Hell Hath No Fury

June 10, 2013
In this straightforward psychological thriller from romance author Harris (A Brighter Dawn), painfully shy Maureen Flynn is still struggling, 16 years after the crime, with the memories of having been sexually assaulted by classmates in the small English town of Benbury. Flynn is surprised but pleased to receive a proposal from Philip Harmer, the professor for whom she works as an assistant, but is shattered when Harmer withdraws his marriage offer after learning of her rape. Full of uncontrollable rage, she forms the perfect plan for revenge, and when a Benbury High School teacher is found viciously stabbed to death, the police are, quite literally, clueless. When a newsagent is killed in precisely the same manner, the pressure increases on Det. Insp. Ruth Morgan and her partner, Det. Sgt. Paddy Hardcastle, who sense the two murders are connected. Despite bland characterizations and a strong reliance on coincidence, the story engages throughout. Agent: Caroline Sheldon, Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency (U.K.).

May 15, 2013
Harris' latest, after A Brighter Dawn (2012), pits a recently assigned police team against a serial killer in an intense slice-of-life British police procedural. When Maureen Flynn's potential fianc' learns that she was raped as a teen, he is appalled and refuses to marry her. Maureen finally accesses her deeply buried memories and decides that it's time that her attackers pay for their sins. After the body of a history teacher is found, newly promoted Detective Inspector Ruth Morgan and Detective Sergeant Paddy Hardcastle, who thought he should have gotten Ruth's job, are assigned the grisly murder. They are frustrated by a lack of clues. That's because Maureen is a meticulous researcher and a thorough planner. With the second and third murders, the detectives come under the harsh scrutiny of their superiors and the press, while Maureen continues to be very, very careful. Readers will relish the detail and interplay of the characters in Harris' devilish tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)