In the Blood (Lisa Unger)

As you might expect from a novel called In the Blood, it's not going to be about sunshine and roses.  I rated Lisa Unger's Fragile a rare 5/5 back in 2010, calling it "a mystery in the best sense of the word, with well-developed characters and slow-building suspense."  While I'm rating In the Blood a 4/5, I still thoroughly enjoyed it and found myself chilled to the bone more often than not.

Lana Granger is about to graduate from college and living
a life full of lies.  Desperately needing to make some money since her trust fund is almost gone, she takes a job babysitting a young troubled boy, Luke. When her best friend Beck disappears, Lana becomes a suspect; surprisingly, Luke also seems to know more than he's letting on and revels in taunting Lana along the way.  They seem to have met each other's match, both keeping a plethora of secrets and playing one giant chess game trying to outsmart one another.

This is the type of book you'll love reading under the covers with a flashlight.  In the Blood is a psychological thriller at its best, with nail-biting moments and one heck of a satisfying ending.

MY RATING - 4

The Dinner (Herman Koch)

The past few years have seen books trending towards the psychological thriller.  Some, such as William Landay’s Defending Jacob and S.J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep are like giant puzzles, just begging for the reader to put them together.  Others, like Gillian Flynn’s phenomenally successful Gone Girl, practically make the reader feel queasy inside and want to take a shower at the end.  Herman Koch’s international bestseller The Dinner is a hybrid of the two styles.

We start off with Paul and Claire, a husband and wife, getting ready for to go to an exorbitantly expensive restaurant with Paul’s brother and sister-in-law, Serge and Babette.  As Paul is the narrator (and he becomes an increasingly unreliable one at that as The Dinner progresses), we quickly learn that he does not want to go, but we're left to think that it’s because he does not get along with Serge.  Before they leave, Paul goes to his son’s (Michel’s) room to search for something on Michel’s cell phone.  We know that Paul found what he was looking for but do not quite know what that is until the real reason for the dinner becomes horrifyingly clear. 

Koch wisely fills the book with minutiae that lulls the reader almost into a false sense of complacency.  He describes the food ad nauseam, brilliantly naming each section after the dinner courses.  Then, without warning, Koch pulls the rug out from under us; the serene meal descriptions stop so he can get into the real “meat” of the story, and we are reminded that, unfortunately, things are rarely what they seem.

MY RATING - 4