If only the main characters of Samantha Downing’s new psychological suspense thriller, A Twisted Love Story, would tell the truth once in a while, a lot of their problems would be solved and maybe even avoided. Wes Harmon and Ivy Banks have been an on-again, off-again couple for almost a decade—ever since college—and their breakups are every bit as passionate as their reunions. But if they each harbor secrets, they also share a growing list of them. And those shared secrets put them on a slippery path leading straight to prison.
Early on, Wes meets the couple’s main antagonist, Karen Colglazier. She’s a detective with the Sex Crimes Unit of Fair Valley, California, the featureless mid-sized town where Wes and Ivy live. It seems Ivy has accused him of stalking her and described to Colglazier the ominous notes, presents—including a box of half-eaten chocolates—and pictures, she’s been receiving. Nothing against the law, technically. Not so far, but Colglazier believes a visit from the police often puts a stop to such low-level harassment. Wes denies doing any of it, but then he would, wouldn’t he?
Ivy, fierce and funny, has perhaps the weakest impulse control you’ll ever encounter in fiction, and Wes believes that reporting the alleged stalking was her way of getting his attention. In the past, she’s used some dramatic, even damaging, ways to do that. He’s obviously on Ivy’s mind because when he shows up at her apartment the night of Colglazier’s visit, she gives every indication she was expecting him. The relationship, heavily burdened with the baggage of past mistakes, is on again.
Detective Colglazier is far from convinced by Ivy’s new forgiving attitude toward Wes. She believes Ivy’s denials are further evidence of how afraid and beaten down she is. Her prominent blind spot may be in the wrong place in this instance, but her instinct that more is going on here than meets the eye is correct. Wes and Ivy may seem doomed to keep reenacting their breakups and reconciliations, but it’s Colglazier’s doggedness that creates the book’s tension. Can they ever be free of their past mistakes without being free of each other? If you like thrillers involving dangerous secrets and struggling relationships, this may be a good book for you.
Samantha Downing, born in California, has made a specialty of psychological suspense since her successful 2019 debut novel, My Lovely Wife.
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This one sounds like it would hit a bit too close to home for me. As a cop I handled countless domestics and stalking situations and they’re extremely frustrating. I recall one when the domestic battery law had just been changed to allow police officers to sign complaints on behalf of the victim. This one idiot beat up his girlfriend and she and her father came into the station demanding we arrest the guy. I had no problem with that. I walked a warrant through and then saw the fellow on the street. When I approached him he was less than cooperative and I got into a tussle with him during which his sunglasses got broken. Anyway, at the station he laughed at me and said he’d beat the rap in court. He was right. On the court date he and the female victim showed up together holding hands and she told the state’s attorney she didn’t want to prosecute. The state’s attorney then berated me, giving me a lecture on how I should be certain of follow through in these cases. I said nothing. A few weeks later the girlfriend and her father showed up at the station again. This time Prince Charming had posted photographic copies in numerous bars of her in the shower along with a printed message listing her phone number and to call “for a good time.” I took the report and the whole thing was turned over to the dicks. I saw the idiot years later one night when we were closing down an unruly gathering at a bar. He came up to me and greeted me like we were old buddies, which we weren’t. He’d degenerated so much I didn’t recognize him and he had to tell me who he was. I was reminded of that quote from Henry David Thoreau: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”