THE BREAK-UP RETREAT, latest from Sweden's bright star doesn't twinkle as bright

THE BREAK-UP RETREAT
CAMILLA STEN (translator not credited)
Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: An undercover journalist goes to expose an exclusive psychological wellness clinic where women go to recover from heartbreak, with dire consequences, in this creepy thriller from The Bachelorette Party author Camilla Sten.

Welcome to Himlafall Clinic, where we use revolutionary therapy techniques to heal you from heartbreak. Whether you are going through a devastating breakup, or can’t seem to stop picking the wrong partners, we are here to help you change your life, once and for all…

Isobel Anderssen has heard rumors. Nestled deep in the Swedish woods, there is a retreat. Primarily aimed at helping women who have gone through devastating break-ups, the Himlafall Clinic is meant to heal your mind and help you move on.

Sometimes people are never heard from again.

Armed with a fake story and a contraband phone to record interviews, Isobel is ready to expose Himlafall’s founder and get closure for the families of missing loved ones. But when she gets there, nothing goes to plan. Her contact is missing. The founder, Dr. Martina Hastings, knows how to get under Isobel’s skin in ways she didn’t anticipate. And all the while, the ghosts of the missing haunt her at every turn. It is clear something is going wrong and Himlafall, and Isobel must uncover the truth, before she disappears once and for all.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: This reads uncomfortably like the transcripts of some brainwashing sessions, brutal and demeaning and very destructive. It's written in Camilla Sten's voice, but in this uncredited translation, reads more like it's not-quite-Sten enough to be all her own work. The Bachelorette Party I reviewed in June 2025 had a similar effect on me. It's not *bad* but it's not like her earlier books in that it never sparkles, its cast feels...cast from a mold, but never painted, lacquered and polished, buffed up.

It struck me as odd that Author Sten would choose to have Isobel make herself so incredibly obvious as an interloper. In 2026, you need to expend a great deal of thought on how someone even *could* assume a fake identity. Surveillance capitalism demands to know who you are, even (especially) the very wealthy who could afford this emotional Abu Ghraib for brokenhearted rich ladies (and at no time did any of the men...all men 0.o...feel worthy of more than a sneak-eaten grocery-store pastry as mourning). If Author Sten did that here, I did not see it. I was quite surprised that someone who could make me really feel how prosopagnosia affects one's life in The Resting Place that wasn't up to her earlier storytelling standard. Isobel's daft actions would've been glaringly obvious to anyone with a reasonably observant eye and a modicum of common sense, and her vaunted Plan was basically "wing it based on vibes."

Disappointing...this is a premise that the earlier Sten would've embroidered a Bayeux Tapestry of story over, yet what I got was a sampler.

Come home, Alexandra Fleming and Camilla Sten! Y'all were the dynamic duo. Whatever's gone wrong fix it and make more magic.

Please.

THE CLARE CARLSON SERIES: BEYOND THE HEADLINES & BROADCAST BLUES

BEYOND THE HEADLINES
R.G. BELSKY
Oceanview Publishing
$26.95 hardcover, available now

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Dashed dreams: she wanted to run for president one day, now she's dead at 20

When Riley Hunt—a beautiful, smart, popular student at Easton College in Manhattan—is brutally murdered, it becomes a big story for TV newswoman Clare Carlson.

After days of intense media coverage, a suspect is caught: a troubled Afghanistan war veteran with a history of violent and unstable behavior. The suspect's mother, however, comes to Clare with new evidence that might prove her son's innocence.

As Clare digs deeper into the puzzling case, she learns new information: Riley had complained about being stalked in the days before her murder, she was romantically involved with two different men—the son of a top police official and the son of a prominent underworld boss—and she had posted her picture on an escort service's website offering paid dates with wealthy men.

Soon, Clare becomes convinced that Riley Hunt's death is more than just a simple murder case—and that more lives, including her own, are now in danger until she uncovers the true story.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: The inappropriate use of sexuality slacks off in this entry. That was a relief. The main thing I got from the murder victim's life story, as it unfolded, was the fact that she was deeply shallow. Appearances and attention were her gods. She pursued her dream of being famous all her life; it all bit her in the butt...hard. I think the kind of uses the young woman made of her body were overplayed, but far from unrealistic. This is not uncommon in the 2020s for men or for women, to earn money from offering sexual services. We seem to be returning to the Victorian era, just being more open about it.

I'm pretty sure Clare's got oppositional defiant disorder. I agreed with her stance of refusing to obey her interfering boss's orders to make the facts of the young woman's case fit the narrative of danger and violence running rampant. The sacrificial victim chosen to take the blame is, Clare is sure, innocent; she gets busy using her investigative skills to ferret out the truth. It is, as expected, not related to the narrative she's been told to push.

There was a new guy in the mix for Clare, and for once, he wasn't a conflict of interest and super inappropriate for Clare to hook up with. I don't much like the emphasis the male author puts on his female character's sexuality, though the lack of the conflict of interest made me more willing to just...let it go.

Author Belsky is a very able, witty writer of sentences. I am less willing to engage with his sexual subject matter. Making it into a marker of crime, or into a professional quid pro quo, isn't a trope I enjoy reading too terribly much. I've got one more to read to be current on the series. Let's see how that one hits me.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

BROADCAST BLUES
R.G. BELSKY
Oceanview Publishing
$27.95 hardcover, available now

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Wendy Kyle took secrets to her grave— now, Clare Carlson is digging them up

New York City has no shortage of crime, making for a busy schedule for TV newswoman Clare Carlson. But not all crimes are created equal, and when an explosive planted in a car detonates and kills a woman, Clare knows it' ll be a huge story for her.

But it' s not only about the story— Clare also wants justice for the victim, Wendy Kyle. Wendy had sparked controversy as an NYPD officer, ultimately getting kicked off the force after making sexual harassment allegations and getting into a physical altercation with her boss. Then, she started a private investigations business, catering to women who suspected their husbands of cheating. Undoubtedly, Wendy had angered many people with her work, so the list of her suspected murderers is seemingly endless.

Despite the daunting investigation, Clare dives in headfirst. As she digs deeper, she attracts the attention of many rich and powerful people who will stop at nothing to keep her from breaking the truth about the death of Wendy Kyle— and exposing their personal secrets that Wendy took to her grave.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: No more; I'm tapping out. The way the victim was, yet again, involved in the negative side of a sex-linked industry...sleuthing for wives who want to catch their husbands cheating on them for an advantage during divorce proceedings...is not going to work for me.

Clare's a wildly opportunistic, abrasive person. That is fine with me, takes one to know one. What I find really hard to credit is that any corporate structure in today's world would harbor such a person in their senior ranks. Not because it's a bad way to be, but because routinely defying one's boss is not well tolerated in the C Suite.

At the end of the day I want to read about fictional sleuths who follow their own compasses believably enough that I don't have to remind myself that it's a novel too often. I really feel sad that I don't have that sensation in this series because the author is genuinely amusing, often enough laugh-out-loud funny. But the overemphasis on the negative uses of sex and the main character's apparent inability to use the sandpaper on her tongue to round off some of her spikier corners make this series just over the edge of my suspension of disbelief line.

Well, it was a darn good attempt for me. I wish it had worked better.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

THE CLARE CARLSON SERIES: THE LAST SCOOP & BEYOND THE HEADLINES

THE LAST SCOOP
R.G. BELSKY
Oceanview Publishing
$16.00 trade paper, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Martin Barlow was Clare Carlson’s first newspaper editor, a beloved mentor who inspired her career as a journalist. But, since retiring from his newspaper job, he had become a kind of pathetic figure—railing on about conspiracies, cover-ups, and other imaginary stories he was still working on. Clare had been too busy with her own career to pay much attention to him.

When Martin Barlow is killed on the street one night during an apparent mugging attempt gone bad, it seems like he was just an old man whose time had come. But Clare—initially out of a sense of guilt for ignoring her old friend and then because of her own journalistic instincts—begins looking into his last story idea. As she digs deeper and deeper into his secret files, she uncovers shocking evidence of a serial killer worse than Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, or any of the other infamous names in history. This really is the biggest story of Martin Barlow’s career—and Clare’s, too—as she uncovers the path leading to the decades-long killer of at least twenty young women.

All is not as it seems during Clare’s relentless search for this serial killer. Is she setting herself up to be his next victim?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Terrific first read in a series. It's book three in order, but it is my introduction to Clare and her media-centered world. Since I lived in Manhattan during the 1980s and all the 1990s, I love reading about that uniquely different world.

There are two strands to this story. Clare's early-days mentor, when she was cutting her jounalistic teeth in the newspaper business (making this kind of an historical novel, since that was rendered impossible early this century), has declined in mental health of late. She thinks, in common with others, that he's lost part of his mind because he's going on about conspiracies and cover-ups at great length...so Clare's done what she can to avoid him. It's not as cruel as it sounds, her job in the TV-news world of New York City really is consuming. She just...stops making time to see Marty.

This definitely rings true...happens all the time when someone has a high-powered position.

Thus we get that high-quality evergreen inciting event: Guilt and remorse over past behavior after someone dies. The senselessness of an older man of apparently diminishing capacities dying in a violent mugging is so utterly believable that I was pretty sure it would end up being a red herring.

Not at all. Author Belsky does a darn fine job of using it to motivate Clare to look into the wild and woolly world of Marty's carryings-on about the web of evildoing he's discovered. As she gets deeper and deeper into the material Marty's been trying to interest her in, she realizes...believably slowly and frustratingly incompletely...that he wasn't ranting about nothing but fantasies loosely based on coincidences. I admit I wanted to shout at her as she continued in her doubts. That, to me, means Author Belsky's doing a fine job of making me care about and invest in the story. For this reader, the fact that we're in first-person narration by Clare helps this investment.

The deeper Clare gets into this topsy-turvy world of power and corruption making devil's bargains, though, the more I came to think that I was missing something big about her character. When she uses a quid pro quo that, while I'm sure it's been tried before, would get a news director AND an FBI agent fired right quick by their respective employers, I realized that I wasn't buying in to Clare as a professional as fully as I would need to for this to be the next-level read it started out to be. Clare's deep personal issues aren't overly emphasized, but they're rather too neatly dovetailed into the dark, evil doings of some truly horrifying people.

The stakes ratchet up steadily as Marty's research unfolds in Clare's hands. Her skills as an investigative reporter are pretty well delineated. There are, I think inevitably given the problem I have outlined above, some credulity-straining convenient hurdle-collapsing events and coincidences. It's not the main thing I took away from the story, but I was aware that this was happening.

In the end, the *astoundingly* (but believably) heightened stakes of this investigation would have resulted in dire and condign consequences that don't happen here. I was glad to forget about that lapse, as I saw it, in authorial credibility because I really, really liked the way the story ended.

So on to the next one!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

BEYOND THE HEADLINES
R.G. BELSKY
Oceanview Publishing
$26.95 hardcover, available now

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: She was a mega-celebrity—he was a billionaire businessman—now he’s dead—she’s in jail

Laurie Bateman was living the American dream. Since her arrival as an infant in the U.S. after the fall of Saigon, the pretty Vietnamese girl had gone on to become a supermodel, a successful actress, and, finally, the wife of one of the country’s top corporate dealmakers. That dream has now turned into a nightmare when she is arrested for the murder of her wealthy husband.

New York City TV journalist Clare Carlson does an emotional jailhouse interview in which Bateman proclaims her innocence—and becomes a cause celebre for women’s rights groups around the country. At first sympathetic, then increasingly suspicious of Laurie Bateman and her story, Clare delves into a baffling mystery which has roots extending back nearly fifty years to the height of the Vietnam War.

Soon, there are more murders, more victims, and more questions as Clare struggles against dire evil forces to break the biggest story of her life. Beyond the Headlines is perfect for fans of Robert Crais and Harlan Coben.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The witty, sarcastic, self-destructive Clare Carlson is back. This time she's looking into a dead rich guy who, frankly, just needed killin' and no matter who did it they should get a severe chastisement and a ride home from the police. That would, however, make a boring story.

As with The Last Scoop (above) Clare is in no way reluctant to spread her...charms...far and wide to get dirt and details and help that she wouldn't otherwise come across. This was more of a problem for me on this second outing because it felt reductive to me. A woman in a powerful position, coming to the aid of a woman who seems to be wrongly accused of her dirtbag husband's murder, and using sex to accomplish lots of things she shouldn't be able to do, is problematic for me. Why make her out to be good at her job, show her being possessed of professional skills, then set her out as a serial sex-hound?

So there went that quarter star.

What *did* work for me was the investigation into accused husband-killer's past that resulted from a seeming slip of the tongue on her part. The way this book took on dark and ugly stuff from the US's past was very well-handled and integrated into the crime story. I was so involved in the whys and hows of the story that I could put aside my unhappy response to the overuse of Clare's sexuality.

I'm not so sure that will last, I must say...I hope Author Belsky will dial this back before the next book. Which I will definitely read.

WHERE DEMONS HIDE, or really "don't hide well enough to get away with it"

WHERE DEMONS HIDE (Rebecca Connolly #4)
DOUGLAS SKELTON
Arcade CrimeWise
$27.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Something scared Nuala Flaherty to death. When her body is found in the centre of a pentagram on a lonely moor, Rebecca is determined to find out what. Was she killed by supernatural means, or is there a more down-to-earth explanation?

Rebecca’s investigation leads her to a mysterious cult and local drug dealings. But what she doesn’t know is that crime matriarch Mo Burke still has her in her crosshairs. Mo wants payback for the death of her son, and after one failed attempt to hurt Rebecca, she is upping the ante. And this time, it could be lethal.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Back to Stoirm Island go we all as Rebecca gets drawn into another strange, outlandish murder's resolution. The reason I like these stories is that they offer such weird ways for people to die...with very down-to-Earth explanations that fit consensus reality down to the ground. This being how I experience the world...whatever's got weirdness wrapped around it is being obfuscated by someone for some reason...I'm down for another trip.

Nuala's death was so OTT that the author's hand seemed tipped too far from the start. As her sad little life's ending proves, some people just have no luck in this world. The Children of the Dell are clearly a cult, and Nuala should've kept away. Cults are dangerous. Always. "Don't get near them" is the only advice you need about dealing with cults. Run away if they come for you, and never get into it with cultists, or Trouble will follow. This equally applies to Rebecca, of course; the difference is, she's responsible for ending the profitable cult-like existence of Mo Burke's family's drug-dealing cult of loyalties fiercely held. Not all religions need the supernatural to exist powerfully in their followers' hearts.

Rebacca, understandably, isn't going back to Stoirm to look into stuff...Chaz and Alan getting married there puts them into position to be her eyes and ears. These two are a delight! Rebecca's weird, unsettling past on Stoirm isn't going to keep these boys from doing the needed work for her; it's not going to cow them into inactivity, despite the spooky overtones to so many things; it's not going to prevent them from being their fun, funny, in-love selves as they help their friend fix the broken thread of a taken life in the world's tapestry.

No matter that there are explantions for what happened to Nuala, and what's behind the scene set to distract from her death; Author Skelton makes Rebecca and her catspaws work for every clue and struggle to make sense of the remorselessness of greed and jealousy that propel narcissists to act with cruelty and finality. Revenge? They think it's Justice. Being Right is an addiction to the narcissistic people of the world. Rebecca, and Elspeth, like being right for better reasons: Resolving evil deeds done by powerful and power-hungry narcissists. The two of them, having suffered at those hands they now do their best to tie up in handcuffs, pursue the benign factual-correctness face of Being Right. Theire news-reporting business is dedicated to it. This is an agreeable dream to me, so I suspend my disbelief that independent news-gatherers in Inverness, Scotland, could do what they do without being squashed under lawsuits and calumnies and threats to their safety.

Fiction is a balm and a blessing for letting me have these fantasies of Ma'at being served so well. Douglas Skelton's talents for dialogue and character creation are, as expected, well used and effective throughout the read. The plot isn't without its issues. At times, Rebecca doesn't see things I've come to think she should until past the time they're obvious. This is usually handwaved away but it happens. Chaz and Alan are, as mentioned, very sweet togeher if just a touch overplayed. I don't mean as a gay couple...I mean as Rebecca's sleuths, at times, they seem to be taking their roles flippantly and playing up how cute they are. These are quibbles, not issues; the fact is that reasonable readers can and will read the same words I did and not see what I saw, so I'm not in any way downgrading the story.

What, as always with Author Skelton's stories, happens is clearly a result of Rebecca's, and Elspeth's, moral values: No matter what, who, or where they are, victimizers must be stopped and brought to punishment for their wrongdoing. Mystery series are always in service of ma'at. The Egyptian personification of Justice and balance and harmony and order and even law is the one whose remit includes protecting and aiding this kind of journalist/sleuth with a powerful moral compass. It makes the genre one I resonate with on a bone-deep level. Rebecca, and all the people she surrounds herself with, resonate to Justice's gonging vibrations. I love the way Author Skelton uses, sometimes almost too much and too often, the hints of something from the Beyond being on Rebecca's side. I believe there is a Rightess in the world that is tipped out of balance when someone is victimized. Finding, in Rebecca and her crew, others who have that feeling too makes these reads deeply satisfying.

This outing's no exception. The ending is very satisfying, and will leave my fellow series-loving readers happily anticipating more from Douglas Skelton.

New Review Extra for 19 April 2013: KILLED AT THE WHIM OF A HAT (Jimm Juree #1)

KILLED AT THE WHIM OF A HAT (Jimm Juree #1)
COLIN COTTERILL
Minotaur Books
$2.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A former crime reporter stuck in rural Thailand discovers a grizzly cold case in this "ebullient series kickoff" by the author of The Coroner's Lunch (Kirkus).

A former crime reporter with the Chiang Mai Daily Mail, Jimm Juree has moved with her eccentric family to a small fishing village on the Gulf of Siam. Stuck in this provincial backwater, she's convinced her days as a journalist are over—until a local palm oil farmer uncovers a long-buried Volkswagen on his property.

Two human skeletons, one wearing a hat, are found inside the van. Jimm is thrilled. Then a Buddhist monk is murdered at a nearby temple, and she finds herself facing a baffling and dangerous mystery. There are no suspects and no apparent motive—but plenty of odd connections to other brutal killings.

Suddenly, Jimm's new life is somewhat more promising and a lot more deadly. To unravel these inexplicable events, she'll need all of her skills, a lot of luck, and the help of her entire family.

I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

My Review: Jimm Juree, female crime reporter/editrix in waiting, leaves heavily urban and crime-ridden Chiang Mai, Thailand (ideal for her chosen trade, eh?), when her scatty, pre-dementia-sufferer mother (called "Mair" which means Mama throughout the book) decides to sell the family home and family shop and buy a ghastly little hole-in-the-wall "resort" in Thailand's Deep South...with all the freight that phrase implies in English fully intact here. With Mair and Jimm go Arny, the youngest of the family, a cliff of muscle and a mass of insecurities, as well as Granddad Jah, father of Mair and forty-year veteran of the Thai police whose inability to take bribes stalled his career at the level of Corporal.

Gettin' the set-up here? Mass of misfits go to be, collectively, fish out of water on the hot, humid Gulf of Siam coast. And what happens? As soon as the family gets there, Jimm gets involved in a weird discovery: Two skeletons in an ancient VW Kombi discovered at the bottom of a well-pit. What gives? We follow Jimm as she makes friends (sort of) with the local constabulary in pursuit of information on the who, what, when, how, and why of this utterly strange killing...murder...accidental death...suicide...? Who knows? But the editor Jimm so wanted to replace as soon as he dies buys the story.

Yay, right? Well...then comes a grisly horrible scary murder of an abbot sent from Buddhist HQ to investigate the possible salacious goins-on of the local abbot and his resident nun. Turns out they knew each other well in former lives...and someone is sure they're doin' the nasty even now, many many years later. When the HQ abbot turns up hideously slain, there is a curious radio silence...no news leaks...but Jimm, being steps away from the crime scene, hears all and sees much. She, with help from flaming queen Lieutenant Chompu, Granddad Jah, and a selection of interviewees at varying levels of helpfulness and relevance, puts all the pieces together. The guilty are, well, guilty, and known to be so; the ending is a bit of a let-down on some points. But end it does, and no one can not know justice is meant to be served.
This book and I have A History. The first copy I got was *shudder* bug-infested *shudder*, and was summarily heaved into the trash for the crime. Then a dear and warm-hearted fellow reader took pity on me and sent me her copy of the ARC. Now how kind is that? And when does the book arrive? Just as I'm beginning a nasty nasty bout of flu. So was I willing to cut the beginning of the book, which contains some unpleasant slights to the transgendered community, any slack? Why no! I was not! And then we are treated to some snark, a little sarcasm, and heaps of condescenscion. Oh, my, were we on the way to a flame-fest! I had my own vituperative darts and righteous flaming arrows all lined up, I did. I was even ready to give up and just not review it, since I hate to be nasty to authors who have spent blood, sweat, and tears on creating something to amuse thee and me. Seems churlish somehow.

Then came p349. I won't tell you what happens there. Suffice to know that the whole reason I was reading the book, ill temper and all, snapped into focus for me. I was left a little hollow by that stuffing-knocking-out. I was so very glad I'd kept going. It made a lot of things that ticked me off fall into perspective. It could for you, too...but, in the end, it's the characters that will make or break this book for readers, not necessarily the mystery. In this way, the book merits comparison to Mma Ramotswe's adventures retailed by Alexander McCall Smith. The setting of rural Thailand is certainly fresh and new to my jaded American eyes!

So. To recommend or not to recommend? I choose recommend, with one strong caveat: Open up *first* or the experience of change might slip past you. I'd hate to know that was the case.