KILL YOU TWICE, Booklist (Starred Review)

In The Night Season (2011), Cain proved that she could write a superb thriller without the presence of her signature character, the “Beauty Killer,” Gretchen Lowell, who wreaked havoc through the first three novels in the series that costars Portland, Oregon, police detective Archie Sheridan. Well, Gretchen is back, and she’s better—and badder—than ever. Archie is healing, slowly, from all the wounds, physical and psychological, that Gretchen has inflicted upon him, and Gretchen is safely ensconced in the Oregon State Mental Hospital (well, safely may be a stretch). Then Archie gets a call from Gretchen’s psychiatrist with a message that the killer Archie is hunting is after Gretchen’s child. A child? Gretchen? This is news, to be sure, and though Archie is reluctant to believe anything that pours from the Beauty Killer’s ruby-red lips, he realizes, as he digs into the case, that he’s rummaging about in the early life of Gretchen Lowell. Every time we start to wonder if Cain has gone as far as she can go with the Gretchen-Archie danse macabre, she surprises us with something utterly fresh and compelling. By telling the story of how Gretchen came to be the Beauty Killer, but telling it in the context of a present-day murder with ties to the past—and making plenty of room for the series’ stellar cast of supporting characters, reporter Susan Ward and her wacky mother, Bliss, among them—Cain hits the narrative throttle with all cylinders firing. Like the best thriller writers, though, she knows how to ease off the throttle, too, making room for subtle and satisfying character interplay but at the same building tension as we wait for the narrative to burst into overdrive once again. Masterful on every level.

HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Cain hits the road for this one, with a national author tour supported by, well, everything the modern world has got to offer; 150,000 first printing.

— Bill Ott