Category Archives: Susan Furlong

May 23, 2022 · 12:01 am

Review: What They Don’t Know by Susan Furlong

Title:What They Don’t Know by Susan Furlong
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Genre: Contemporary, Psychological Thriller, Suspense
Length: 274 pages
Book Rating: B+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Edelweiss

Summary:

A picture-perfect suburban life fractures . . . and a darker reality bubbles beneath the surface.

Mona Ellison’s life is as perfect as the porcelain dolls lined up on her shelves. She has a successful husband, a loving son, a beautiful home, and a supportive group of girlfriends ever ready for their weekly wine night.

But when Mona’s son gets entangled with the wrong crowd and runs away from home, her blissful suburban world begins to unravel. She tells her friends that boys will be boys, that he’ll be back as soon as his money runs dry . . . but deep down she knows there’s something else going on.

Then the police show up at Mona’s door. A young girl has turned up dead in their quiet town, and her missing son is the prime suspect.

Determined to reunite with her son and prove his innocence, Mona follows an increasingly cryptic trail of clues on social media, uncovering a sinister side of suburbia and unveiling lies and betrayal from those she trusted most. And as Mona spirals further from her once cozy reality, a devastating revelation shatters everything she thought she knew. Now the only thing she’s sure of is that she can’t trust anyone . . . not even herself.

With unrelenting psychological suspense and a wicked twist, What They Don’t Know marries small-town thriller and domestic mystery—suburban paranoia at its best.

Review:

What They Don’t Know by Susan Furlong is a diabolically clever psychological thriller.

With their son, Gus, absent from the house, Mona Ellison and her husband Ben are selling the home they have lived in for years. After she and her friends, Tara, Alice and Selma’s final book club, Mona becomes a bit untethered with moving day approaching. Ben is out of town for business and she becomes rattled after the police drop by asking questions about Mia Jones, a teenager recently murdered nearby.  Why do the detectives want to talk to Ben? And why does Mona get the feeling that Gus might somehow be involved?

Mona is taking a cocktail of drugs that are not doing her mental state any favors. She becomes increasingly paranoid and suspicious as she tries to locate Gus. Instead of preparing for the move, Mona becomes obsessed with locating Gus and attempting to find the connection between him and Mia. Highly agitated, she is comforted by the dolls in her collection. With her friends becoming more ad more worried about her, Mona is frightened and unnerved but she slowly begins to unearth the truth about her family.

What They Don’t Know is a suspense-laden thriller that quite riveting. Mona is a brilliantly developed character whose narration might not be reliable. The secondary characters are well-drawn with interesting backstories. The storyline is tautly written and easily draws the reader into the unfolding story. With cunning twists and shocking turns, Susan Furlong brings this intriguing psychological thriller to a chilling conclusion.

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Filed under Contemporary, Psychological Thriller, Rated B+, Review, Seventh Street Books, Susan Furlong, Suspense, What They Dont Know

December 22, 2019 · 11:57 pm

Review: Shattered Justice by Susan Furlong

Title: Shattered Justice by Susan Furlong
Bone Gap Travellers Series Book Three
Publisher: Kensington Books
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 304 pages
Book Rating: B+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

In the Appalachian town of Bone Gap, Tennessee, backwoods justice is more than just blind. It’s swift, silent, and shockingly personal. Especially for Irish Traveller turned deputy sheriff Brynn Callahan . . .

“Hear No Evil.”

The first message is found in a playground. A few feet away, a  pair of human ears hang from the monkey bars. Deputy sheriff Brynn Callahan isn’t sure what to make of this grisly scene. Do the ears belong to a murder victim? And if so, where is the body? One thing Brynn is sure of: the earring on one of the earlobes belongs to a man she met at a party the previous night.  . .

“Speak No Evil.”

The second message is discovered next to a human tongue on a park pavilion. Once again, no body is found. Brynn can’t help but wonder if the crimes are rooted in the town’s long-simmering tensions between Bone Gap locals and the barely tolerated Travellers who’ve settled there.

“See No Evil.”

For Brynn, the investigation hits too close to home—forcing her to confront the demons of her own past. But time is running out. Brynn has to track down the culprit before a third message is delivered—and a third victim is claimed. Rich, atmospheric, and brilliantly chilling, Shattered Justice is the third Bone Gap Travellers novel from the acclaimed author of Splintered Silence and Fractured Truth.

Review:

Shattered Justice by Susan Furlong is a baffling mystery with a flawed yet likable lead protagonist. Although this latest release is the third installment in the Bone Gap Traveller series, it can be read as a standalone.

Deputy Brynn Callahan’s month long sobriety is tenuous and she is skeptical the addiction sessions ordered by her boss Sheriff Frank Pusser’s will help her.  But since she wants to keep her job, she does her best of tamp down her cravings and attends the meetings. But when Katie Doogan begins stalking her and threatens to reveal information about Brynn and her beloved Gran, she is hard-pressed to stay away from booze.

The Sheriff’s department’s current case is a much needed distraction as she, fellow  deputies Nan Parks and Harris and Sheriff Pusser investigate the troubling discoveries of a pair of severed ears and a severed tongue.  Along with the body parts are the messages “hear no evil” and ” speak no evil”. Brynn and her fellow lawmen fear a serial killer is on the loose but with  little evidence and no bodies, will they find the person responsible for what is shaping up to be a grisly crime?

Brynn is fighting a difficult battle in her attempt at maintaining sobriety. She is some scornful of her fellow meeting attendees and she is still justifying her problems with alcohol and pills. The surprising discovery that Assistant District Attorney Jake Sheehan is a recovering alcoholic leaves Brynn fighting yet another means of dealing with her problems.  She is under extreme stress as Katie ratchets up her efforts to destroy Brynn.  She is also determined to uncover the link between two missing men and hopefully clear fellow Traveller Hughie Black of any involvement in her current case.

The investigation is slow moving due to lack of evidence, no bodies or clear motive.  Tracking one of the missing person’s movement leads to an uneasy confrontation with a militia group in the surrounding forest.  Attempting to find a connection between the two men who have disappeared, Brynn and Parks engage in a disquieting but potentially valuable interview with an elderly teacher from the local high school. Will the information gleaned from the  eccentric teacher provide them with the lead they have been waiting for?

Shattered Justice is a dark and gritty mystery that is quite puzzling. Brynn is making progress dealing with her past but whether or not she will conquer her demons is uncertain. The main storyline is complex but dogged determination and painstaking investigating yield viable results. The secondary story arc with Katie adds another layer of suspense to the unfolding story. With shocking twists,  Susan Furlong brings this engrossing mystery to a jaw-dropping conclusion. Old and new fans of the series are sure to enjoy this newest addition to the Bone Gap Traveller series.

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Filed under Bone Gap Travellers Series, Contemporary, Kensington Books, Mystery, Rated B+, Review, Susan Furlong, Suspense

December 24, 2018 · 11:58 pm

Review: Fractured Truth by Susan Furlong

Title: Fractured Truth by Susan Furlong
Bone Gap Travellers Series Book Two
Publisher: Kensington
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 288 pages
Book Rating: B

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

When the mutilated remains of a young woman are found in an Appalachian Mountain cave, newly sworn-in deputy sheriff Brynn Callahan is forced to track down a killer driven by twisted motives . . .  

Not long after donning the uniform of the McCreary County Sheriff’s department in Bone Gap, Tennessee, ex-Marine Brynn Callahan faces her first official homicide. On a cold February morning, a lone cross-country skier stumbles across the mutilated body of a young woman. Sent to investigate, Brynn is shocked when she recognizes the victim as a fellow Traveller, Maura Keene.

Maura held a solid standing both within the Travellers’ insular community and among the settled townspeople—a fact that makes her murder all the more disturbing to Brynn, who also straddles the two worlds.  After her trained K-9, Wilco, digs up human bones, and then a scrap of paper scrawled with arcane Latin phrases is uncovered, Brynn finds evidence leading her to question those closest to her—and closing the case becomes a deeply personal matter.

While trying to suppress local superstitions and prejudices, Brynn discovers that Maura was keeping a dangerous secret. And as the bones Wilco found are analyzed by forensics, Brynn harbors the troubling suspicion that she knows who they belong to. Still struggling with PTSD, Brynn must put her career on the line and her life at risk to find justice for a woman not unlike herself—haunted by her past, and caught in a vicious cycle she may never
escape . . .

Review:

Fractured Truth by Susan Furlong is a compelling mystery which is set in a small community in the Appalachian Mountains in Tennessee. This second installment in the Bone Gap Travellers series can be read as a standalone but I also highly recommend book one, Splintered Silence.

Former Marine Brynn Callahan now works for the sheriff’s department but she still does not fit in with the townspeople or the Irish Travellers. She and her cadaver dog, Wilco, are a formidable team but Brynn’s substance abuse issues and post traumatic stress are becoming a problem on the job. The latest case she is investigating with her boss, Sheriff Frank Pusser, is the particularly gruesome murder of seventeen year old Maura Keene, who is from Brynn’s community. Brynn immediately runs up against her close-knit community who feel she has betrayed her clan by becoming a police officer. She does not fare any better in the “settled” world whose prejudices against the Travellers run deep. Brynn nonetheless presses on and with the help FBI profiler, Joe Grabowski, they follow the puzzling clues. Having infuriated the Mayor, whose son Hatch is a suspect in Maura’s murder, Brynn’s personal demons could lead to the loss of her job. Can Brynn kick the addictions that she relies on to make it through each day? Will she, Joe and Frank unravel the truth about Maura’s killer?

Brynn’s troubled history continues to plague her as she settles into her new career. Scarred both inside and out from her military service, she ignores the warning signs she is not as in control of her life as she believes. Her return to Bone Gap remains uneasy as she walks a fine line between life as a Traveller and her police career. Brynn is quite intelligent with superb instincts but her drinking and pill popping are definitely becoming a liability.  When her beloved Gran is caught in the crossfire, Brynn’s overwhelming guilt puts her in an increasingly downward spiral that could cost her everything she holds dear.

The investigation into Maura’s death reveals some very troubling details about the teenager’s life. When another young woman is reported missing, Brynn and Sheriff Pusser are fairly certain the two cases are connected. However, since the other teenager is from another town, they are at a loss as to find definitive evidence to link them.  As Brynn digs deeper into Maura’s life, she becomes increasingly unsettled by the prejudices expressed by both the townspeople and the Travellers. She is also reminded of her own unhappy school years as the investigation takes her into to orbit of her former friends from high school.

Fractured Truth is a fast-paced mystery with an interesting cast of characters, a unique storyline and an intriguing murder to solve. Brynn is a deeply flawed but incredibly likable lead protagonist. The mystery surrounding Maura’s murder is quite perplexing and the investigation is filled with unexpected twists.  An outstanding addition to Susan Furlong’s  Bone Gap Travellers series that I highly recommend to readers of the genre.

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Filed under Bone Gap Travellers Series, Contemporary, Fractured Truth, Kensington, Mystery, Rated B, Review, Susan Furlong, Suspense