Michael Robotham

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

The bodies of migrants are washed onto the beach where Cyrus and Evie are holidaying. Cyrus helps save one survivor and on the strength of that inserts himself into the investigation, even though there never really seems to be much call for a psychologist. Instead Cyrus and Evie keep asking awkward questions of people they think are involved in endangering or trafficking migrants today and also Evie herself when she was a child. The whole mystery of Evie's past is laid out here, presumably as recalled by Evie herself, which felt a bit anticlimactic after the gradual hints of the previous books.

I found the various players in St. Claire (who were all related to each other in one way or another) confusingly hard to keep in their proper places and the ending frustratingly abrupt. Not my favourite in this series.… (mere)

On the surface, Meghan has it all: a handsome, successful husband on television, two beautiful children and a third on the way. She attends prenatal yoga classes, and spends time writing a “mommy blog.”

Agatha doesn’t have it so easy. She’s divorced, seeking to keep her new man, Hayden (of the Royal Navy), in her life with an accidental pregnancy she uses as leverage with his family back home. She works in the grocery, lives in a drab home, and wants to be Meg.

The two women have spoken on occasion, and at one point become “friends,” chatting over their yet unborn children and going through baby clothes, a scene which later comes into play when the police wonder at people who might have inserted themselves into Meg’s life in the months leading up to her delivery.

Meg can’t possibly believe Agatha could have anything to do with her missing infant son.

Agatha has been convincing.

*Spoiler alert* I will try to keep to a minimum but cannot review without mentioning reasons I lowered my rating to four instead of five stars.

Overall The Secrets She Keeps is a page-turning read. I foresaw trouble between Meg and Agatha from the beginning, but that’s to be expected given the blurb. Agatha’s fake pregnancy is telegraphed, but so well-written and thorough that I really feared for Meg’s safety. There’s talk of Meg needing a cesarean birth due to prior delivery complications and I waited for Meg to be abducted and Agatha to be performing some do-it-yourself surgery, but this didn’t get that dark.

What did happen, though, reveals a heartbreaking backstory of a woman, Agatha, who feels her life is worthless without being able to have and raise children of her own. She’s suffered, and is unable or unwilling to see the pain she inflicts upon others in her quest for what she desires most.

Kudos to the author for so completely committing to this tragic character.

Meg, on the other hand, is someone with whom I’m less sympathetic. I almost agree with Agatha’s speculation that Meg isn’t grateful for what she has (then again neither is her husband). Both partners have been unfaithful, and it’s in calling into question Meg’s son’s paternity that I feel the author either went too far or not far enough.

Let me explain. Meg had a one night-stand with her husband’s best friend, a man she shares a past with (unbeknownst to her husband). When “Ben” (Meg’s infant) goes missing from the hospital, it seems a foregone conclusion that while Meg is berating her husband for his infidelity, she’ll have to admit her own. Simon (the possible father) is set up as someone demanding, a man who needs to know whether or not the boy is his, and who wants badly to be in his life if so. He seems the perfect suspect, really, but never once is any of this mentioned to the police, not even while Meg fears for her son’s life. The Simon-Meg connection seemed a lot of drama and potential tension for nothing because when it came down to it Simon was like, “Yeah, well, it’s okay. Congrats on the baby that may or may not be mine. Maybe I’ll turn in this DNA swab or maybe I’ll just try and get my girlfriend pregnant instead.”

What the what???

If something’s like this is written into a story it must have purpose other than surface tension. Simon professed love for Meg. Her husband was cheating with their realtor. How on Earth does this end up “happily ever after?”

Grr.

Also, I’m not a fan of appropriated material. In the author’s quest to write a compelling false pregnancy for Agatha he resorted to quite literally mimicking a scene from Gone Girl almost to a T. Agatha has a pregnant friend who she invites over and plies with drinks to make her pee in a broken toilet, for Agatha to then take the pee to her doctor to get a positive pregnancy test. Eh, sorry, that one’s been done before.

For that reason and for the whole thread about Simon, I’m downgrading my rating from five to four stars. Harsh, maybe, because this is certainly five-star prose, but I don’t feel the plot is perfect, and fives are rare from me. Overall, an excellent read. Riveting, and Agatha’s secrets are both shocking and heartbreaking. What drives a woman to steal another woman’s child? You’ll have to read to find out.

*Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for providing me with an advance copy of this novel.… (mere)

This is the fifth installment of the Joseph O'Loughlin series. Joe is a very minor character in this story. Instead the focus is on Vincent Ruiz, the ex-cop. The story alternates back and forth between two plot lines. In Iraq, journalist Luca Terracini is investigating a string of bank robberies along with UN auditor Daniela Garner. Meanwhile in London, banker Richard North has gone missing. It was a bit confusing at first for me, before I could get my bearings on how these two stories were related. But in typical Michael Robotham fashion, the writing and storytelling kept me engaged. This was a thriller.… (mere)

When she Was Good. Michael Robotham. 2021. I have read several books by this author, but this is the first one in this series. Forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven is seeing a young woman, “Evie,” who was found hidden in a wall in a deserted house along with a dead body. She refused to talk about anything related to her past or give her real name. She is terrified, and Haven knows he has to learn about her history to help her. This is a wonderfully suspenseful novel full of plot twists. I am glad Janet rediscovered Robotham and hope to read more by him. Very violent.… (mere)