You told each other everything. Then she told you too much.

Kit has risen to the top of her profession and is on the brink of achieving everything she wanted. She hasn’t let anything stop her.

But now someone else is standing in her way – Diane. Best friends at seventeen, their shared ambition made them inseparable. Until the day Diane told Kit her secret – the worst thing she’d ever done, the worst thing Kit could imagine – and it blew their friendship apart.

Kit is still the only person who knows what Diane did. And now Diane knows something about Kit that could destroy everything she’s worked so hard for.

How far would Kit go, to make the hard work, the sacrifice, worth it in the end? What wouldn’t she give up? Diane thinks Kit is just like her. Maybe she’s right. Ambition: it’s in the blood…

Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott is a psychological thriller about two women and the power of a secret.

The novel explores female friendship and how two women can toe the line between friends and enemies. Diane Fleming and Kit Owens haven’t seen each other for over ten years, until Diane shows up at Kit’s work and the two women are forced to co-exist together. But no one can know the real reason why they stopped speaking after high school.

The two women were close friends once, but now seem to be professionals rivals. And since Kit knows Diane’s biggest secret, Kit is worried that Diane feels threatened by that. And if so, what she’ll do to silence Kit. Much more than just their careers are at stake.

“You always wonder, when someone is trying so hard, what it’s really about…Maybe, for Diane, working really hard was a way of crouching low in her grief, of staying under the radar. Of hiding. But in other ways she was impossible to miss.”

Megan Abbott has captured setting incredibly well. Most of this novel takes place within the walls of a science lab, so everything feels very claustrophobic and tense. It’s the perfect setting for Diane and Kit’s reunion.

Kit is a postdoc researcher for Dr. Lena Severin, a well-respected, inspiring mentor. She’s strong and determined and confident. She’s everything Kit wants to be.

There’s an exciting opportunity at the lab — Dr. Severin is spearheading a study of PMDD, which stands for premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Everyone wants a spot on that team, but there’s only room for two researchers and there are quite a few colleagues to choose from.

It’s a high-stakes environment and Diane wants this more than anything. But so do her colleagues. And as tensions rise and Diane and Kit’s working relationship starts to fracture, the people around them are starting to notice that something is amiss about the two of them.

“In the car, we don’t speak. She drives carefully. Stopping at all the yellow lights. Every time she turns a corner, her key chain smacks the ignition panel. One of those furry key chain kids used to have swinging from their backpacks.”

Something about this novel just doesn’t hit the mark. Not once did I feel like Diane was going to threaten everything Kit has accomplished. Diane is supposed to be seen as an unpredictable, unstable villain but really she seems like a complicated woman with a tragic secret and a dark mind. And Diane’s ‘secret’ — the author teases it for the first half of the book — is incredibly predictable.

If you’re a lover of crime, thriller or psychological fiction, then this story accomplishes enough to entertain you. You’ll be intrigued by Diane’s secret and the evolution of Kit and Diane’s friendship. Unfortunately, I felt like this novel fell short of what the blurb claimed, but others may enjoy it.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Give Me Your Hand
Megan Abbott
August 2018
Pan Macmillan Publishers

When an eleven-year-old boy is found murdered in a town park, reliable eyewitnesses undeniably point to the town’s popular Little League coach, Terry Maitland, as the culprit. DNA evidence and fingerprints confirm the crime was committed by this well-loved family man.

Horrified by the brutal killing, Detective Ralph Anderson, whose own son was once coached by Maitland, orders the suspect to be arrested in a public spectacle. But Maitland has an alibi. And further research confirms he was indeed out of town that day.

As Anderson and the District Attorney trace the clues, the investigation expands from Ohio to Texas. And as horrifying answers begin to emerge, so King’s propulsive story of almost unbearable suspense kicks into high gear.

Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy but there is one rock-hard fact, as unassailable as gravity: a man cannot be in two places at the same time. Can he?

The Outsider by Stephen King is a thriller about the gruesome murder of an eleven year-old boy in America. The novel moves across States, taking the reader from Ohio to Texas. We follow Detective Ralph Anderson as he seeks answers to some pretty impossible questions.

Stephen King captures the reader’s attention right from the first chapter. In the beginning, the novel switches from standard prose to transcript format between detectives and members of society. A little boy has been gruesomely murdered and it’s pretty clear that much-loved Little League coach Terry Maitland is the culprit.

But it is only after Ralph Anderson arrests Terry that doubt starts to descend. Evidence has proven that Terry was away the day the little boy was murdered. But eye witness testimonies also suggest that Terry was in town. So, who really murdered the boy?

The Outsider takes place over a two-week period, covering the arrest of Terry Maitland and the ensuing investigation. There are a cast of characters in this novel, and Stephen King does a masterful job of bringing them to life. Whilst dialogue may not be Stephen King’s strong suit, the characterisation draws the reader in and keeps them intrigued.

Stephen’s novel apparently features characters and references characters from his Hodges Trilogy, but I actually haven’t read those ones so I didn’t pick up on that until I’d completed the novel. If anyone’s wondering, you can read this as a standalone.

“Terry put them out and watched as a new pair of handcuffs was snapped onto his wrists. He looked for Howie, suddenly as anxious as he had been at five, when his mother let go of his hand on his first day of kindergarten.”

My issue with this novel is that Stephen King sets up the storyline to be something of reality. A boy is murdered, and you read the novel thinking someone in the town has committed the crime. However, at least halfway through the novel, supernatural and paranormal elements are thrown into the story and the culprit is something not of this world.

I couldn’t help but feel cheated. With shows like Supernatural, and books of a similar nature, you know straight away that the crime is of a paranormal nature and that the characters will work to find out who or what committed the crime.

However, Stephen King set this up to look like a regular ‘who dunnit’ story. And finding out that the killer is a supernatural creature from a long forgotten legend, you can’t help but feel played. Part of the fun of reading a crime or thriller novel is guessing what you think happened and then reading the novel to find out if you were correct. But finding out near the end that it’s a supernatural, totally-impossible-to-guess creature? It’s a pretty big letdown.

“Was he looking for Mr Maitland specifically, or could it have been anyone? I don’t know for sure, but I think he had Terry Maitland in his sights, because he knew the Maitlands were visiting from another state, far away. The outsider, whether you call him natural or unnatural or supernatural, is like many serial killers in one way. He likes to move around.”

The Outsider is a pretty big investment of a read — 475 pages. Crime and thriller fans will love this novel, but beware that you won’t be able to guess the ending. It’s not the simple ‘crime and prosecution’ that the first half of the novel suggests. There are many twists and turns.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Outsider
Stephen King
June 2018
Hachette Book Publishers Australia