This is just a hypothetical question. And, I’ve been reading and reviewing books long enough to know that the publisher actually picks a category for a book to generate sales. Libraries also classify fiction. And, who is to say that any of us are right? So why is a book called psychological suspense? To be honest, normally I wouldn’t pick up a book defined that way. Maybe Christina Alger’s Girls Like Us is psychological suspense. Maybe it’s a police procedural. It’s really just a novel featuring an FBI agent who investigates her late father.
Nell Flynn is on leave from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. She shot a man, but she was also wounded. As of yet, she hasn’t done what she has to do to return to duty. In some ways, it’s perfect timing, Her father, a homicide detective with Suffolk County, died in a motorcycle accident. She assumes he was drinking, as usual, but his fellow officers, including his best friend, Chief Glenn Dorsey, will cover that up. Nell has to clean up the house, and try to uncover her own unresolved feelings about the man she hasn’t really communicated with in ten years.
While Nell is still home, a dog finds a woman’s body buried on the beach. It’s been dismembered and wrapped in burlap. Lee Davis, a former high school classmate, now a homicide detective, asks Nell if she will consult on the case. It’s not the first body discovered in Suffolk County. A year earlier, the body of another young woman was found, killed and wrapped in burlap. Nell’s father, Martin Flynn, handled that unsolved case. The more Nell digs, the more she suspects her father might have been involved in the deaths. And, those deaths bring back memories of Nell’s mother, brutally murdered when the seven-year-old was on a camping trip with her father.
Girls Like Us is a fast-paced, intriguing story for those of us who like to follow along with the interviews and investigation. Nell Flynn has an interesting voice as an FBI agent unsure of her future, and, in so many ways, uncomfortable with her past. The story has one unexpected scene more shocking than the discovery of the bodies, but it makes sense. And, published when it was, the book was a remarkable forecast of events over the summer.
Is Girls Like Us psychological suspense? You be the judge.
Christina Alger’s website is www.christinaalger.com
Girls Like Us by Christina Alger. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2019. ISBN 9780593085813 (hardcover), 276p.
*****
FTC Full Disclosure – Library book
Interesting. I agree with you that it sounds more like a procedural. It also sounds a little like the British series by Caz Frear (Sweet Little Lies), about DC Cat Kinsella, where she is afraid that her father may have been involved in a murder. And it reminds me of the killer who was murdering prostitutes and dumping their bodies on Long Island a couple of years back.
It will also remind you of Jeffrey Epstein, Jeff, which is interesting because it came out before the arrest.
Psychological suspense pretty much is a no go for me. This does not sound like that sort of thing.
I'm with you, Kevin It's a no go for me as well. I just find it creepy. I liked this book, though.
I read a lot of psychological suspense novel, mainly because I win them on goodreads, but I'm not always sure why book A is psychological suspense and book B is a mystery, either. I think there's usually some sort of creepy factor involved.
And, this one wasn't creepy, Glen, unless you consider that she was investigating her own father.
All fathers are creepy once one becomes as adult and starts finding out stuff. Some are are just way, way worse than others. 🙂