Under Your Skin by Sabine Durrant

Thanks to the blizzard that wasn’t, I read this today: 

The protagonist, Gaby Mortimer, is a married TV presenter with a very privileged life style, house cleaner, nanny, expensive house, and hedgefund manager husband.  On her morning run she falls over a body of a young woman and that begins the mystery, who is she, what is her connection to Gaby (or from Gaby’s perspective “to Gaby’s house”).  At some point the police investigation starts to focus on Gaby and she begins to investigate to save her life, her marriage and her career.  Through the investigation, Gaby meets Jack, a journalist, who helps push both  the story line and the investigation forward.  Gaby and Jack follow the trail of the dead young woman looking for connections.

I liked most of this book, even though I found a couple things odd.  Gaby’s relationship with her new nanny for one, how can you live with someone and not really know them at all? ehhh.  The plot was well paced and well thought out until the end.  I really found the ending a little off putting. I would have bought into it more if the book was written in third person or told as flash backs rather than in the present tense.   I can’t say anything more without writing a spoiler.

 

World of Trouble by Ben H. Winters

This is the final book in the The Last Policeman Trilogy that I have been reading.  The book starts out with 14 days left in the countdown to the end of the world.  Hank Palace is on the trail of Nico with Cortez and Houdini at his side.  They little group start to rate towns they pass in a color system, red for towns “seething with active violence”, Green were the opposite, Black for empty, and all colors in between.  They run into all varieties of desperate people dealing with the end that is coming in the best way that they can.

Hank is less concerned with the end of the world, except in regards to being a timeline to solve his final case, Nico’s disappearance.  Hank’s dogged determination is the defining feature of his character and drives this final book of the trilogy.  I don’t want to give any spoilers but the resolution of the story was very well done in an understated manner.

Highly recommended read!