Amy K. Green (The Prized Girl) presents a twisting puzzle of a thriller with Haven't Killed in Years, starring a woman whose hidden past resurfaces in bizarre, gruesome, and often funny ways.
Gwen Tanner has a boring office job, an unremarkable one-bedroom apartment, and no serious relationships. From the outside she appears to be "your standard almost-too-basic law-abiding woman approaching thirty. On the inside? Eh, not so much." Gwen was born Marin Haggerty. When she was nine, her father was convicted on eight counts of first-degree murder (eight being just the ones they could pin on him) and both parents went to prison (her mother for aiding and abetting). Marin became Gwen and disappeared from the public eye. She has spent the past two decades building a resolutely ordinary life, hoping to avoid the fate her father intended for her: to be just like him.
But now a severed arm turns up on her doorstep, with a note: "Hi, Marin." Her safe, staid lifestyle is disrupted; and more than that, Gwen is offended that someone thinks they can get the better of her. She sets out to investigate, but the clues and the characters just tangle her up further. She mostly accidentally finds herself making friends--who are also suspects. Is it time for Gwen--Marin--to come into her own as her father's protégé? Or is she going to surprise herself and set out on her own path?
In Gwen/Marin's dryly cynical voice, these madcap events hit tender and comic notes. Despite instances of poignant suffering and a noteworthy serial killer, Haven't Killed in Years is weirdly, deeply fun. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia