A Twist of the Knife

December 19, 2016
Edgar-finalist Masterman presents a compassionate, clear-eyed depiction of the painful foibles of human nature in her chilling, twist-filled third thriller featuring retired FBI agent Brigid Quinn (after 2015’s Fear the Darkness). Brigid flies from Phoenix to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to be with her mother after her 83-year-old father is hospitalized. While there, Brigid is contacted by former colleague Laura Coleman, an Innocence Project investigator, who asks Brigid to help her exonerate death row inmate Marcus Creighton. Fifteen years earlier, Creighton was convicted of killing his wife; his three children have been missing since the night of the murder. The execution date is set, and time is running out. The problem is that Brigid believes that Creighton is probably guilty. Still, Brigid wants to help Laura, and the distraction of an investigation is just the thing to take her mind off her complicated family relationships. A compelling, complex lead, Brigid has no problem skirting the straight and narrow in her quest for justice. Agent: Helen Heller, Helen Heller Agency.

February 1, 2017
Even though her father is hovering near death, Brigid Quinn, put out to pasture in Tucson, can't help responding to another request from her old FBI friend Laura Coleman (Rage Against the Dying, 2013) to help with a cold case that turns red-hot.Near-bankrupt wine importer Marcus Creighton, whose only hope for repaying his debt to loan shark Manuel Gutierrez seems to have been his wife Kathleen's insurance policy, was convicted back in 1999 of killing her. Only the missing remains of his three children prevented Florida State's Attorney David Lancer of throwing even more charges at him. But Laura's new boss, William Hench, an attorney specializing in appealing old convictions, is convinced that he's innocent despite the damning testimony of Shayna Murry, the mistress who refused to give him an alibi, and his fingerprint on the plug of the hair dryer tossed into Kathleen's bathtub to electrocute her. Though Brigid appreciates the convenience of spending time in Vero Beach as her father, stricken with pneumonia, fights for life in a nearby hospital, it's clear that the members of Creighton's ill-assorted defense team have their work cut out for them when a judge refuses to stay his impending execution. Some tiny cracks in the case are their only hope--the absence of any phone records that would show Creighton asking Shayna for the alibi she maintains he wanted and the hope that fingerprint expert Dr. Tracy Mack, recently indicted for the fraudulent handling of evidence, got his start much earlier--along with the superhuman determination of abused-child specialist Alison Samuels to find some trace of the Creighton children, who she's convinced are still alive. Will that be enough to vindicate their father before his date with lethal injection? Against all odds, the harrowing back story and repeated doses of present-tense violence make the investigation not so much shocking as deeply, heart-wrenchingly sad. It'll be a long time before intrepid readers who enter Masterman's latest labyrinth shake off its suffocating spell.

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October 15, 2016
Masterman, who kick-started her writing career with the Edgar and CWA Gold Dagger nominee Rage Against the Dying, now assigns former FBI agent Brigid Quinn a third case. Brigid has settled in Tucson but returns to Florida to help former partner Laura Coleman, who's on leave from the bureau and volunteering for a legal group working to prove the innocence of a man on death row.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2017
Retired FBI agent Brigid Quinn, from Fear the Darkness (2015), returns home to Ft. Lauderdale to visit her critically ill father and finds herself embroiled in a Hail Mary attempt to overturn the conviction of Florida's most notorious death-row inmate. Marcus Creighton was convicted of his wife's murder, allegedly aiming to marry his mistress, and his three children have been missing since the night of the crime. Influenced by the pleas of an old friend, Brigid uses her connections to get Creighton's team access to the remaining forensic evidence. Despite Brigid's initial skepticism, her instincts point toward Creighton's innocence. So, when their efforts to stop Creighton's execution fail, Brigid is determined to find the truth, especially after a killer begins hunting key witnesses. Masterman deftly layers in Brigid's family story, as Brigid's investigation into Creighton's failing marriage forces the agent to confront long-suppressed realities from her own childhood. This page-turner, which tackles the rising tide of false death-row convictions and the long arm of family secrets, should be perfect for Lisa Gardner fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)