Sunday Silence

November 27, 2017
In French’s disappointing seventh thriller starring London psychotherapist Frieda Klein (after 2017’s Dark Saturday), Frieda discovers the decomposing corpse of Bruce Stringer, an ex-policeman she hired to help her search for murderer Dean Reeve, under the floorboards of her home. Though the police are certain that Reeve took his own life seven years earlier, Frieda is convinced that he still lives and is adding to his body count. Her belief that Reeve killed her investigator is buttressed when another body surfaces—that of an electrician who gave Stringer information about Reeve. Frieda sets aside her practice to investigate. Six months later, the police have made no progress, and Frieda resumes seeing patients. Then her niece is abducted and other people she knows are attacked, leading the therapist to believe that Reeve has inspired another psychopath. French, the husband-wife writing team of Sean French and Nicci Gerard, offers nothing new to anyone who’s read a copycat serial killer novel before. Agent: Joy Harris, Joy Harris Literary Agency.

Nicci French (actually a husband-and-wife team) brings listeners the seventh installment in the Frieda Klein series. Beth Chalmers has narrated from the first. Chalmers owns the voice of the controversial and keenly observant psychotherapist Frieda Klein. A nemesis whom the police believe to be dead--but Frieda knows is very much alive and continuing to stalk her menacingly--leaves a dead body buried under the floorboards of her living room. The plot thickens with the addition of a new fiend who is obsessed with Frieda and is attacking those she loves. Chalmers uses her deep portfolio of British accents to voice men and women good and evil, and gives a Ukrainian accent to Frieda's friend, Joseph. Chalmers's performance keeps the listener engaged through the ups and downs of the plot. E.Q. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

December 15, 2017
French polishes off the week of titles (Dark Saturday, 2017, etc.), though evidently not the series, in which London psychotherapist Frieda Klein tangles with a series of killers who all have ties of one sort or another to the same evil genius.Great news for Frieda: after ages of doubting her increasingly desperate allegations that preternaturally slippery Dean Reeve, reported a suicide seven years ago, is still alive, DCI Malcolm Karlsson is finally ready to reconsider. The reason why is not such great news: Frieda's Ukrainian builder friend, Josef Morozov, has found the rotting corpse of ex-copper Bruce Stringer, who'd been helping her hunt for Reeve, under the floorboards of her own house. And Stringer's murder seems to be only the first of a rapid-fire series of new outrages directed specifically against people close to Frieda. In short order, Daniel Glasher, an electrician who passed information about Reeve on to Stringer, is found dead shortly after sending Frieda a threatening note; her niece, Chloe Klein, is kidnapped, drugged, and photographed in a humiliatingly compromising position; Reuben McGill, the analyst who trained her, is savagely attacked in his own home; and Josef's son Alexei, newly arrived from Ukraine, is snatched from a crowded market in broad daylight. Frieda, now reduced to hiring a private detective to check on the bona fides of her friends' recent acquaintances and her own newest patients, wonders where it will end--and whether this latest wave of violence is the work of Dean Reeve or of a monstrously resourceful copycat.The biggest surprise here is not whodunit but just when French will reveal the truth. But fans caught up in the relentless intensity of the sorely tried heroine's latest travails will be too busy worrying about other, more dangerous problems to notice.

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January 1, 2018
The seventh installment in London psychotherapist Frieda Klein's tense cat-and-mouse game with serial-killer Dean Reeve (after Dark Saturday, 2017) gets off to a harrowing start when Reeve deposits in Frieda's house the corpse of the private investigator Frieda had hired to find Reeve. This time around, Met detectives believe Frieda's long-dismissed claims that Reeve is alive, and seasoned detective Petra Burge is assigned to lead a task force. While they wait for Reeve's next move, Frieda's inner circle is attacked: her niece Chloe is kidnapped, and her friend Reuben is viciously beaten. The Met remains focused on Reeve, but Frieda is certain that a would-be copycat determined to impress Reeve is stalking her friends. As her motley crew of survivors circles the wagons, Frieda wanders the streets of London with Burge in tow, carefully puzzling out the meager clues to the stalker's identity. This cerebral psychological thriller series is an Anglophile's dream: Frieda's wanderings offer detail-drenched descriptions of London's streets that, combined with her deductive musings, evoke a moody, bohemian Sherlock.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)