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Anyone who has ever been dumped or treated badly in a relationship can sympathize with the members of the Broken Hearts Club, a group of patients of the New York City psychologist Ian Bainbridge who meet weekly in the back room of a seedy steakhouse to share their pain and provide Dr. Bainbridge with material for a book. It's only after a couple of meetings in journalist Ethan Black's sly and sharply written debut thriller that our suspicions begin to take shape. Why are all of the club members men? And why do the women who have wronged them suddenly start dying in violent, brutal ways? The NYPD's richest detective, Conrad Voort, 29-year-old heir to an historic family name and fortune, doesn't at first see how the murders are related. He's mired in a doomed relationship of his own, with TV news producer Camilla Ryan, who happens to be one of Dr. Bainbridge's patients but definitely not a member of his Broken Hearts Club. Camilla also races kayaks for fun and exercise, so you know that some kind of water-based action scene featuring a kayak is bound to occur. Black plays tricks and takes liberties (Voort resembles John Sandford's Lucas Davenport, another rich detective), but he has the sense to let readers arrive at conclusions at their own pace. It's only after the last page that most of them will find themselves thinking back to scenes of Club meetings and asking, "But why...?" and, "But who...?" --Dick Adler
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