> WHODUNIT JACK BATTEN
Confessions On The 7:45 by Lisa Unger; Park Row Books, 368 pages, $34.99
Selena knows her husband is getting it on with Geneva, their children’s nanny. One night riding home on the commuter train, Selena exchanges confidences with a stranger named Martha. She’s of the same age and social station, and is apparently afflicted with similar husband grief. “Don’t you ever just wish your problems would take care of themselves?” Martha asks. Not long after this meeting, Geneva disappears. Ah, the reader thinks, what we have here is a version of “Strangers On a Train.” No, nothing as obvious. Lisa Unger is so slick at piling on the complications that the overall effect is subversive if not diabolical. Characters working various scams tumble into the plot. Can we trust anyone in this tumultuous story? The Unlocking Season by Gail Bowen; ECW Press, 352 pages, $32.95
In the nineteenth book in Gail Bowen’s Joanne Kilbourn series, Joanne is working as a writer for a movie crew shooting films based largely on the story of Joanne’s own early life. Tension gets in the way when it appears that some unknown operator is attempting to sabotage the filming. As plots go, this one isn’t entirely persuasive and to add needed heft to the proceedings, Bowen peppers the narrative with countless characters. Despite the resulting overpopulated confusion, the story eventually finds its legs, and Bowen engineers a couple of nifty puzzles and some equally sure-footed solutions. The Silent Conspiracy by L.C. Shaw; Harper, 336 pages, $21
At the end of L.C. Shaw’s first book, it appeared that Damon Crosse had met his doom. But not so, and in this new book he is back at work engineering murders of a spectacularly cruel nature. The husband and wife team of investigative reporter Jack Logan and TV producer Taylor Parks get to work sleuthing the murders, not suspecting that Crosse is behind them. More ghastliness enters into the narrative and readers can never be absolutely sure who’ll emerge intact from the catalogue of abomination. Uncharted Waters by Rosemary McCracken; Carrick, 346 pages, $19.99
In Rosemary McCracken’s fourth book featuring businesswoman Pat Tierney, Pat is anxious to get into operation as a financial planner. How exactly does a financial planner function? The answer is crucial to the plot and McCracken offers a painless education in the skills and ethics of a successful practitioner in the field. Unfortunately for Tierney, the guy from whom she buys her new firm is murdered just as the deal closes. Tierney needs to solve the crime, not an easy task since suspects become thick on the ground. Tierney treats us to sleuthing that is clever and risky.