Taking justice into their own hands

The sleuth who takes the law into her own hands in Sophie Littlefield’s debut novel, “A Bad Day for Sorry,’’ is Stella Hardesty. Having dispatched her own abusive husband with the business end of a wrench, Stella takes tough and ornery to new levels. She has developed a “justice-delivering career,’’ her business driven through word of mouth from satisfied customers. She rides through the rural Missouri countryside in her husband’s beloved Jeep (“a sweet little green Liberty with chrome aluminum wheels and a sunroof’’) to strains of Emmy Lou Harris, stalking recalcitrant abusers and monitoring her “parolees.’’

Stella takes her Johnny Walker straight up, and she’d rather not have to use the yoke and spreader bar with restraint cuffs, or the electric shock baton, or that little Raven .25 “she took off a cheating son-of-a-bitch in Kansas City,’’ but some spousal abusers just won’t stay “whupped.’’ Still, her average quarry is an angel compared with the crew she tangles with when Chrissy Shaw hires her to find her reprobate husband who absconded with her 2-year-old son. Roy Dean Shaw’s new associates don’t mind using any weapon in their considerable arsenal.

By the end, Chrissy has become sidekick to Stella’s Dirty-Harry-in-a-housecoat. Not all the guys are jerks, and Stella gets a welcome assist from Sheriff “Goat’’ Jones, an easygoing hunk with an appreciation for an older woman who isn’t and never was a beauty queen.

An abundance of violence is leavened with humor and heart in this debut novel in what I hope is the start of a new series.

A much nastier piece of business is Jason Starr’s “Panic Attack.’’ Every character in it, good and bad, acts out of self interest, and unintended consequences ensue.

Psychologist Adam Bloom and his wife, Dana, make their first mistake when they plan a trip to Florida and cancel at the last moment. So they’re in their wealthy New York suburban home when their sulky, immature, 21-year-old daughter Marissa hears someone moving about downstairs in the middle of the night. Adam grabs the Glock that Dana has begged him to get rid of. Ostensibly to protect his family, he shoots the burglar mounting the stairs. Adam’s next mistake is to boast to the media, and soon he’s being vilified and compared to subway vigilante Bernhard Goetz.

But the Blooms’ troubles have only begun. It turns out there was a second burglar, a charming sociopath now bent on wreaking revenge for his slain buddy.

Starr is a talented writer, but he’s set up quite a challenge for his readers: a book without a single likable character. Adam is a psychologist who goes through life as if he’s watching himself in a mirror; his unhappy wife Dana’s days revolve around going to the gym and getting it on with her trainer; between drinks and dope, their truculent daughter text-messages her days away. This family of self-absorbed narcissists, whose every thought and emotion are telegraphed to the reader, self-immolate through a lethal combination of hubris and bad luck. They are in the author’s crosshairs as much as the cold monster whose path they’ve crossed.

Multiple narrators tell and retell the same scenes from different viewpoints. Sometimes this works, but more often it feels repetitive and even excruciating, as when murder is narrated by the victim and then retold by the killer. Unexplained time shifts are disorienting, and each character’s back story is explicated, sapping forward momentum. Edgy and dark, this is not an easy book to read.

Linwood Barclay is far more generous to the suburban family in “Fear the Worst.’’ Connecticut car salesman Tim Blake and his ex-wife Susanne are doing their best to create stability for Sydney, the 17-year-old daughter they adore. Their fragile truce is shattered when Sydney disappears from her summer job working the front desk at Milford’s Just Inn Time. When Tim goes looking for her, hotel staff insist they’ve never seen or heard of her.

Day after day passes with no ransom note, no body, and not a single witness. Tim can’t concentrate at work. When he becomes convinced that the police have written off Syd as a runaway, he investigates. It soon becomes apparent that Tim and his wife aren’t the only ones intent on finding Sydney and, as bodies drop, the police seem ever more intent on framing Tim, though they can’t quite figure out for what.

This novel’s strength lies in its sensitive portrayal of a flawed couple who manage to set aside self interest and rancor to survive what is surely every parent’s nightmare. From an elegiac opening (“The morning of the day I lost her, my daughter asked me to scramble her some eggs.’’), the novel gains momentum and hurtles toward an over-the-top ending. Readers who crave plot twists will find plenty of them as Ted discovers that the underbelly of his suburban neighborhood is rife with pornography, identity fraud, drug dealing, gambling and loan sharks, car theft . . . and that’s just the half of it. For this reader, less would have been more.

Hallie Ephron is author of “Never Tell a Lie’’ (William Morrow). Contact her through www.hallieephron.com.