Contemporary Authors

• The Captives ( novel) Ecco (New York, NY), 2018

1. The captives : a novel LCCN 2017056643 Type of material Book Personal name Immergut, Debra Jo, author. Main title The captives : a novel / Debra Jo Immergut. Edition First edition. Published/Produced New York : Ecco, [2018] Projected pub date 1806 Description 1 online resource. ISBN 9780062747563 () Item not available at the Library. Why not? 2. The captives : a novel LCCN 2017042689 Type of material Book Personal name Immergut, Debra Jo, author. Main title The captives : a novel / Debra Jo Immergut. Edition First edition. Published/Produced New York : Ecco, [2018] Projected pub date 1806 Description pages ; cm ISBN 9780062747549 (hardcover) Item not available at the Library. Why not?

• Private Property - 1992 Random House, Inc, New York City

• Debra Jo Immergut - https://debrajoimmergut.com/about/

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  debrajoimmergut.2Debra Jo Immergut is the author of The Captives, a novel forthcoming from Ecco/HarperCollins in June 2018, and Private Property, a short-story collection from Random House. She is a MacDowell and Michener fellow and has an MFA from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. A magazine editor and journalist, she has also taught writing in libraries, military bases, and prisons. Her literary work has been published in American Short Fiction, Narrative, and the Russian-language journal Foreign Literature. Her journalism has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, New York magazine, and many other places. She lives in western Massachusetts.

  twitter: @dimmergut

  greetings: dimmergut at gmail dot com

  rights inquiries: Soumeya Roberts — sroberts at hsg dot com

• Debra Jo Immergut - https://debrajoimmergut.com/the-captives-qa/

  QUOTE:
  my literary path is a wild and winding one. It’s been 26 years since Random House published my story collection, Private Property. After that, I wrote a novel that didn’t find a publisher. I was discouraged. Then life happened—marriage, motherhood, money woes, cubicle jobs. I kept writing too, in my cubicle when the boss wasn’t looking, in once-a-week writing groups. Some years, I walked away from it—being a working mom felt like more than enough. But the joy and challenge always lured me back.
  The cultural climate was beginning to heat up around issues of gender and justice, and I sensed the moment had come for this story.
  A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE CAPTIVES
  Can you talk about the interesting history to The Captives publication and your unusual journey as a published author?

  DJI: Yes, my literary path is a wild and winding one. It’s been 26 years since Random House published my story collection, Private Property. After that, I wrote a novel that didn’t find a publisher. I was discouraged. Then life happened—marriage, motherhood, money woes, cubicle jobs. I kept writing too, in my cubicle when the boss wasn’t looking, in once-a-week writing groups. Some years, I walked away from it—being a working mom felt like more than enough. But the joy and challenge always lured me back. I didn’t seriously pursue publication, though, until I was laid off from my magazine job in 2015. The cultural climate was beginning to heat up around issues of gender and justice, and I sensed the moment had come for this story. I spent a year heavily revising, infusing my prison novel with my deeper life experience, tightening the plot with the help of an amazing new agent and honing the language. Two days after my agent submitted it, it sold to Ecco/HarperCollins and then in almost a dozen countries. And I know without a doubt that I am a much stronger writer having a lot more road—and experience, reading, and writing—behind me.

  The Captives explores the tangled, dangerous bond that forms between Miranda, serving a long term for serious crimes, and Frank, her prison psychologist, who secretly recognizes her as his long-ago high school crush. What inspired this story?

  DJI: I think all old loves leave their traces on us. When friends reminisce about former romances, those stories always have an ending—comic or tragic. But if someone mentions an unrequited crush, the shift in energy is palpable. This sort of romance can truly linger in a kind of strange, eternal present. That was the genesis of The Captives: I started daydreaming about what might happen if one encountered a school-era object of desire in an extreme setting, where power and social dynamics were completely recalibrated—such as a prison.

  As I became increasingly interested in the prison setting, I began to think about how the story could offer a chance to shine a light on the lives of people who’ve been relegated to the very fringes of American society—as if they have nothing to offer. In fact, through teaching in correctional facilities, I’ve discovered that the opposite is true. Talking to people in prison, I’ve learned so much about choice, chance, redemption, how accidents of birth steer destiny—all key themes in this novel. There’s no other place where the workings of fate and justice—and injustice—are so starkly on display.

  As much as it is a literary psychological thriller, The Captives is also a story about female and male power. Can you talk about how that plays out in the novel?

  DJI: In a setting that is all about constraint and control—a correctional facility for women—the prison psychologist, Frank, clearly has the upper hand: he is a free man, in charge of his own destiny, backed by all the authority of the system and his own upbringing as the favored son of a renowned scientist. But though she’s locked down by the system—a woman who has all too often acquiesced to male control—Miranda also has power over Frank. As she gradually awakens to this reality, she plots a course toward self-determination. The dynamic is in constant flux, the balance flipping back and forth. And both of these souls are equally powerless against the personal demons that drive them.

  Both Miranda and Frank are offspring of accomplished men—her father was a one-term Congressman, his is the author of a famed psychological test. What’s behind that?

  DJI: Both characters are bedeviled by their upbringings, still feeling aftershocks even though they are into their thirties. And both of these fictive dads happen to have real-life antecedents. When I was very young, I lived in Iowa, right next door to the creator of the Iowa achievement tests, still widely used. I remember playing with his testing toys. Then we moved to the suburbs of Washington, DC, where I grew up around adults who worked as civil servants and lobbyists. Most kids are eagle-eyed when it comes to spotting hypocrisy, but in Washington, those observations were perhaps multi-layered: these grown-ups were tasked with serving the public, after all, but I often sensed them putting self-interest first. I wanted to explore all the moral ambiguity that seemed to swirl around that world.

  How did you first get interested in the lives of the incarcerated?

  DJI: The first incarcerated person I ever met was a woman I tutored in writing at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut in the mid 1990s. She’d been part of the last gasp of the radical leftist underground. She has some traits in common with my protagonist, Miranda—white, privileged, and serving a long term—and while she is not the model for my character, she certainly was my introduction into a realm that has grown exponentially since then–over 2 million people are now incarcerated in the U.S. I went on to write journalism about prison issues and now I’m teaching in a men’s prison.

  Did your journalism about prison particularly inform The Captives?

  DJI: The story that left the deepest impression was a piece I wrote for New York magazine about a summer camp at New York’s Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. The camp was run by a very diverse group of incarcerated women, and it was attended by their children. Seeing these women at work was profoundly moving and enlightening. The camaraderie between the women definitely shaped my portrayal of Miranda’s intense friendships at Milford Basin Prison, which I loosely based on Bedford Hills.

  Now you teach at a men’s prison in your home state of Massachusetts. What have you learned from these students?

  DJI: The essential lesson for me— from all my work in prisons— is that people are people. These incarcerated men are flawed, as are we all. They may suffer from depression or anxiety—as so many of us do. More often than not, I have found them to be smart, funny, winning, hungry to engage their brains. But so many of these guys have been shamefully short-changed by our public institutions. They’re typically nonviolent offenders under 25, come from the state’s worst school districts, and often seem to have undiagnosed learning disabilities. Even so, I’ve seen them show up to class eager to master fine points of punctuation, read Civil Disobedience and write about Schindler’s List.

  Is teaching in prison ever frightening?

  DJI: Entering can be a bit daunting at first—security is tight, with rules about what you can wear and carry, and those heavy steel doors really do slam shut and lock behind you as you make your way in. But I’ve witnessed only one moment of even mildly violent behavior: a conflict between two students flared during a donut break, and a stack of paper cups was overturned. These men live in stressful conditions on the units, and they seem to see the classroom as a refuge and a place to bend their minds toward something positive.

  What authors or books influenced the writing of The Captives?

  DJI: I am completely enamored of an attention-grabbing premise and a tightly wound plot, freighted with weighty ideas and dressed in gorgeous language. In my view, few authors do this better than Ian McEwan. He is a touchstone for me, and I had his work in mind as I wrote The Captives. For additional research on life inside the system, I turned to survival guides written by formerly incarcerated people—usually called something like “So You’re Going to Prison!” I also read prison memoirs. Soledad Brother by George Jackson is a collection of incredible, radical letters written from behind bars in the 1960s. For insights into a privileged woman locked up for a crime of passion, I read the memoirs of Jean Harris, convicted in 1981 of murdering her lover, the so-called Scarsdale Diet Doctor. She served time at Bedford Hills.

  What is next for you?

  DJI: I’m nearly finished with my second novel, which will also be published by Ecco and centers on a forty-something woman literally haunted by the specter of her younger self. I mix in some fun stuff like quantum physics and infidelity. I’m working hard to craft it with the most masterful versions I can muster of the ingredients I name above—premise, plot, ideas, language.

• Daily Hampshire Gazette - http://www.gazettenet.com/In-her-debut-novel-Debra-Jo-Immergut-pens-psychological-thriller-17850662

  QUOTE:
  I think the idea of the high school crush is just so relatable,” said Immergut. “In some ways, we all carry the person we were in high school, and that first love especially can shape you inside … [The story] is also about a male and female gender power struggle, within the confines of a women’s prison.”
  feels much more relevant today than it did when I began it.
  What follows is a study, in the alternating voices of Miranda (told in the third person) and Frank (first person), of two damaged characters who are both trying to make their way over uncertain ground. There’s also a steady uptick in the book’s page-turning factor, as the second half of the story ratchets up the tension and moves to a surprising conclusion, driven in part by Frank’s growing obsession to connect with his old crush.

  rts
  No longer a captive: Debra Jo Immergut’s long-awaited novel makes its debut

  Books by Immergut including her debut novel, “The Captives,” which has been named one of Glamour’s best books of summer and a “must-read” by Entertainment Weekly. GAZETTE STAFF/JERREY ROBERTS PHOTOS - Buy this Image

  Debra Jo Immergut’s debut novel, “The Captives,” is a psychological thriller set primarily in a prison. She’s seen here in her Northampton home. GAZETTE STAFF/ JERREY ROBERTS - Buy this Image

  Debra Jo Immergut’s debut novel, "The Captives" is a psychological thriller set primarily in a prison. She’s seen here in her Northampton home. GAZETTE STAFF/JERREY ROBERTS - Buy this Image

  Debra Jo Immergut’s debut novel, “The Captives,” is a psychological thriller set primarily in a prison. She’s seen here in her Northampton home. GAZETTE STAFF/JERREY ROBERTS - Buy this Image

  Debra Jo Immergut says she’s thrilled her debut novel, “The Captives,” is finally being published, given she began it in the 1990s. “The gestation period was plenty long,” she says. GAZETTE STAFF/JERREY ROBERTS - Buy this Image

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  By STEVE PFARRER
  Staff Writer
  Thursday, May 31, 2018
  2 0 Print
  PRISON THRILLER NOVEL THE CAPTIVES DEBRA JO IMMERGUT
  Back in the early 1990s, just a few years after she graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Debra Jo Immergut published a collection of short stories and then, like many a fiction writer, started working on a novel.

  That novel didn’t make the same headway and Immergut, then a young mother living in New York City, turned to magazine writing and editing for much of the next two decades.

  But Immergut, 54, now living in Northampton, never quite gave up on her novel — and after revisiting it three years ago and reworking it, she’s about to see “The Captives” published not just in the United States but in 11 other countries, including Great Britain, Germany, Brazil and China.

  And as she tries not to worry about what reviewers might say — the initial word has been good — Immergut says just seeing her book make it to print is satisfaction enough.

  “Equanimity is my mantra right now,” she said with a laugh during a recent interview in her home. “In a way, the happy ending has already happened by getting it published because I’ve been working on it for so long.”

  “The Captives,” by Ecco Press of New York, an imprint of HarperCollins, is a psychological thriller about a thirtysomething woman, Miranda Greene, who’s in prison in Westchester County, New York on a murder charge, and the prison psychologist, Frank Lundquist, assigned to work with her.

  At their first meeting, Frank instantly recognizes Miranda as the fellow high school student he once had a huge crush on — but rather than reassign the case, which he’s ethically required to do, Frank uses the opportunity to find out more about Miranda, who doesn’t recognize him, never having given him a second glance in high school.

  What follows is a study, in the alternating voices of Miranda (told in the third person) and Frank (first person), of two damaged characters who are both trying to make their way over uncertain ground. There’s also a steady uptick in the book’s page-turning factor, as the second half of the story ratchets up the tension and moves to a surprising conclusion, driven in part by Frank’s growing obsession to connect with his old crush.

  Miranda, the product of a conventional “good home,” despairs about the mess she’s made of her life, even as she tries to build on the friendships she’s forged with some of the other female prisoners; those friendships seem especially important to her now, given that her past relationships with men have ended in failure and a 50-year jail sentence.

  Frank, meanwhile, is trying to recover from a series of professional and personal failures, including a divorce, and his sense that he’s never escaped the shadow of his father, the developer of a famous children’s psychological and aptitude test. He seizes on his role as Miranda’s counselor both to relive the feelings he once had for her and as a chance to redeem his life by helping her — in ways that may put both of them at risk.

  “I think the idea of the high school crush is just so relatable,” said Immergut. “In some ways, we all carry the person we were in high school, and that first love especially can shape you inside … [The story] is also about a male and female gender power struggle, within the confines of a women’s prison.”

  With a nod to the #MeToo movement, Immergut added, “That’s something we’re grappling with right now, so in a way the book feels much more relevant today than it did when I began it.”

  ‘That’s how old it was’

  Immergut has written for a number of publications over the years — The Boston Globe, New York magazine, The Wall Street Journal — on issues such as design, criminal justice and parenting. With her husband, novelist and journalist/TV producer John Marks, and their son, Joe Marks (now 19), she moved to Northampton in 2005 to work at the former Family Fun magazine.

  When that magazine folded in 2015, Immergut used her severance package and a residency at the MacDowell Colony, an artists’ retreat in Peterborough, New Hampshire, to “go back and see if there was anything alive” in her earlier version of her novel. That was only after she had a friend with some technical expertise extract her manuscript from a floppy disk.

  “That’s how old it was,” she said with a laugh.

  To her delight, she found that the characters of Miranda and Frank still seemed quite viable but that the book “needed a better framework and an improved pace, a way to give it more energy.”

  She has provided that in part by relying on her experience writing about and working in the criminal justice system. At one point, she worked as a writing coach with a woman in a federal corrections center in Danbury, Connecticut, who was pursing an MFA in writing; that woman served as something of a template for the character of Miranda, Immergut notes.

  She also currently teaches writing once a week with male inmates at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction who are working toward their high school equivalencies.

  The scenes in the prisons and the characters there (which are composite portraits, Immergut says) feel particularly well drawn. Publishers Weekly, in a review of “The Captives,” says Immergut “expertly crafts the other characters in the story, including Frank’s younger junkie brother, Clyde, and several of Miranda’s fellow inmates, who all play an important part in the story’s surprising denouement.”

  Part of her interest in writing about these characters is her belief that incarcerated people need to be viewed not just as a monolithic bunch of bad apples, but as women and men who may have made bad choices or been caught up in difficult lives that have limited their options.

  “I’m a big believer in redemption,” Immergut said. “What I’ve found in working in corrections is that [inmates] are people like you and me. We all make mistakes, we all have flaws.”

  She’s also a big believer in the role fate can play in one’s life, which is why among a number of writers who have influenced her — Toni Morrison, Joan Didion, John le Carré — she singles out English novelist Ian McEwan (“Atonement,” Saturday,” “Enduring Love”), whose books are notable for plots in which a seemingly minor event becomes a catalyst for much more dramatic developments in people’s lives.

  “I’m very impressed by his work,” said Immergut. “He’s also a big believer in fate … He comes up with a sort of energy-packed premise and then lets that energy go, and it takes you on a very fast ride.”

  In building Miranda’s background story, Immergut has also tapped into some of her experience growing up. Miranda’s father is a former one-term congressman who becomes a lobbyist all too willing to make moral compromises. Immergut says she grew up primarily in the Washington, D.C. area, and though neither of her parents were involved in government or politics, many of their friends were; learning how backdoor deals got made, and how self-interest seemed to motivate many people, gave her a certain skepticism about government and people’s motivations, she says.

  “For the character of Miranda’s father, we knew someone who had a similar trajectory and went to prison for corruption,” she said. “That became a reference point for her. How would that close-up view of poor choices and dodgy morals kind of flow down into you and your being?”

  As she readies for a number of book readings this month, including in the Valley, Immergut also says she’s grateful for the ties she forged at Family Fun and in Northampton, saying being part of a group of writers and artists here “has really helped me bubble along as a writer and kept that creative spirit alive. I think that’s partly why my book is finally seeing the light of day.”

  Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.

  Debra Jo Immergut will read from “The Captives” on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Broadside Books in Northampton along with Valley novelist Edie Meidav. Immergut also appears at the Montague Book Mill August 2 with writer Kate Christensen and musician Johnny Irion. Her website is debrajoimmergut.com.

• Los Angeles Review of Books - https://lareviewofbooks.org/author-page/debra-jo-immergut/

  Debra Jo Immergut
  Debra Jo Immergut has been awarded a MacDowell Fellowship and a Michener Fellowship, and in 1992 she published the collection of short stories Private Property. Immergut has worked as a magazine editor and a journalist, and she has been a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe. She has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, has had work published in American Short Fiction and Narrative Magazine, and taught writing in a variety of locations, including libraries, military bases, and prisons.

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/debra-jo-immergut-33a60b12/

  Debra Jo Immergut
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  Greater Boston Area
  Message Send a message to Debra Jo Immergut More actions

  Print and Online Publications
  University of Michigan
  University of Michigan
  See contact info
  See contact info
  See connections (437)
  437 connections
  My areas of focus include design, architecture, and assorted good causes.

  This media is an image
  Wall Street Journal: Men & Kitchen Design
  Wall Street Journal: Men & Kitchen Design
  Highlights
  Experience
  Print and Online Publications
  Contributing Writer & Content Expert
  Company NamePrint and Online Publications
  Dates Employed2000 – 2017 Employment Duration17 yrs
  As a contributor, I've published articles about design and home for the Wall Street Journal, Dwell, the Boston Globe, and others. I've also served as a panel moderator at BKLYN Designs. Previously, I contributed technology and culture stories for the Leisure and Arts sections of the Wall Street Journal's U.S. and European editions.

  I also consult on marketing and strategy for stylish businesses large and small.

  Meredith Corporation
  Senior Editor, FamilyFun
  Company NameMeredith Corporation
  Dates EmployedJan 2012 – Aug 2015 Employment Duration3 yrs 8 mos
  With 2.1 million paid subscribers, FamilyFun is a leading media brand for American families. I served as the home-design editor, curating products and helping to produce interior and lifestyle content. I also edited and wrote long-form features, headlines, captions, blog posts, and online content. I worked intensively with writers as the editor of the magazine's first-person essay column. I was also a member of the social media team and oversaw the brand's contributions to Parents.com, one of top 10 most-visited parenting sites in the U.S.

  Disney Publishing Worldwide
  Senior Editor, FamilyFun
  Company NameDisney Publishing Worldwide
  Dates EmployedSep 2005 – Jan 2012 Employment Duration6 yrs 5 mos
  Under Disney ownership, I edited and wrote features, travel content, essays, and additional departments. I represented the brand on TV and radio segments and contributed to marketing initiatives.

  Meredith
  Features/Senior Editor, Parents Magazine
  Company NameMeredith
  Dates EmployedFeb 2004 – Aug 2005 Employment Duration1 yr 7 mos
  At the brand with a monthly reach of 14 million U.S. parents, I edited and wrote features on health challenges, parenting strategies, and social issues. I also oversaw departments devoted to child development and technology.

  Gruner + Jahr
  Editor in Chief, Parents.com
  Company NameGruner + Jahr
  Dates Employed2001 – 2004 Employment Duration3 yrs
  At Parents.com, I executed online strategy and directed operations for a content-rich site with an extremely active community and a customized weekly email program. I managed a 500K budget and team of four full-time staffers plus contract writers and designers, and directed a successful relaunch of previously underperforming website that resulted in a 400 percent increase in monthly unique visitors and a 69 percent increase in magazine subscriptions sold. I also launched a parent-to-parent online community that saw 1,000 percent growth year over year in active users.

  Education
  University of Michigan
  University of Michigan
  Degree NameBA Field Of StudyEnglish Literature Honors Program
  University of Iowa
  University of Iowa
  Degree NameMFA, Iowa Writers' Workshop Field Of StudyCreative Writing
  Radcliffe Publishing Course (now Columbia Publishing Course)
  Radcliffe Publishing Course (now Columbia Publishing Course)
  Degree NameProfessional Study
  Volunteer Experience
  Northampton Survival Center
  Food Pantry Volunteer
  Company NameNorthampton Survival Center
  Cause Poverty Alleviation

QUOTE:
the forward surge of the narrative
never slows, pulling the reader along for the ride.
Immergut (Private Property, 1992) has spun an interesting tale with fully realized characters whose ups and
downs are compelling, even if sometimes confusing.

6/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Print Marked Items
Immergut, Debra Jo: THE CAPTIVES
Kirkus Reviews.
(Apr. 1, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Immergut, Debra Jo THE CAPTIVES Ecco/HarperCollins (Adult Fiction) $26.99 6, 5 ISBN: 978-0-06-
274754-9
How far would you go for your high school crush?
Frank Lundquist, former test subject for his famous psychologist father and now, at 32, a well-established
psychologist himself, finds himself relegated to a position working at an upstate New York women's prison
after a series of professional and personal breakdowns. To his surprise, he finds that one of his new patients
is Miranda Greene, the girl he pined after in high school even though she didn't know his name. Ignoring his
moral obligation to assign Miranda to another counselor, Frank decides he will make it his mission to
support and "fix" her. Miranda has been through her share of ordeals, and she contemplates how she got to
her current situation as she makes friends with some of the other inmates. As Frank becomes more and
more obsessed with "helping" Miranda, the book speeds toward an unexpected finale which questions the
idea of right and wrong. The chapters alternate between Frank's chapters (in first-person) and Miranda's
chapters (in third), shedding light on their motivations and what's going on behind each of their facades.
They're each surrounded by interesting side characters, from Frank's little brother who's a junkie to
Miranda's ex-military prison friend, who deepen the world of the novel and add nuance to the main
characters. Frank and Miranda both have traumatic events in their pasts that have made them what they are
and haunt their every action, but though these events are built up, they're never fully explained, which
makes the characters' emotions hard to follow at times. Nevertheless, the forward surge of the narrative
never slows, pulling the reader along for the ride.
Immergut (Private Property, 1992) has spun an interesting tale with fully realized characters whose ups and
downs are compelling, even if sometimes confusing.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Immergut, Debra Jo: THE CAPTIVES." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2018. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532700563/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=7c7e8c9d.
Accessed 23 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A532700563
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QUOTE:
Immergut burrows inside the heads of her two main characters to
dramatize their distinctive pathologies.
Immergut's book begins as in incisive psychological portrait of
two mismatched individuals and morphs into a nail-biting thriller.
The Captives
Publishers Weekly.
265.14 (Apr. 2, 2018): p40.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Captives
Debra Jo Immergut. Ecco, $26.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-06-274754-9
Orange Is the New Black meets Gone Girl in this ingenious psychological thriller from Immergut (Private
Property). Frank Lundquist, a counselor at the Milford Basin Correctional Facility, has just received a new
patient, Miranda Greene, who is serving a 52-year sentence for second-degree murder. It's an ethical
dilemma for Frank, who immediately recognizes Miranda as the golden girl who, because he had a crush on
her, haunted his high school years. But Miranda doesn't seem to recognize Frank, and after she ends up in
the hospital following a failed suicide attempt, Frank hatches a daring scheme to help his former classmate.
What follows is a prolonged sequence filled with suspense and irony. Told in alternating chapters from
Frank and Miranda's points of view, Immergut burrows inside the heads of her two main characters to
dramatize their distinctive pathologies. She also expertly crafts the other characters in the story, including
Frank's younger junkie brother, Clyde, and several of Miranda's fellow inmates, who all play an important
part in the story's surprising denouement. Immergut's book begins as in incisive psychological portrait of
two mismatched individuals and morphs into a nail-biting thriller. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Captives." Publishers Weekly, 2 Apr. 2018, p. 40. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A533555578/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=c78e8530.
Accessed 23 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A533555578
6/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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QUOTE:
as carefully built a recognizably literary apparatus in each of her debut collection's 10
stories, the machine never quite kicks into motion.
Immergut's apparent
lack of emotional involvement with her characters makes her stories, and the effects she strives for in them,
less than genuine.

Private Property
Publishers Weekly.
239.36 (Aug. 10, 1992): p55.
COPYRIGHT 1992 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Debra Jo Immergut. Turtle Bay, $20 ISBN 0-394-58624-7
Although Immergut has carefully built a recognizably literary apparatus in each of her debut collection's 10
stories, the machine never quite kicks into motion. The characters--ordinary men, women and children of
middle-class America--find themselves in potentially fertile, decidely contemporary situations. The narrator
of "Tension" loses control and strikes his wife for the first time in their apparently happy marriage; she
exacts revenge by demanding plastic surgery on nearly every area of her body. In "Frozen Niagara," the
protagonist forges a relationship with a sibling whose life is out of control, but she cannot prevent his
bravura farewell. And in "The Number of My Heart," a young woman's loneliness is brought into sharp
focus when, while on the job as the only park ranger posted at Fort Stevens in Washington, D.C., she
sentimentally provides a hideout for a man on the run. But nothing much comes of these promising
scenarios, and the reader feels just as distant from the characters as they do from one another, and like them
despairs of finding any connection. One can appreciate her conscientious craftsmanship as Immergut tries to
highlight an ostensibly offhand image (such as a woman being videotaped as she floats around in a pool)
that is clearly meant to resonate beyond the page. But despite her technical facility, Immergut's apparent
lack of emotional involvement with her characters makes her stories, and the effects she strives for in them,
less than genuine. (Sept.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Private Property." Publishers Weekly, 10 Aug. 1992, p. 55. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A12504742/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=cc5bec98.
Accessed 23 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A12504742
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QUOTE:
slow burn but definitely worth the
wait.

mystery & suspense
Library Journal.
143.10 (June 2018): p59+.
COPYRIGHT 2018 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No
redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Barclay, Linwood. A Noise Downstairs. HarperCollins. Jul. 2018. 368p. ISBN 9780062678256. $26.99;
ebk. ISBN 9780062678270. THRILLER
Two murders, one witness, a brutal assault, and a possessed vintage typewriter. Barclay (No Time for
Goodbye) expertly weaves these details into a tantalizing psychological thriller. College professor Paul
Davis is trying to help a friend when he stumbles onto the scene of a double murder. Eight months later, still
recovering from the injuries inflicted on that fearful night, he wonders if he's gone insane. After all, he
doesn't even remember conversations with his wife, Charlotte, who's been much more loving since the
accident. When Paul decides to confront his fears by researching the man who brutally attacked him,
Charlotte buys him a vintage typewriter to write about his feelings. His therapist Anna White isn't sure
Paul's plan is a good idea but supports him anyway. As days pass, Paul's anxiety goes into overdrive. He
now hears noises in the night and is convinced the murdered women are trying to contact him. Charlotte is
as certain that he's either delusional or blacking out, while Anna doesn't know what to believe. At what
point does a person know for sure they've lost their mind? VERDICT Prepared to be blindsided by an
ending you didn't see coming. Barclay's nerve-wracking tale will have readers scared to close their eyes at
night. [See Prepub Alert, 1/22/18.]--K.L. Romo, Duncanville, TX
Black, Cara. Murder on the Left Bank. Soho Crime. (Aimee Leduc, Bk. 18). Jun. 2018. 288p. ISBN
9781616959272. $27.95; ebk. ISBN 9781616959289. M
Next in Black's always entertaining 'Aimee Leduc" series (after Murder in Saint-Germain), this well-crafted
mystery is set on Paris's Left Bank, though not the chic environs of the fifth through seventh
arrondissements; one of Black's strengths is showing us the grittier, everyday Paris. When 13tharrondissement
lawyer Eric Besson receives a notebook from elderly accountant Leo Solomon detailing
how he laundered dirty money for dirty cops, Besson quickly sends it to the authorities via his
assistant/nephew Marcus. But Marcus has been murdered, the notebook has vanished, and for help Besson
turns to Aimee, best friend of his second cousin. Though she's doing computer security work for the
Bibliotheque Francois-Mitter and is warned by an especially huffy partner Rene to stay away from criminal
cases, Aimee must investigate; Eric says that her father, a victim of police corruption, is mentioned in the
book. Aimee leapfrogs from Paris's Cambodian neighborhood, where Marcus's girlfriend lives, to La
Manufacture des Gobelins, where Leo worked and tapestries are still made in the medieval fashion. Her
efforts put daughter Chloe in danger, upping the tension, and the surprise ending is especially satisfying.
VERDICT Another great Aimee Leduc work; for all mystery fans. [See Prepub Alert, 12/8/17.]--
Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
Bolton, Sharon. The Craftsman. Minotaur: St. Martin's. Oct. 2018. 432p. ISBN 9781250300034. $27.99;
ebk. ISBN 9781250300041. THRILLER
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Many of Bolton's (Dead Woman Walking) previous books have alluded to the dark folklore of the author's
native northern England, but it's front and center in this latest stand-alone novel, which was inspired by the
1612 trials of the Pendle witches, among the most famous in English history. In 1999, Florence Lovelady is
attending the burial of notorious child murderer Larry Glassbrook--solving those crimes made her career
three decades earlier--when she finds a clay effigy like the ones discovered with Glassbrook's victims, and
it's definitely not 30 years old. The main story line, set in 1969, follows the original investigation as
Lovelady copes with misogyny on the job and enlists the help of a local coven of witches to find the
murderer, despite being suspicious of their power. There are rumors of another, secret coven though, one
with much darker intent. Back in 1999, Lovelady is grappling with the implications of the new effigy when
her own son goes missing and the stakes increase dramatically. VERDICT Recommend to fans of the
author's previous work or other British female sleuths. Readers who were delighted by the big twist at the
end of Sarah Pinborough's Behind Her Eyes will similarly enjoy the final few pages here. [See Prepub
Alert, 4/23/18.]--Stephanie Klose, Library Journal
* Bowen, Rhys. Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding. Berkley. (Royal Spyness, Bk. 12). Aug. 2018. 304p.
ISBN 9780425283523. $26; ebk. ISBN 9780698410268. M
Whether channeling her great-grandmother Queen Victoria or exclaiming "golly" when faced with a
quandary, Lady Georgiana Rannough rises above her circumstances like a meringue. In her 12th adventure
(after On Her Majesty's Frightfully Secret Service), the still penniless aristocrat is planning her wedding to
the dashing but equally impoverished Darcy O'Mara. Fortunately, friends and family are helping out with
the preparations. Georgina is offered a staffed country estate to make her new home by her globe-trotting
former stepfather only to find the faithful retainers of her youth have been replaced by unlikely and
uncooperative servants--one of whom even turned on the gas tap in her bedroom. Was this an accident or an
attempt on her life? Georgina senses trouble is afoot and investigates. VERDICT Those who cannot get
enough of royal weddings will be charmed, as will Anglophiles, and anyone who loves a solid mystery.
Fans of the genre will savor this gentle, humorous read. [See Prepub Alert, 2/11/18.]-Cheryl Bryan, Orleans,
MA
Brown, Eric. Murder Takes a Turn. Severn House. (Langham & Dupre, Bk. 5). Jul. 2018. 208p. ISBN
9780727887818. $28.99; ebk. ISBN 9781780109596. M
When Charles Elder receives an invitation from his childhood friend, now best-selling author Denbigh
Connaught, asking him to come to his house in Cornwall so he can apologize for the past, Charles is
devastated. He confides in his business partner, literary agent Maria Dupre, who agrees to accompany him
with her husband, Donald Langham, an author and part-time private detective. The reclusive Denbigh,
dislikable as ever, shuts himself up in his study, and to no one's surprise is found murdered. Of the guests
invited to Connaught House, only Maria and Donald lack a motive, so Donald urges an old friend from
Scotland Yard to take the case. VERDICT Despite a few cliches, this latest series outing, set in the 1950s
(after Murder Take Three), offers an entertaining locked-room mystery with an ingenious murder device
that will appeal to fans of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and other Golden Age crime fiction.--Lesa
Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN
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Carter, Ali. A Brush with Death. Point Blank. (Susie Mahl, Bk. 1). Jul. 2018. 320p. ISBN 9781786072764.
pap. $14.99; ebk. ISBN 9781786072771. M
DEBUT Susie Mahl's popularity as a pet portraitist means she's welcome at the homes of rich British
landowners. She's staying in the village of Spire, when wealthy Alexander, Earl of Greengrass, is found
dead in the church's graveyard. Alexander's widow, Diana, asks Susie to stay with her while they await the
cause of death, and shockingly the police announce that the 75-year-old man was murdered. Susie's
convinced she'll solve the case with the combination of her obsessive observation skills and her "nosy
parker instincts." VERDICT As a contemporary homage to British Golden Age mysteries, this slow-paced
debut mystery has an old-fashioned air; its rich details on the British leisure class may interest fans of
Downton Abbey and G.M. Malliet's "Max Tudor" mysteries, but the egocentric amateur sleuth's fixation on
her French lingerie seems out of place.-Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN
Davis, Lindsey. Pandora's Boy. Minotaur: St. Martin's. (Flavia Albia, Bk. 6). Jul. 2018. 400p. ISBN
9781250152688. $26.99; ebk. ISBN 9781250152695. M
In the sixth installment (after The Third Nero) of Davis's "Flavia Albia" series, set in first-century CE
Rome, a 15-year-old girl has died mysteriously in her bed. Was she poisoned by a love potion? Suspects
include a group of entitled, vacuous young adults and their parents, and a local witch named Pandora, who
has ties to one of the most dangerous gangs in the city. Albia seeks to determine how the child died while
not attracting the wrath of the gang; at the same time, she is also searching for her husband, who has
disappeared for reasons unknown. The always reliable Davis has written another compelling mystery
conveying a vividly detailed ancient Rome, with characters who possess unique personalities and come
from all walks of life. VERDICT A treat for fans of historical fiction or detective mysteries, who will want
to read all the titles published by Davis. [See Prepub Alert, 1/8/18.]-Matt Schirano, Univ. of Bridgeport
Lib., CT
* Dyer, Ashley. Splinter in the Blood. Morrow. Jun. 2018. 400p. ISBN 9780062797674. $26.99; ebk. ISBN
9780062797711. THRILLER
The Thorn Killer is a serial murderer who, before killing five victims, methodically tattooed them with
ancient symbols of plants and eyes. Forensic analysis reveals that the tattoos were created by using a variety
of thorns, especially the deadly Pyracantha, with inks containing botanical poisons that seep into the
victims' blood. Obvious links among the dead are tenuous. Senior detective Greg Carver has slipped into
obsession over the case, exacerbated by heavy drinking. When yet another body turns up, it is unclear
whether she was a victim of the Thorn Killer or Carver. So why, when Carver's sergeant, Ruth Lake, finds
her boss at home, shot and dying, does she clean up the crime scene and remove vital evidence? In this
debut by Dyer (the new writing partnership of CWA Dagger Award--winning writer Margaret Murphy and
Helen Pepper, a senior lecturer in policing), nothing is as it seems, and the landscape is littered with secrets.
VERDICT Superbly written characters, imaginative dialog, and a convincing plot will captivate suspense
fans, especially aficionados of Val McDermid and Ann Cleeves, leaving readers hoping to meet Carver and
Lake again in the future. [See Prepub Alert, 12/11/17.]-Penelope J.M. Klein, Fayetteville, NY
Gould, Howard Michael. Last Looks. Dutton. Aug. 2018. 304p. ISBN 9781524742492. $26; ebk. ISBN
9781524742515. M
DEBUT Consumed by guilt at a wrongful conviction in one of his cases, LAPD detective Charlie Waldo
resigns and retreats to isolation in a tiny cabin in the woods. He becomes an ultraconservationist, limiting
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possessions to "100 things." Yet, when ex-girlfriend Lorena appeals for his help in saving Alistair Pinch, a
famous movie actor accused of murdering his third wife, Charlie is lured back into society--specifically
Hollywood. He is warned off by hoodlums, by Don Q., a drug lord, and by his former police colleagues.
Lorena apparently is killed in a hit-and-run accident and Don Q. relentlessly and viciously seeks a memory
device Charlie doesn't have. Torn between his cop training and instincts vs. his moral ecological position, he
ultimately finds himself in a shoot-out on a Hollywood set. VERDICT Gould's experience as a film and TV
writer and producer is evident in this well-written first novel that manages to focus on environmental
concerns while spoofing Hollywood cliches with a nod toward classic American detective fiction. Charlie
Waldo would do well on the big screen--he does very well here. [See Prepub Alert, 2/11/18.]-Roland
Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
* Harrison, Cora. Death of a Novice. Severn House. (Reverend Mother, Bk. 5). Jul. 2018. 240p. ISBN
9780727887832. $28.99; ebk. ISBN 9781780109619. M
In the 1920s, the city of Cork is still torn between the Irish rebels and those who have accepted the AngloIrish
Treaty that divided the island between British-ruled Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State. Eileen
MacSweeney, who has moved on, can still be coerced into helping Sinn Fein. However, the death of a
novice at St. Mary's of the Isle Convent brings Eileen to Reverend Mother. Eileen knows two other young
novices who served as messengers for Sinn Fein. She and Reverend Mother wonder if Sister Gertrude was
killed for political reasons. Or were the small jealousies and secrets at the convent enough to lead to
murder? With a strong sense of place, this intricately plotted novel leads to an unexpected but logical
denouement. VERDICT Harrison's fifth engrossing historical mystery (following A Gruesome Discovery)
brings to life the turbulence and politics of 1920s Ireland. Reverend Mother will appeal to admirers of Ellis
Peters's "Brother Cadfael" mysteries, while Conor Brady's fans will appreciate the Irish history.--Lesa
Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN
Hetherton, J.G. Last Girl Gone. Crooked Lane. (Laura Chambers, Bk. 1). Jun. 2018. 320p. ISBN
9781683316176. $26.99; ebk. ISBN 9781683316183. M
DEBUT Fired from her job as an investigative reporter at a Boston newspaper, Laura Chambers reluctantly
takes a position at the local paper in her hometown of Hillsborough, NC. The story of a missing ten-yearold
local girl found dead could be her ticket out, but Laura's competing with the mayor's son for newspaper
space, sleeping with a source in the sheriff's department, and living with her verbally abusive mother. Then
an FBI agent pushes her to look into a 30-year-old cold case involving other missing ten-year-old girls.
Agent Timiniski refers to Laura as tenacious but naive. Those traits drive her to find a killer, making her a
target for ridicule--and attracting the attention of a murderer. Her investigative efforts intensify in a
shocking finale. VERDICT The socially awkward but tenacious Laura, determined to succeed and
overcome her past failures, is a memorable protagonist in this compelling debut mystery. Fans of James
Ziskin's Ellie Stone will welcome this ambitious investigative reporter.-Lesa Holstine, Evansville
Vanderburgh P.L., IN
Hirsch, Paddy. The Devil's Half Mile. Forge. Jun. 2018. 304p. ISBN 9780765399137. $24.99; ebk. ISBN
9780765399151. M
DEBUT Speculation and sex on Wall Street may sound like a current headline, but Hirsch's first novel
places those chancy activities back in 1799. Justice Flanagan, armed with a law degree and other skills
picked up during his time in Ireland and Paris, has returned to Manhattan to find out why his father's death
was declared a suicide when the evidence suggests murder. His uncle, the boss of the docks, may be
involved, but somehow the trail always leads back to the traders at the Tontine Coffee House, precursor of
today's New York Stock Exchange. The bodies of "bobtails" (prostitutes) and associates of his father litter
Justy's progression through the city as he seeks answers and retribution. One potential villain intimates that
personages such as Alexander Hamilton and John Adams could be caught up in some grand financial
scheme, in which the elder Flanagan was just a pawn. In the end, Justy has to decide between justice and
causing the next American financial panic. VERDICT Loads of period atmosphere and slang (a glossary is
included) propel this series-potential story through alleys and plenty of twists, making it a solid choice for
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historical fiction buffs and lovers of political plots. [Previewed in Lisa Levy's "Crime Fiction's 'Girl
Power,'" LJ 4/15/18.]--W. Keith McCoy, Somerset Cty. Lib. Syst., Bridgewater, NJ
Hogsett, Annie. Murder to the Metal. Poisoned Pen. (Somebody's Bound To Wind Up Dead, Bk. 2). Jun.
2018. 318p. ISBN 9781464209994. pap. $15.95; ebk. ISBN 9781464210006. M
Ten months after their adventures in Too Lucky To Live, Allie Harper and boyfriend Thomas Bennington
III, a blind professor who won the lottery, have formed the T&A Detective Agency to solve "mysteries of
the heart." Their first case involves the disappearance of Lloyd Bunker, whose car is found stalled at a
traffic light. Clues lead to crimes of stealing scrapping from abandoned houses, multiple murders, and
hackers who seem to be able to penetrate any security. VERDICT Hogsett's sophomore effort isn't as
outrageously funny as the first book. The bittersweet mystery, with the open-ended threat of a villainous
mastermind, is reminiscent of P.J. Tracy's early "Monkeewrench" novels.-Lesa Holstine, Evansville
Vanderburgh P.L., IN
Immergut, Debra Jo. The Captives. Ecco: HarperCollins. Jun. 2018. 288p. ISBN 9780062747549. $26.99;
ebk. ISBN 9780062747563. THRILLER
DEBUT When this novel opens, thirtyish psychologist Frank Lundquist is still reeling from having been
fired from his private practice job in tony Manhattan and divorced by his wife. Miranda was a young teen
when she lost her older sister in a tragic accident. Never fully recuperating from this shock, she continued
through life with a "so what" attitude, leading her to make poor decisions and regrettable actions, jolting her
transformation from the high-society daughter of a politician to a murderer sentenced to 50 years. Working
as a psychologist at a woman's prison, Frank never expects to know personally any of the inmates, but as
soon as Miranda walks into his office, he recognizes her as the popular girl he had a crush on in high
school. When Miranda doesn't recall him, Frank decides not to unveil their shared past, even though he
knows it's unethical, and continues to treat her, then falls for her all over again. VERDICT Obsession and
control are the main themes driving the characters toward the surprising but satisfying conclusion of this
compelling debut thriller from Immergut (Private Property: Stories). It's a slow burn but definitely worth the
wait.-Marianne Fitzgerald, Severna Park H.S., MD
Kamal, Sheena. It All Falls Down. HarperCollins. Jul. 2018. 336p. ISBN 9780062565778. $26.99; ebk.
ISBN 9780062565785. M
Having found the daughter she gave up for adoption in The Lost Ones, Nora Watts now turns to the
question of her father, who killed himself when she was a child. Her investigation takes her from
Vancouver, BC, to Detroit, where he grew up as one of numerous Canadian native children adopted by
American families. There she uncovers not only the mystery of her father's death but also questions about
her mother, whom she never knew. Back in Vancouver, investigator Jon Brazuca agrees to look into the
overdose of a billionaire's pregnant mistress. It's no surprise that the two cases share a connection--nor is it a
shock that Watts and Brazuca continue to deny their feelings for each other. Touching on many weighty
subjects, such as the opioid crisis, the adoption of Canadian indigenous children, and Detroit's deterioration,
the story moves briskly. While enough background is given to help new readers, this title appears to be the
middle installment of a possible trilogy, leaving those who haven't read the first book missing out on its full
impact. VERDICT Mystery fans who enjoy their crime fiction headed by strong, cynical heroines will
appreciate this, but they should start first with The Lost Ones. [See Prepub Alert, 1/22/18.]-Julie Elliott,
Indiana Univ. Lib., South Bend
Klehfoth, Elizabeth. All These Beautiful Strangers. HarperCollins. Jul. 2018. 448p. ISBN 9780062796707.
$26.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062796721. SUSPENSE
DEBUT Charlie Calloway comes from a well-to-do family with a mysterious past. Her mother vanished
when Charlie was seven, and while the details are unclear, everyone--including Charlie's father--assumes
Grace simply picked up and left, though Charlie has trouble believing her mother would abandon her. Ten
years later, 17-year-old Charlie receives an invitation to join the A's, an exclusive and secretive club made
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up of popular students from her New England private school. To join this club, however, she must pass a
series of questionable tests that challenge her moral compass, though Charlie's budding interest in Dalton, a
club member with an unsavory reputation, keeps her motivated to succeed. Along the way, Charlie
continues to hunt for answers surrounding her mother's disappearance, and while she starts to discover more
about herself in the process, she stumbles upon dark secrets that hit close to home. VERDICT A worthy,
page-turning debut that will keep readers guessing until the end. Readers of Liane Moriarty and
psychological thrillers will not want to put this down.--David Miller, Farmville P.L., NC
Lunney, Tessa. April in Paris, 1921. Pegasus Crime. (Kiki Button, Bk. 1). Jul. 2018. 304p. ISBN
9781681777757. $25.95; ebk. ISBN 9781681778334. M
DEBUT After working as a nurse during the Great War, Kiki Button, the daughter of a wealthy Australian
landowner, is back in Europe. She's a gossip columnist, drinking, partying, and sleeping her way around
postwar Paris. Then, two men call in favors. Picasso, for whom Kiki had modeled, asks her to find a stolen
portrait of his wife. And Dr. Fox, the British surgeon who recruited Kiki as a spy during the war, gives her
an assignment. There's a mole involved with the Germans, someone who threatens British interests. Kiki's
on a timetable to expose the mole, or her childhood friend will be accused of treason. The true mystery
about this debut is why it's called a mystery at all. It's an atmospheric, verbose historical novel that
foreshadows the next war while reveling in the debauched bohemianism of Paris between the wars.
Although Kiki plays detective and spy, the emphasis here is on her party-girl lifestyle; spying is just part of
the excitement. VERDICT Mystery fans may prefer Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher or Kelli Stanley's
Miranda Corbie as a detective. [Previewed in Lisa Levy's "Crime Fiction's 'Girl Power,'" LJ 4/15/18.]-Lesa
Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN
* McTiernan, Dervla. The Ruin. Penguin. Jul. 2018. 400p. ISBN 9780143133124. pap. $16; ebk. ISBN
9780525504894. M
DEBUT Maude and Jack Blake's mother died of a heroin overdose in 1993. Twenty years later, the
detective who investigated the death, Cormac Reilly, is reintroduced to the siblings' case because of Jack's
suicide and Maude's suspicious behavior. Aisling Conroy, a medical resident and Jack's partner, does not
believe Jack killed himself; she takes it upon herself, with urging from Maude, to find out what really
happened. As secrets from Jack's past are uncovered, Cormac learns that his original case is connected to a
tangled web of other crimes as well. Rich characterization is revealed through the alternating points of view
from Cormac, Aisling, and eventually Maude; there is also a strong sense of place as the characters weave
through the often rainy Irish landscape. VERDICT With police drama reminiscent of Tana French's "Dublin
Murder Squad" series and parallels to the close-to-home, quieter suspense of Ruth Ware's The Tying Game,
McTiernan pens an intricate story of impossible decisions, family bonds, and police politics. Avid mystery
readers will be enthralled with this intricate, mysterious, and edgy debut.-Natalie Browning, Longwood
Univ. Lib., Farmville, VA
Slaughter, Karin. Pieces of Her. HarperCollins. Aug. 2018. 480p. ISBN 9780062430274. $27.99; ebk. ISBN
9780062430298. THRILLER
The latest stand-alone thriller from Edgar Award nominee Slaughter (Cop Town; The Good Daughter)
introduces Andrea Cooper, a college grad living in New York City, working three part-time jobs and sitting
on a mound of college debt. When her mother, Laura, is diagnosed with breast cancer, Andrea returns to the
beach town of Belle Isle to care for her. While visiting a local mall, Andrea and Laura get caught up in a
fatal shooting, revealing a side to Laura that Andrea has never before witnessed. Twenty-four hours later,
Laura is in the hospital, wounded by an intruder who has spent 30 years trying to track her down. As secrets
are uncovered and exposed, Andrea starts to wonder if everything she thought she knew about her life has
been a fabrication. VERDICT With an intrigue- and suspense-filled plot, Slaughter's well-crafted, tense, and
exhilarating story will keep readers on the edge of their seats. [See Prepub Alert, 1/22/18.]--Joni Gheen,
Lady J's Bookish Nook, McConnelsville, OH
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Ziskin, James W. A Stone's Throw. Seventh St: Prometheus. (Ellie Stone, Bk. 6). Jun. 2018. 288p. ISBN
9781633884199. pap. $15.95; ebk. ISBN 9781633884205. M
Newspaper reporter Ellie Stone watches when the barn at Tempesta, the abandoned horse stud farm, burns
to the ground. Afterward, she's allowed to check out the remains of the building, only to encounter two dead
bodies. While the original guess is they were a woman and an adolescent, Ellie questions whether the
smaller one may have been a jockey, connecting the murder with the nearby Saratoga race track. Ellie's
investigation leads her to the world of horse racing, gambling, and WASP high society. It's a news story that
will stir up rumors from the past while revealing truths in Ellie's own heartbreaking life. The award-winning
author of Heart of Stone combines the atmospheric environment of small-town newspaper journalism with
the horse racing world of 1962. The lonely, well-developed Ellie is the conscience of this cinematic story
that has a strong sense of place but in which the characters shine most. Aware of her weakness for men and
drink, the complex and courageous Ellie skillfully uses others' shortcomings and strengths to her advantage
as a reporter. VERDICT Richly detailed, with strong appeal for Ziskin's fans as well as admirers of Dick
and Felix Francis.-Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN
COZY CORNER
Carlisle, Kate. Buried in Books. Berkley Prime Crime. (Bibliophile Mystery, Bk. 12). Jun. 2018. 288p.
ISBN 9780451477743. $25; ebk. ISBN 9780698411128. M
The 12th entry in Carlisle's bookish cozy series (Once Upon a Spine) finds book restorer Brooklyn
Wainwright days away from her wedding to hunky Derek Stone. She has everything under control until her
mother surprises her with a bridal shower. The surprises keep coming when Brooklyn discovers her mother
invited her two best friends from college. For 12 years, Heather and Sara have been estranged, ever since
Sara stole Heather's boyfriend. After a rocky start, Brooklyn manages to avert a crisis when the two appear
reconciled. But when Brooklyn discovers Sara's body crushed beneath crates of books, Heather zooms to
the top of the suspect list. Also, it turns out that Sara's wedding gift, a rare copy of The Three Musketeers, is
actually a forgery. Now to ensure their wedding day ends in happy-ever-after, Brooklyn and Derek must
follow the clues they hope will lead them to a killer. VERDICT Carlisle does a great job of evoking life in
San Francisco through a delightful cast of quirky characters. Her usual blend of humor and mystery will
draw in both new and longtime readers. Recommended for admirers of Jenn McKinlay, Lorna Barrett, and
Joan Hess.-Julie Ciccarelli, Tacoma P.L., WA
Connolly, Sheila. Murder at the Mansion. Minotaur: St. Martin's. (Victorian Village, Bk. 1). Jun. 2018.
304p. ISBN 9781250135865. $24.99; ebk. ISBN 9781250135872. M
Timing is everything. Katherine Hamilton lost her job at a Baltimore boutique hotel after it was acquired by
a conglomerate. Now, Lisbeth, her best friend from high school, wants her to help her hometown of
Asheford, MD, which bought a Victorian mansion in a desperate attempt to attract tourists to the cashstarved
community. The town council would like Kate's advice on how to manage the property, but offering
an alternate plan is Kate's old high school nemesis, Cordelia Walker. When she pays a visit to the Barton
house, she stumbles upon Cordelia's body on the stoop. Kate loses a job, consults on a historic property, and
finds a body, all in one week. It's a heck of a week. VERDICT Connolly's (Cruel Winter) accomplished
series launch avoids the tired tropes found in many cozy debuts, incorporating humor, a realistic setting, and
well-developed, appealing characters. Fans of the author's "Museum Mysteries" will welcome the guest
appearance of series protagonist Nell Pratt.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN
Kidd, Cornelia. Death and a Pot of Chowder. Crooked Lane. (Maine Murder, Bk. 1). Jun. 2018. 336p. ISBN
9781683315834. $26.99; ebk. ISBN 9781683315841. M
Anna Winslow thinks there are no secrets on Quarry Island, ME, but she's in for a few surprises. Like
discovering a younger half sister from her father's second marriage. On the day she drives to Portland to
meet Izzie for the first time, her brother-in-law Carl disappears from his lobster boat. Anna's husband, Burt,
asks her to come home,
6/23/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1529808463392 11/11
and later that evening, Carl's body is found. But he didn't drown. Carl was shot and Burt had been heard
arguing with his brother. Anna needs her newly found sister more than ever as they team up to find a killer
on the island. Maine author Lea Wait (Thread the Halls), writing as Cornelia Kidd, introduces a small island
community with hidden dynamics. VERDICT Although the ending won't surprise avid mystery readers, this
is an excellent character-driven homespun story. For Wait's fans as well as enthusiasts of Sarah Graves's
Maine-set books and other island-themed mysteries.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN
DEBUT OF THE MONTH
* Clark, Tracy. Broken Places, Kensington. (Chicago Mystery, Bk. 1). Jun. 2018. 352p. ISBN
9781496714879. $26; ebk. ISBN 9781496714893. M
DEBUT Cass Raines was a Chicago cop until Farraday, her incompetent colleague, interfered in a
confrontation with an armed suspect that left Cass shot and responsible for killing the young man. Two
years later, she's left the force and now makes her living as a private investigator. Cass appears to be tough
and independent, but she's built a close network of friends. Among them is Father Ray Heaton, a kind of
parental figure to Cass, whose own dad deserted her when she was 12. Now "Pop" needs her help; his
church and rectory have been vandalized. When Pop and a young gangbanger are found dead in the church
and Farraday is assigned the case, an angry Cass starts her own investigation. This one is personal.
VERDICT Clark's compelling, suspenseful, and action-packed debut introduces a dogged, tough African
American woman investigator who is complex and courageous and surrounded by a family of fascinating
misfits. Fans of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone or Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski will welcome Cass
Raines to their ranks. [Previewed in Lisa Levy's "Crime Fiction's 'Girl Power,'" LJ 4/15/18.]--Lesa Holstine,
Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"mystery & suspense." Library Journal, June 2018, p. 59+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A540851125/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=a52689f1.
Accessed 23 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A540851125

"Immergut, Debra Jo: THE CAPTIVES." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532700563/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 23 June 2018. "The Captives." Publishers Weekly, 2 Apr. 2018, p. 40. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A533555578/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 23 June 2018. "Private Property." Publishers Weekly, 10 Aug. 1992, p. 55. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A12504742/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 23 June 2018. "mystery & suspense." Library Journal, June 2018, p. 59+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A540851125/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 23 June 2018.

• Los Angeles Review of Books
  https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/breaking-out-of-narrative-prison-in-debra-jo-immerguts-the-captives/
  Word count: 1219

  QUOTE:
  The treasure of Immergut’s novel is in the unusual shapes its narrative takes. Miranda’s and Frank’s stories unfold out of chronological order and without a visible strategy. Key plot points skip by with no more emphasis than minor exposition, and when secrets are revealed, the reader must scour earlier pages to determine if they were already out and are just now imbued with additional meaning given the new characterization.
  Not a word is out of place in The Captives. What a rare gift. If you’re a reader looking for a multidimensional thriller with exceptional characterization, watertight prose, and a wealth of uncomfortable, fascinating ideas about family and identity, Debra Jo Immergut has, at long last, written one for you.
  Breaking Out of Narrative Prison in Debra Jo Immergut’s “The Captives”
  By Katharine Coldiron

  50 0 0

  JUNE 20, 2018

  PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLERS centering on, and authored by, women are all the rage, but their essential storytelling structure — a straight line — is no different from that of their male counterparts’ efforts. How frustrating. The dominant shape of narrative fiction in Western publishing has been consistent, not just since the 18th century, but since Aristotle: the climb and fall of Freytag’s pyramid, with every story mimicking a predictable (male) climax. When marginalized voices edge into the mainstream, however, new storytelling shapes — circles, omegas, dust clouds, vortices, inexplicable spiny forms — can emerge. Within these contours, the story’s action may not rise and fall in steady lines but rather echo, buzz, sustain, or undulate.

  It’s a rare writer who takes a chance on form in a genre as standardized as the psychological thriller, but that is what Debra Jo Immergut has done with her first book in 26 years. The Captives, though it centers on and is authored by a woman, is not a novel with the drilling momentum of its cohort. It reveals itself in a series of overlapping stories, moving in space and time in balletic defiance of the narrative conventions that ground most modern thrillers.

  Miranda Greene, an inmate at a prison in upstate New York, is sent to therapy with the prison’s disgraced psychologist, Frank Lundquist. Frank recognizes Miranda from high school, although she doesn’t recognize him, and seeing her sets off old, emotional tremors in him:

  Core concept: We age, we grow, we struggle very diligently to evolve and progress, but by some inescapable law of nature, the teenage self remains the essential self […] And sometimes it will catch up to you, throw its gangly arms around you, dampen your neck with its hot breath.

  I was in the grip of that high school freshman. That boy. And I was still in her thrall, still clinging to the locker-room wall, unable to tear my gaze away.

  Having nothing else in his life, the psychologist becomes obsessed with his patient. In Frank, Miranda sees a final installment of her progressively self-destructive attachments to men, and she tries in vain to escape his orbit. Events depressingly mundane (inmate suicides, guard corruption) and highly unlikely (an order for matching lingerie, an escape) ensue.

  Each character narrates (Frank in first person, Miranda in close third) the stories of their meetings, as well as of their individual failures, passions, and crimes. The plot is slow and spare, progressing in the same plenty-of-nothing atmosphere that characterizes life in prison, but Miranda’s and Frank’s pasts (and their imagined futures) are extraordinarily rich. Story after story fills up the empty time in prison and the “therapy” hours Miranda spends with Frank: her dalliances with terrible men, his exploded marriage, her lost sister, his lost brother. In another novel this would all be background, but in The Captives it’s the narrative’s engine: the past is immediate, inescapable, and far more vibrant and mysterious than the gray present.

  The treasure of Immergut’s novel is in the unusual shapes its narrative takes. Miranda’s and Frank’s stories unfold out of chronological order and without a visible strategy. Key plot points skip by with no more emphasis than minor exposition, and when secrets are revealed, the reader must scour earlier pages to determine if they were already out and are just now imbued with additional meaning given the new characterization. Frank emerges not as a basically good man in a rough patch but as a deluded nut, and Miranda’s lostness, her misfortune, evolves until the reader finds her equal parts complicit and trapped. Immergut holds back the reason Miranda is in prison (which everyone in the novel knows) until the final 10 pages of the book, but it’s not a “twist,” just a carefully guarded scene.

  Through all this, I was reminded of another thriller written by and about a woman that’s constructed in a nonlinear shape: Felicia C. Sullivan’s Follow Me into the Dark, the bleakest, speediest, most three-dimensional thriller I’ve ever read. Like The Captives, it darts and zigzags between narrators and eras nimbly, forcing the reader to stay alert and even reread passages rather than gulp and gallop through the text. In both cases, this extra attention is far more pleasure than pain.

  The two books also have in common a delicate web of relationships between narrators and their families, connections long-calcified but brittle as candy. Both novels are unafraid to tangle with the selfish choices and compromises parents make that sometimes destroy their children. Miranda’s parents allow a hasty cover-up of a preventable death to save her father’s political career, while Frank’s father, a groundbreaking psychologist who used baby Frank as a subject, makes messes of both his sons. As Frank puts it,

  Accomplished parents loom over your life, am I right? As you trudge your path, you remain constantly aware of the one they forged, tracking alongside yours. But at some point, you sense that they have somehow traversed more lush, more rewarding landscapes, scaled grander mountains and attained more majestic vistas, while you have been foggily dawdling and looping around in the flats.

  Immergut and Sullivan prove their daring by telling stories with distinctly un-masculine shapes in a well-established, highly masculine genre. Both The Captives and Follow Me into the Dark circle and dive and shimmy, avoiding the Freytagian pyramid entirely. These authors reclaim narrative by reshaping it to fit their idiosyncratic ideas of storytelling. Plus, both are skilled prose stylists working in a genre that does not demand a specific style: Frank refers to Miranda’s high school friends as “the more insistently blow-dried girls,” and Miranda describes a friend of her father’s as having “a face like an unfrosted cake.”

  Not a word is out of place in The Captives. What a rare gift. If you’re a reader looking for a multidimensional thriller with exceptional characterization, watertight prose, and a wealth of uncomfortable, fascinating ideas about family and identity, Debra Jo Immergut has, at long last, written one for you.

  ¤

  Katharine Coldiron’s work has appeared in Ms., the Guardian, VIDA, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She lives in California and at kcoldiron.com.

• Criminal Element
  https://www.criminalelement.com/review-the-captives-by-debra-jo-immergut/
  Word count: 1120

  QUOTE:
  Ingenious and riveting, this is a book that should not be missed by anyone interested in the way love affects us, the way the past haunts us, and the way we trick ourselves into believing in impossible futures.

  Review: The Captives by Debra Jo Immergut
  BY GABINO IGLESIAS
  June 4, 2018

  The Captives
  Debra Jo Immergut
  June 5, 2018

  Propulsive and psychologically astute, The Captives by Debra Jo Immergut is an intimate and gripping meditation on freedom and risk, male and female power, and the urges toward both corruption and redemption that dwell in us all.

  Debra Jo Immergut’s The Captives is a strange, gripping novel that smoothly walks the dividing lines between a crime narrative, a psychological thriller, and a bizarre love story. Tense, sad, and packed with the kind of obsessions that lead to prison or death, this novel is a superb exploration of the significance an individual can achieve in someone else’s life and the desperate and dangerous things people will do in the name of love—even when said love is nothing but a blurry possibility barely discernable in an uncertain future.

  Frank Lundquist, the son of a famous psychologist, works as an inmate psychologist at Milford Basin Correctional Facility, which is less glamorous than what everyone—himself included—expected from him since he was young. He’s still reeling from a divorce and dealing with the consequences of a client’s actions that cost him his job at a successful Manhattan private practice when inmate Miranda Greene, his high school crush, walks into his office. He recognizes her immediately, but Miranda doesn’t seem to remember him. Everything in Frank’s ethical training tells him he needs to address their familiarity and assign her case to a different psychologist, but he doesn’t. Miranda meant too much to him for a long time, and those feelings quickly return. Curiosity gets the best of him, and soon they are discussing her case.

  How did the educated daughter of a congressman end up in prison for murder? While Frank analyzes her case and slowly becomes infatuated once again, Miranda is forced to learn how to survive in prison. Between the memories of her dead sister, the violence that surrounds her, the loneliness, and the damage she did to herself and her family, darkness encroaches until she can only think of one way out.

  The Captives is a cerebral novel about the way we’re forced to deal with the aftermath of our decisions. The characters are complex, and their personalities make them unique. However, the narrative goes above and beyond that. For starters, it is a meditation on freedom, its price, and the things that can come between us and our freedom. But it’s also about the mental gymnastics we perform to do what we want instead of what we know we should. Furthermore, it is a story that occupies the interstitial space between brutality and beauty, sense and desire, forced seclusion and the beauty of open spaces and nature:

  She thought she might swoon from pleasure when the sunrays stroked her face as she walked the few steps from the hospital entrance to the van. The trees had gone blowsy with the July along the winding roads of the Hudson Valley, and the wildflowers blossomed in a thick intricate blanket draping the shoulders of the parkway. They crossed the Tappan Zee; the river looked to her like cold tea, the hills dark green above it. Miranda soaked up these sights with the same intense wonder she had once felt looking at a man’s face during a pristine moment of bliss.

  Despite all the things the author does well in this novel, it is Frank who pushes the action forward. He is an obsessive man whose bad luck has pushed him into a situation where he doesn’t have much to lose. Sending Miranda away is his choice and ethical obligation, but he is a master of rationalization. No one sells him dreams except himself, and those dreams lead to a harebrained plan and a lot of pain. Despite all that, there is a sweet, caring side to his obsession—something young and innocent that has stayed with him since his teens and that makes him a likable character who readers will root for even when his bleak future is one of his own doing. There are many predators in crime fiction, and a misguided man who wants to turn himself into a hero is both sad and a tad humorous. In other words, Frank, like many of us, eschews his immediate reality for a dream he has in his head, and that makes him very relatable:

  I thought mostly of M, of course, as I drove. I pictured us living away somewhere, hidden, under assumed names, assumed identities. A room with a view of a strange city. A table, a pair of chairs. Morning sunlight, a bed. M is lies asleep in the bed. I’m at the table, drinking coffee from a small cup and saucer, reading a book, glancing at her now and then when she steers in her dreams.

  Ultimately, The Captives reveals itself in light of its title: two people who are captive but of two very different things. The road behind them is rough, and the path they walk together is not any better. In that sense, this narrative behaves more like a noir than anything else, but it’s one with the heavy elements of thrillers and the type of outstanding writing that is usually found in literary fiction. As a bonus, it is also depressing to read because Immergut is not afraid to cut her readers to the bone with scalpel-sharp truths:

  Can you remember when you dreamed for yourself, once, when you were younger? Life blurs the dream, blears it, the endless wash of days, the constant tumbling of minutes, wearing that vision away, mote by mote, detail by detail. The daily worries, tiny grains that etch and abrade. And of course, a dream is sketched onto the softest of substances anyhow, isn’t it? Not engraved in granite or marble, not even sculpted in sand. The dreams of your youth are merely ripples on your brain, subtle wavelets in soft tissue, malleable, pliable. Very inpermanent.

  Ingenious and riveting, this is a book that should not be missed by anyone interested in the way love affects us, the way the past haunts us, and the way we trick ourselves into believing in impossible futures.

• Washington Independent Review of Books
  http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/bookreview/the-captives-a-novel
  Word count: 805

  Book Review in Fiction
  The Captives: A Novel
  By Debra Jo Immergut Ecco 288 pp.
  Reviewed by Michael Causey
  June 8, 2018
  Do we ever really leave high school behind?

  A quick scroll reveals about half of my Facebook friends attended Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland, in the early 1980s. Sure, I’ve met fine new people along the way, but is there anything quite like an old school connection? Your first girlfriend at the first awkward dance? The best friend who would stay up until 2 a.m. talking with you about the virtues of Elvis Costello’s latest album?

  That comforting cocoon of a clique that helped you stomach the unique taste of teenage angst? In her excellent new novel, The Captives, Debra Jo Immergut (a Whitman alum) reminds us that you can leave high school, but it never leaves you.

  “We age, we grow, we struggle very diligently to evolve and progress, but by some inescapable law of nature, the teenage self remains the essential self,” psychologist protagonist Frank Lundquist reflects. “It will follow you down every byway and basement corridor. And sometimes it will catch up to you, throw its gangly arms around you, dampen your neck with its hot breath.”

  Poor Lundquist. Damaged professionally and emotionally, doomed to loiter in his famous psychologist father’s shadow, his life is further complicated when Miranda Greene, his long-ago crush who didn’t notice him in high school, shows up as an inmate at the prison where Lundquist’s downward spiral has left his tattered career. Going through the motions, lethargically counseling female prisoners, he’s on auto-pilot until this blast from the past blows up life as he’s known it.

  Grown-up life imitates high school at this first professional encounter decades later: His pulse begins to race; she registers zero recognition. The ethics here are clear, and Lundquist knows it: “Refrain from taking on a professional role when objectivity could be impaired,” Immergut quotes from The American Psychological Ethical Principles and Codes of Conduct. Diving into intimate therapy with one’s past obsession surely qualifies as a no-no.

  Lundquist wrestles with it — a little. However, his teenage lizard brain takes charge relatively quickly, and he begins what proves to be a complex, problematic doctor/patient relationship, to put it mildly.

  Immergut is at her best when telling the story through Lundquist’s eyes. He’s an interesting character, shrouded as he is in flaw and failure, and it’s hard not to empathize with even his most foolish decisions.

  The alternating voice of Greene, while interesting, is less compelling, though it could be because her story and self-awareness necessarily unfold at a more convoluted, slower pace. Lundquist also benefits from telling his side of things in the first person, as opposed to Greene’s more detached third-person narrative.

  The story moves along briskly and skillfully straddles the line between literature and thriller. The best elements of both are woven throughout the book. The writing is insightful and crisp, the supporting characters, especially Lundquist’s brother and Greene’s father, add rewarding layers to the story. Immergut has built a world, no matter how harsh and tragic, where a visitor wants to stick around to learn how it all comes out.

  She also demonstrates nuanced understanding of the family dynamics that refract throughout the households. If Lundquist can’t measure up to his father, daughter Greene’s dad, a failed one-term-congressman-turned-cringing-lobbyist, is an outsized influence in her life, too. It’s a different kind of imbalance, yet both children are in some ways defined by their relationship with their father.

  Each year on the night before Thanksgiving, a gaggle of my former Whitman Vikings classmates gather at the Irish Inn at Glen Echo, Maryland. The cliques have blurred, if not disappeared entirely, and some of us even show a modicum of character growth here and there. It’s a fun evening. Then we post the pictures on Facebook, tag each other, add some inside jokes, and return to our grown-up lives for the next 12 months.

  For different reasons, Immergut’s troubled Greene and Lundquist probably aren’t the high-school-reunion types. It doesn’t matter, though. They never really left.

  [Editor’s note: Debra Jo Immergut, along with fellow novelist Hannah Pittard, will appear at Politics and Prose in Washington, DC, on Sat., June 16th, at 1 p.m. Click here for details.]

  Michael Causey is the co-host of the radio program Get Up! on WOWD 94.3 FM Takoma Park. He attended high school with Immergut, observed her talents on the school newspaper, and always suspected she’d write a good novel.

• Kirkus
  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/debra-jo-immergut/private-property/
  Word count: 390

  QUOTE:
  Immergut, even at her most successful, illuminates landscapes that have been seen already: her situations and characters tend to be more heartfelt than moving.

  PRIVATE PROPERTY
  Stories
  by Debra Jo Immergut
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  KIRKUS REVIEW
   A debut collection of ten stories, mostly about women who are lonely or bereft (though the best is about a man who hits his wife): first-person narratives that too often pull their punches and too much resemble, in mood or tone, other pieces by more accomplished writers (Bobbie Ann Mason, Alice Munro, et al.). ``Tension,'' told from the point of view of a husband who one day loses control and pops his wife, is good on male midlife violence crisis-mentality. The conclusion is a bit forced but it works: The wife agrees to remain with the husband in return for having her ``eyes and chin done, my breasts lifted, and a tummy tuck.'' Later, pulling the surgical wrappings from her face, the husband is reconciled to his wife when he sees the ``mangled remnants of the face I've known best.'' Of the rest: ``The Number of My Heart'' is a long, rambling, if occasionally affecting, tale about a female Park Service Ranger and her affair with a co-worker whose wife is dying. ``The Skirt,'' about an ``assistant grants assessor in the Department of Education,'' is effectively haunted by the narrator's mother's death, and, likewise, in ``Frozen Niagara,'' the narrator is haunted by her brother's suicide. In ``River Road,'' yet another depressed young woman, who's tried ``Class 2 painkillers--Dilaudid, Percodan, Demerol'' and New York, returns home to be seduced by her doctor-father's friend, a man who sells drugs to physicians. Like others here, this one lyrically evokes a place and a mood at times, only to pull up short and let the big one get away. Immergut, even at her most successful, illuminates landscapes that have been seen already: her situations and characters tend to be more heartfelt than moving.

  Pub Date: Sept. 1st, 1992
  ISBN: 0-394-58624-7
  Page count: 256pp
  Publisher: Random House
  Review Posted Online: May 20th, 2010
  Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1st, 1992

• NWI.com
  https://www.nwitimes.com/ap/the-captives-is-a-solid-thriller-with-unusual-twists/article_d714c267-c1dc-5762-84d5-31c5b6ccea6c.html
  Word count: 510

  QUOTE:
  Debra Jo Immergut's subtle precision — without stooping to cliches or the obvious — shows how Frank and Miranda are captives of their past, present and future. Immergut's debut novel is a fascinating psychological look at two damaged people as well as being a solid thriller with unusual, and believable, twists.

  'The Captives' is a solid thriller with unusual twists
  https://www.nwitimes.com/
  Oline H. Cogdill Associated Press Jun 10, 2018
  Teenage obsessions often fade as one grows up. But psychologist Frank Lundquist never got over his fixation on his high school crush, Miranda Greene — his preoccupation with her only receded into the back of his mind. Until, that is, once-golden girl Miranda shows up as an inmate at the Milford Basin Correctional Facility where Frank is now a counselor.

  Debra Jo Immergut's subtle precision — without stooping to cliches or the obvious — shows how Frank and Miranda are captives of their past, present and future. Immergut's debut novel is a fascinating psychological look at two damaged people as well as being a solid thriller with unusual, and believable, twists.

  As a teen, Frank stalked Miranda, watching her intently during class, spying on her when she changed in the locker room for track and following her every moment. Frank, the son of a famous psychiatrist, went on to have a successful, thriving practice until his work imploded and his marriage ended.

  Now he is a counselor at the Milford Basin Correctional Facility that houses women prisoners. Miranda was a popular top student and athlete, the daughter of a wealthy one-term congressman. Now she is serving a 52-year sentence for second-degree murder.

  Frank immediately recognizes Miranda when she becomes his patient. While he knows that ethically he should refer her to another counselor, he often has proved himself to be morally challenged. Their sessions allow Frank to continue his fantasies while Miranda has a secret reason to continue counseling.

  Although she admits Frank "lit up some dusty corridors of memory," Miranda has no idea who he is. How these sessions change both — and lead to inescapable consequences — propels "The Captives" to its surprising finale.

  "The Captives" richly explores each person's background, in which the truth was far from the reality presented to the world, and how they came to their current situations.

  Frank's respected father used him and his brother, Clyde, now a drug addict, as subjects of his research to predict success in children.

  Miranda's parents' marriage was disintegrating because of infidelities and a family tragedy; her father was hemorrhaging money with his subsequent failed campaign.

  Immergut also navigates an intense look at the myriad personalities of Mirada's fellow inmates, exploring the different reasons that landed these women in prison.

  Magazine editor and writing professor Immergut's first published work was the critically acclaimed short fiction collection, "Private Property," published in 1992. "The Captives" is her first full-length novel, allowing Immergut to again showcase her considerable talents.

• MassLive.com
  https://www.masslive.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2018/05/the_captives_is_northamptons_d.html
  Word count: 701

  'The Captives' is Northampton's Debra Jo Immergut's debut novel
  Posted May 30, 2018 at 5:31 AM

  (Submitted image)
  Comment
  By Cori Urban
  Special to The Republican

  In the late 1990s, Debra Jo Immergut first entered a corrections facility while tutoring an incarcerated woman working toward her master in fine arts degree in creative writing at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. The inmate been convicted of involvement in an armed robbery and murder committed by a radical leftist underground group, "and she happened to be a brilliant student," Immergut said.

  She found the experience eye opening and began to write journalism and opinion pieces about criminal justice issues.

  Now the Northampton resident's debut novel, "The Captives," follows the fictional Miranda Greene, a woman in prison accused of a brutal crime, and the prison psychologist assigned to her case who recognizes her as his high school crush.

  "This novel takes classic, high school archetypes -- the beauty and the shy geeky boy -- and finds them thrown together years later in a prison, where she is incarcerated, and he is assigned as her counselor," the author explained. "Traditional gender roles come into play as they negotiate their positions and determine what they have to lose and gain from one another. She uses what might have once been called her feminine charms -- but in surprising and savvy ways, and he uses his traditional male privilege and his PhD training in psychology. Without veering into spoiler territory, let's just say the power struggle gets intense."

  The book is due out June 5.

  Immergut volunteers at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction, teaching writing to men who are working toward their high school equivalency test. "It's rewarding and engrossing work, and it's truly encouraging because I really do see them make progress," she said. "My students at the prison are working toward their high school diplomas. So obviously in the classroom, they're trying to make up for lost time and opportunities. I teach them to write argumentative essays, which is challenging brainwork for just about anyone -- me included! So they really have to concentrate, be willing to try and fail and to stretch themselves beyond what they think they can do."

  She calls herself "a big believer in worldly redemption and second chances." She has been given breaks and do-overs, something she says everyone deserves. "That's the underlying reason why I've chosen to work with incarcerated people on and off over the years."

  Though a large portion of the "The Captives" takes place in a prison, according to the author it really is not a story about prison: It's about two complicated people with a shared childhood history who reunite under extreme circumstances: "She's a woman who grows up in an atmosphere of moral shiftiness -- her father is a corrupt politician -- and he's a man who grows up feeling pressure to live up to early predictions of success. How those early experiences play into their dealings with each other and the explosive results of their reunion, that's the true heart of this story."

  Immergut published her first book, a collection of short fiction called "Private Property," in 1992 and a how-to sewing book in 2011. She was a magazine editor for 15 years, including 10 years at Northampton's FamilyFun.

  Asked how she hopes "The Captives" will touch readers and influence their perceptions of those who are incarcerated, Immergut replied, "Anyone who's ever been inside a corrections facility knows that the people inside aren't different from those outside. We're all flawed, we all make mistakes; we all end up paying for our mistakes in various ways. There are bad actors in prisons, for certain, people who should be there. And there are many who are serving short sentences for pretty minor stuff, many of whom are young people who've grown up in really tough circumstances and who I believe deserve support and a chance to do better when they get out."

  "The Captives," in hardcover, has 288 pages and lists for $26.99; it will be available wherever books are sold.

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