Plano Reads: Finlay Donovan is Killing It
For November’s meeting of the Mystery Book Club, we are reading Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano. Please join us to discussion Thursday, November 16 at 7 p.m. at Davis Library or you can attend through Zoom. If you would like to attend the meeting virtually, please register here.
Available in Print|eBook| eAudio
Finlay Donovan is killing it… except, she’s really not. She’s a stressed-out single-mom of two and struggling novelist, Finlay’s life is in chaos: the new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her, and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an incident with scissors.
When Finlay is overheard discussing the plot of her new suspense novel with her agent over lunch, she’s mistaken for a contract killer, and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet… Soon, Finlay discovers that crime in real life is a lot more difficult than its fictional counterpart, as she becomes tangled in a real-life murder investigation.
A suburban Virginia divorcée struggles with that classic dilemma: What should she do when she’s offered a fat paycheck to kill a complete stranger?
Struggling romantic suspense novelist Finlay Donovan doesn’t think much of her ex-husband, Steven, who’s been nickel-and-diming her ever since she dumped him over his affair with Theresa Hall, the realtor who’s since become his fiancee. So she’s not entirely surprised when Patricia Mickler, overhearing her chatting with her agent in the local Panera about her latest work in progress, indicates that her own husband is even worse. He’s a blackmailer and serial rapist who’s beaten his wife repeatedly. What stuns Finn is the way Patricia communicates her hatred for her husband: She offers Finn $50,000 to kill him. Of course Finn has no intention of going through with this harebrained scheme, but a series of unlikely miscues ends with Harris Mickler dead in her garage with every indication that she’s murdered him. The only bright spots are that Veronica, the accounting-student nanny Steven just laid off without warning Finn in advance, comes upon the scene ready and eager to help and that Steven owns a sod farm where the conspirators can bury the body without telling him. Everything seems to have worked out improbably well until Finn, who really does need the money, is offered an even bigger purse for killing someone else considerably more savvy and dangerous. YA specialist Cosimano cuts dexterously between Finn’s adventures as a hit woman, her deeply iffy romance with Fairfax County Detective Nicholas Anthony, and the domestic crises that keep on piling up as if nothing had ever happened to disturb them.
Suspenseful, funny, and even a tad mysterious. More, please.
-Copyright Kirkus Reviews
Elle Cosimano is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, an International Thriller Award winner, a Bram Stoker Award finalist, and an Edgar® Award nominee. Her acclaimed young adult novels include Nearly Gone, Holding Smoke, The Suffering Tree, and Seasons of the Storm. Elle’s debut novel for adults, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It, kicked off a witty, fast-paced contemporary mystery series, which was a PEOPLE Magazine Pick and was named one of New York Public Library’s Best Books of 2021. In addition to writing novels for teens and adults, her essays have appeared in The Huffington Post and Time. Elle lives with her husband and two sons in Virginia.
-From the author’s website
Read-alike titles available through the Plano Public Library catalog and Libby app:
- Agatha Arch is Afraid of Everything by Kristin Bair (Print | eBook)
- Dial A for Aunties (Aunties series) by Jesse Q. Sutanto (Print | eBook | eAudio)
- Girls with Bright Futures by Tracy Dobmeier (Print | eBook)
- The Newcomer by Mary Kay Andrews (Print | eBook | eAudio)
- One for the Money (Stephanie Plum series) by Janet Evonovitch (Print | eBook | eAudio)
