Crash & Burn

December 1, 2014
Nothing is what it seems in this expertly crafted standalone from Thriller Award–winner Gardner. After a luxury car is discovered at the bottom of a ravine in rural New Hampshire, along with its confused and injured driver, Nicole Frank, Sgt. Wyatt Foster and PI Tessa Leoni, last seen in 2013’s Touch & Go, get on the case. What begins as a run-of-the-mill car accident turns into an investigation that uncovers a whole history of sickening crimes. Nicole’s suspiciously taciturn husband, Thomas Frank, informs Foster and Leoni that his wife suffers from postconcussive syndrome, a result of a previous fall down the basement stairs, and of some subsequent stumbles. A recovering Nicole confusedly rambles about a young girl called Vero, who may or may not be her daughter. A subplot involving Foster and Leoni’s personal relationship is a welcome distraction from the horrors that Nicole confronts as her latent memories slowly resurface. Gardner keeps the reader guessing to the end. Agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency.

December 15, 2014
A New Hampshire cop tries to piece together a mysterious woman's life following a car accident and discovers nothing is as it seems. Gardner (Fear Nothing, 2014, etc.) puts Sgt. Wyatt Foster front and center in this overly complicated thriller, while corporate security expert-and Foster's new girlfriend-Tessa Leoni, from the 2011 Love You More, plays a distant second fiddle. When Foster is called to a single-car accident on a rural road, it seems like driver Nicole Frank simply drank too much Scotch and drove off the road. But Nicole, who miraculously survives the crash, insists that her daughter, Vero, is still missing. Foster and his team launch a massive search until Nicole's husband, Thomas, arrives at the hospital and tells the police that there is no child: Nicole suffered a traumatic brain injury (actually several), causing her to conjure an imaginary daughter. As the details of Nicole's original injury-she suspiciously fell down both her basement and front stairs within the span of a few months-emerge, Foster and the reader become more, rather than less, confused. Nicole's history unspools in calculated sound bites, with each episode ending in an artificial cliffhanger. According to Nicole-who claims to be "the woman who died twice"-she escaped a horrific childhood in a brothel known as the Dollhouse, a place that's the nexus of the mystery surrounding Vero, who may or may not be a figment of her addled brain. Gardner tacks on so many twists that even the most astute reader will be confused, and even the intriguing resolution, when it finally comes, doesn't answer all the plot's unnecessary questions.

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December 15, 2014
Sergeant Wyatt Foster (last seen in Touch & Go, 2013), investigating a horrific car accident on a New Hampshire back road, calls for backup after learning that the seriously injured driver, Nicole Frank, is asking for her daughter, Vero, who was in the car with her. But after an extensive search, the investigators come up empty-handed. That's when Nicole's husband, Thomas, tells them that his wife is suffering from a brain injury and is unreliable; furthermore, they don't have any children. But as Wyatt continues to dig deeper, he discovers that Nicole might have been the subject of sexual trafficking when she was just a child. Gardner intersperses vivid scenes of Wyatt's investigation and of tender moments between Wyatt and private cop Tessa Leoni with Nicole's first-person narration. And Nicole's story is instantly gripping as her horrific past gradually comes into focus, and she must sort out what actually happened and whether she can trust her husband. This page-turner, with its contemporary, hard-edged flavor, is sure to satisfy Gardner's ardent fan base.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Gardner's twenty-eighth novel, complete with a cameo from her most popular character, Boston detective D. D. Warren, will no doubt make its debut near the top of the New York Times best-seller list.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2014

When car-crash survivor Nicky Frank sobs that she must find a little girl named Vero, her husband tells police not to listen because she was already suffering from a brain injury before the accident. But can he be trusted? Bravura author Gardner's stand-alone offers a peek at series stalwart Boston detective D.D. Warren, last seen in Fear Nothing.

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