Kill for Me, Kill for You

October 1, 2023

Over drinks on New York's Upper West Side, Wendy and Amanda hatch a plan to avenge their wronged families--if you kill for me, I'll kill for you--even as Ruth sits alone in her lovely brownstone elsewhere in town, facing a home invasion by a man with dagger-sharp blue eyes. From the best-selling author of the "Eddie Flynn" series. Prepub Alert.

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Starred review from January 29, 2024
Cavanagh (the Eddie Flynn series) keeps readers on their toes in this tense and tricky revenge thriller about grieving women in New York City. Amanda White’s stalking of Wallace Crone, a well-connected sex offender she is sure has gotten off the hook for assaulting and murdering her six year-old-daughter and driving her husband to suicide, lands her a restraining order and a mandate to attend a grief support group on the Upper West Side. Drunken conversations with fellow group member Wendy lead the pair to concoct a Strangers on a Train–style pact in which Wendy will kill Crone and Amanda will kill the man Wendy claims raped and murdered her daughter three years earlier. In a parallel narrative, 39-year-old Manhattan real estate agent Ruth Gelman survives a home invasion during which she’s stabbed multiple times. Unable to give the NYPD more than a thin description of her attacker, she’s left dependent on her husband, Scott, for her safety, and mired in a state of near-constant paranoia. The initial link between the stories is Det. Andrew Farrow (nicknamed St. Jude for his habit of pursuing hopeless cases), but as the plot gathers steam, the overlaps become more and more substantial and startling. Cavanagh seeds the narrative with a series of explosive, game-changing reveals that, combined with an uncommon attunement to the central characters’ emotional arcs, make for a wild, deliciously satisfying ride. Even seasoned genre fans will find themselves white-knuckling this roller coaster. Agent: Jon Wood, RCW.

February 1, 2024
In this riff on Patricia Highsmith's classic psychological thriller Strangers on a Train, in which two strangers swap murder targets, two women seek revenge on the men who ruined their lives by destroying their families. Here, the women meet not on a train but in a bar on New York City's Upper West Side. And as they make their deal, a third woman, Ruth, becomes the victim of a home invasion and violent attack by a perpetrator whose sharp blue eyes lodge in her memory. In this suspenseful stand-alone from Cavanagh (author of the Eddie Flynn mysteries), which is told through the alternating perspectives of one of the vengeful women (Amanda), Ruth, and an NYPD detective named Farrow, the drama takes place on subway platforms and in apartments hollowed out by grief. The leading women are strong and well developed, and though there are resonances with the source material, this excellent book feels fresh and original.

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