret Coel's Wind River Reservation series, and Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon series)

To the FTC, with love:  I bought a copy of The Cold Dish with a portion of the millions I make from my lucrative career as a book blogger.  Ha ha.

As the sons of an avid survivalist, 13-year-old John Lockwood and his younger brother, Stewart, know how to cope with any doomsday scenario.  Not that they'll really need their father's advice about boiling toilet water and using yucca leaves to wash their clothes.  After all, Dad has stocked their home with enough supplies to last for two apocalypses.  The three of them can ride out any disaster in their isolated desert house, no problem.  

Then the power goes out—and stays out—while Mr. Lockwood is out of town.  No one knows what's going on, but it soon becomes clear to John that he and Stew are on their own.  Although John is concerned, he doesn't start to panic until a group of strangers invades his home, robbing the boys of all their food, water, and emergency supplies.  With no other choice, Johan and Stew are forced to stuff what little they have left into into their backpacks and set off across the desolate Nevada desert.  Help lies 96 miles away at the ranch of some family friends who will surely come to their aid.  It's a long journey, fraught with danger.  If they can survive the blistering heat, gnawing hunger, rabid thirst, feral animals, and desperate people they encounter, maybe just maybe, they can make it there in one piece.  As the grim days wear on, however, their chances of living through their ordeal grow slimmer and slimmer...

Growing up with a Secret Service agent who was obsessed with emergency preparedness, J.L. Esplin was born to write this kind of debut novel.  96 Miles is infused with real survival strategies that will fascinate anyone who's ever wondered what to do in a disaster scenario.  These tips add an intriguing element to the story, which is already taut, tense, and compelling.  John is a sympathetic character who's brave and resolute, even while he struggles under the pressure of making decisions in a brutal situation where the consequences of every choice can be dire.  He's determined to save his brother no matter what the cost, which makes him an appealing, root-worthy hero.  Although 96 Miles is a pretty straightforward dystopian/survival novel, there is a story swerve toward the end that caught me by surprise (although it really shouldn't have, considering...) and upped the ante for the boys considerably.  With an engrossing plot, likable characters, and skilled storytelling, 96 Miles is a riveting, immersive read.  Not only is it entertaining, but it's also thought-provoking, asking intriguing questions like:  How would I handle a crisis situation?  How would I act as things became increasingly desperate?  Would I keep my carefully-stocked supplies to myself or share them with others?  What decisions would I be forced to make and would I be able to live with myself afterward?  These discussion-worthy themes are just one more element that makes 96 Miles an excellent read.

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, Alone by Megan E. Freeman, Dry by Neal Shusterman, and other middle-grade/YA dystopian/survival novels)

To the FTC, with love:  Another library fine find