Ren Richards, Viper

Ren Richards is the pen name of Lauren DeStefano, a US writer who has won much acclaim for her dystopian series of YA novels. This is her first stab at adult suspense and she’s stirred plenty of juicy ingredients into the pot boiler. It concerns Nell. She has won fame for her true crimes books in which she attempts to humanise the perpetrators (her last hit was about a woman who murdered all eight of her children). She receives a big advance for her latest book, which concerns a pair of Russian twins who were fostered by a US couple. One of them is in jail for murdering the other and Nell wants to get the inside track. But has she gotten too close to the case something for comfort? When her sister’s car is set alight it would appear so. Nell, herself, also has a past, which involves a missing child. Her child. Richards manages to keep plenty of plates spinning for an effective thriller that has a denouncement that really lingers.