The Wicked Girls: A Novel
*Starred Review* Convicted of murdering a 4-year-old girl when they were 11, Jade and Bel spent the rest of their youth in two separate British correctional facilities. Upon their release as adults, they are given new names and the probationary condition that they never have contact again. But a series of murders in the struggling seaside town of Whitmouth brings renamed journalist Kirsty Lindsay face to face with the woman now known as Amber Gordon, a janitor at Funnland, where the latest body has been found. The two again find themselves connected over a violent crime. Marwood, the pseudonym of a British journalist, intersperses the contemporary serial-killer story line and hour-by-hour accounts of what happened the day the girls met and killed a preschooler. This chilling debut is chock-full of surprises. If Tana French and Gillian Flynn stayed up all night telling stories at an abandoned amusement park, this is awfully close to what they might come up with. --Karen  Keefe