From Publishers Weekly
Joyce Carol Oates's gripping third suspense novel under her Kelly pseudonym (after 2005's
The Stolen Heart) explores twisted love. Shy, insecure teenager Annemarie Straube becomes the object of intense scrutiny when she's discovered half-clothed and drugged, wandering through the woods. She and her aunt, Drewe Hildebrand, were apparently abducted by fundamentalist Christians who vandalized the older woman's Hudson River estate. Under police questioning, Annemarie has only fragmentary memories of the attack and of being force-fed a powder later determined to be crystal meth. Through flashbacks, Kelly portrays the odd relationship between Annemarie and Drewe and the bizarre assortment of cutting-edge artists who were part of their circle and who eventually emerge as the main suspects in the kidnapping. Since the heroine is the very definition of the proverbial unreliable narrator, piecing together subtle psychological clues to discover the truth will challenge most readers. Fans of Minette Walters and Ruth Rendell will be well pleased.
(May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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From Booklist
Presumably, Joyce Carol Oates uses pseudonyms to distinguish her suspense novels from her literary works, although her identity is always revealed when she writes as Rosamond Smith or Lauren Kelly. And while this is designated as a novel of suspense, it is an archetypal Oatesian tale narrated by a lonely and depressed young woman of straitened circumstances and hidden strengths uncomfortable with her sexuality and enthralled by an unsavory mentor. Drewe Hildebrand--chic, wealthy, and reckless--runs an artists' colony not far from the old Hudson River town of Newburgh that impresses New York City sophisticates and scandalizes the conservative locals. Drewe has taken charge of her destitute niece, Annemarie, renaming her Marta and attempting to transform this shy and balky teen into a sexy sidekick, seemingly with deviant intent. Certainly, there is menace in the air when Drewe takes up with a sculptor who creates such ghoulish works as a bust of Drewe covered in her own blood. After a near-riot breaks out at the opening of an exhibit of his grotesque creations, Drewe disappears and Marta is beaten and forced to consume a nearly lethal dose of crystal meth. Ultimately, the suspense is more intellectual than visceral in this fleet-footed, culturally astute, and teasingly ambiguous tale about sexual power, women and body image, class divisions, contemporary art and the rejection of beauty, and the nexus of the sacred and the profane. Oates by any other name is still Oates: smart, canny, haunted, and compelling.
Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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