Dying to meet you

Rowan feels she could just about kill Tim after he breaks up with her via text. Instead, she settles for spending the next few weeks surreptitiously tracking his whereabouts on the FriendFinder app. This is how Rowan knows Tim is currently outside the Wincott mansion, which used to be one of their favorite spots. However, when Rowan shows up at the mansion, whose historic preservation she is currently overseeing, she discovers that someone else hated Tim too--enough to actually kill him. Bowen (The Five Year Lie) takes the stylish brand of suspense perfected by Mary Higgins Clark and gives it a 21st-century makeover, retaining Clark's captivating blend of thrills, chills, and a dash of romance while bumping up the sex and graphic language. Bowen deftly doles out the twists and turns in her carefully crafted plot too, while at the same time brilliantly utilizing a creepy historic Maine mansion (with some secrets of its own) for another layer of dread. VERDICT Readers who crave suspense novels written with an acerbic sense of wit and graced with a compelling cast of characters are in for a treat.--John Charles