The heatwave A novel

Riordan's story, which involves a mother, Sylvia Durand, returning to her family home La Reverie in the South of France and coming to terms all over again with the death of her daughter, Elodie, who died at 14, is nuanced and frequently surprising.There is trouble in La Reverie, and it isn't just the fires in the area, which are drawing close to the family's villa. As the tension mounts from the unknown threat, the narrative jumps back in forth in time (a chapter set in 1993 is followed by one set in 1969), and, while the time shifts can be disconcerting, they are absolutely essential to the story. The narrative voice is perhaps the most compelling aspect of the story. It's told by Sylvia to her enigmatic daughter--"You creep into my bed just after two"--giving the story a level of intimacy and raw emotion it might not otherwise have had. An ambitious, challenging, and ultimately deeply rewarding novel.

Sylvie Durand, the unreliable narrator of this disturbing psychological thriller from Riordan (Fiercombe Manor), would prefer to forget the tragic events that broke up her marriage a decade earlier and prompted her to flee La Rêverie, the home where she grew up in the South of France, for a fresh start in London with her then four-year-old daughter, Emma. But the news of an arson fire at the now unoccupied property sends up a warning flare she dares not ignore. Sylvie's return to finally prepare La Rêverie for sale threatens to rekindle traumatic memories, since it's the last place she and Emma lived with Elodie, Sylvie's bad seed firstborn, who died mysteriously at 14. And it swiftly appears there may also be a more immediate menace, beyond the peril of annual summer forest fires in the area. Riordan skillfully manipulates the reader through what initially feels like a ghost story and then, after a revelation that totally recasts the situation, the nail-biting if not entirely plausible page-turner that ensues. S.J. Watson fans will want to check this one out. Agent: Allison Hunter, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Aug.)