The Killer’s Kid by Adelene Ellenberg
The Killer’s Kid (Woodhall Press) is Adelene Ellenberg’s newest thriller and from page one it immerses the reader into the carefully cultivated power of one evil man and a small town’s efforts to make him accountable.
The story’s tidy first sentence — “Clarisse Quinn was tucked neatly into her satin-lined coffin…” — does not prepare the reader for the thought-provoking chaos of the next fifty words. Here we learn that Clarisse’s killer is known to all and that, unbeknownst to the rest of the town, one of the attendees at her funeral is pregnant with the killer’s kid.
Is the mother-to-be complicit in the murder too? Or not? Where will this end?
Small-Town Trouble
The story takes place in the fictional town of Longbottom, Massachusetts, a rural oasis south of Boston. Action alternates primarily between 46-year-old mobster Mickey Quinn who sits in jail awaiting trial for the murder of his wife, and Darlene Bundt, his 36-year-old former employee whom Mickey has impregnated against her will.
As Darlene seeks a new job to pay for the coming baby and her grandmother’s nursing home, she must endure the eerie sense that she is being watched. Every minute. And maybe she’s not wrong. The constant fear that Mickey knows her whereabouts and will try to hurt her again and/or steal the baby fuels the story’s unwavering suspense.
Secondary characters enrich the story. Darlene would be lost without her best friend Nathan Green, guidance counselor nine months a year at Longbottom High School and summertime drag queen in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He helps Darlene navigate her many emergencies with quick thinking and creative advice.
Mickey’s seasoned attorney Tobias Meachum has known Mickey since childhood and breaks as many rules as he can for his notorious client without getting caught. Unlike Tobias and the rest of the town, Darlene’s own 5-foot-3-inch-tall attorney Anna Ebert refuses to kowtow to Mickey and hence feels unsafe. She eschews wearing formal lawyer attire so that “she could move like a real person if she found herself in danger. These days, who knew?”
Some Familiar Faces
Mickey reminds Darlene of “a cobra, poised, getting ready to strike.” Town resident Maureen Gaston is also no stranger to the snake that is Mickey but unlike most of the town, she is not at his beck and call.
The Gaston family and several other characters in The Killer’s Kid appear in Ellenberg’s first novel, Eminent Crimes, a legal thriller that centers on Mickey’s efforts to take over the Gaston family’s hundred-acre farm and make it into a casino, and the family’s efforts to stop him. As Maureen explains Mickey’s power, he “was famously A Friend of the Kennedys, an FOTK who’d been invited to their compound years ago … As an FOTK he didn’t expect to get foiled.”
A Satisfying Read
Ellenberg’s description of settings around town offers welcome lightness to the story, as in the following passage: “Cockscomb, fiery red and sunny-gold, spiked up boldly among the beds of spreading emerald vinca around the building. Dew sparkled on the crew-cut lawn.”
So do her touches of spirituality, often provided by Maureen as in her exhortation to one of the unwed mothers she often helps. “Dare to be brave, Faith. So much of life is just daring to be brave!”
And finally, the book’s third-person omniscient point-of-view opens up the story, allowing us access to the innermost thoughts of all in the story. We get to see not only how the killer feels about his dead wife, the mother of his soon-born child and his smarmy lawyer but how each of them feels about him and each other as Darlene and her supporters try to bring Mickey and his pathetic cohorts to justice. Longbottom is, as Darlene Bundt puts it, a place where evil-hearted spirits are brought to justice and that makes for a satisfying read.
About Adelene Ellenberg:
Adelene Ellenberg is an attorney and writer of thriller crime novels, writing about ordinary people fighting for liberty and justice against crime and corruption. As an attorney, Adelene has worked in the private sector, and has provided substantial pro bono services for the community and individuals. She understands that “The Law” can be either a shield or a weapon, and the weak need protection from the strong.
As a writer, she found inspiration in the lives of the people she has met from all walks of life. Adelene lives with her husband in rural Massachusetts, along with their cat, llama and goat. Their grown children are pursuing their own life dreams, and return now and then to the circle of family.
