2021-03-17
A corpse at the foot of a waterfall leads a newly isolated cop into a thicket of atrocities rooted in a 20-year-old women's cult.
At first Detective Lindsay Jackman, who must investigate the case on her own because her mentor and partner, Detective Alan Sharpe, has just killed himself, finds few clues in the death of Western Washington University student Sarah Baker, who was strangled, stripped, and dumped below Maple Falls. But her persistent questions eventually link Sarah’s murder to that of Calista Sullivan, whose body was found on the beach of Lummi Island 20 years ago. The link between the two dead women is Marnie Spellman, the self-help guru whose community on Lummi Island Calista had joined and whom Sarah was writing a story about for her student newspaper. Hard-selling a message of female empowerment through self-actualization and naturally sourced foods and cosmetics, Marnie styled herself the queen bee of a hive including Calista, actress Dina Marlow, nurses Greta Swensen and Trish Appleton, and Heather Jarred, who emerged from the hive to become a Washington congressional representative now running for the U.S. Senate. After setting up the central situation, Olsen methodically reviews each hive member’s history through extended flashbacks. The effect is both scarifying and repetitious, and Olsen has to reach deeper and deeper into his bag of tricks to keep up the momentum. Along the way, though, the characters, most of them familiar types, spring to vivid life, even the people whose only job is to find dead bodies are deftly sketched in three dimensions.
Readers who relish the aftershocks of cult exploitation will turn every page with keen anticipation.
An Amazon Best Book of the Month: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
“Readers who relish the aftershocks of cult exploitation will turn every page with keen anticipation.” —Kirkus Reviews
“The Hive is Gregg Olsen at his finest. Exciting, anxiety provoking, and twisty…You will stay up all night reading…not wanting to put it down until the final and shocking conclusion. This book will take you right down a rabbit hole you never suspected.” —Mystery & Suspense Magazine
“Mesmerizing! Gregg Olsen tautly reveals layer after layer of lies, secrets, and betrayals in an increasingly horrifying exposé of one cult leader and her terrible sway over others. Forget the evil men do. These women will have you fearing for your life.” —Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“The Hive is a riveting thriller, a tsunami of a story that starts out strong and absolutely knocks you over at the end. The characters are fascinating, their world so real and absorbing—I was transfixed from the very start. Gregg Olsen is such a compelling writer.” —Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author
“In this gripping thriller, everything is not as it seems, and beauty is only skin deep. The Hive is a brilliantly engrossing read—exactly what we have come to expect from Gregg Olsen.” —Karin Slaughter, New York Times and internationally bestselling author
“A charismatic wellness guru, a dead young journalist, and a slew of secrets are the ingredients that make up this fiendishly fun thriller. The Hive will have readers buzzing.” —Greer Hendricks, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Wife Between Us
“Gregg Olsen’s The Hive is a fast-paced, intriguing, intense, and suspenseful read that is as creepy as it is fantastic. Brilliant, thought-provoking, heartbreaking, and original, The Hive will keep you up at night and leave you reeling long after you’ve finished it. Every page carries weight in this novel. There are plenty of twists and turns to satisfy even the most seasoned crime fiction reader, and the characters feel authentic and alive in ways that only Olsen can achieve.” —Lisa Regan, #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Detective Josie Quinn series
“Die-hard Gregg Olsen fans will love The Hive; new readers will become fans. Olsen deftly guides the reader through the pages, cranking up the suspense as long-held secrets rise to the surface. The result is compulsively page turning as Olsen keeps the reader’s mind buzzing in suspense. He hooks the reader as a dark crime from the past collides with a crime from the present.” —Kendra Elliot, Wall Street Journal bestselling author
“Gregg Olsen’s The Hive begins with a fascinating premise and a spellbinding opening scene that held me in its grip as I flew through the pages. Olsen expertly weaves together a multilayered tale told by a complex array of unforgettable characters in his latest jaw-dropping thriller. In this dark and dangerously addictive read buzzing with secrets, betrayal, and murder, queen bees and wannabes take on a whole new meaning. Not to be missed.” —Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author of This Is How I Lied
