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Second Nature
Obsession and depravity shatter suburban life and academia in this compelling double dose of psychological suspense, pairing two complete novels and two rare short stories, from six-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Joyce Carol Oates. Perfect for readers of Margaret Atwood, Shirley Jackson, and Donna Tartt.
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF PSEUDONYMOUS SUSPENSE FROM JOYCE CAROL OATES
Four decades ago, acclaimed literary author Joyce Carol Oates penned her first novel of psychological suspense under the name "Rosamond Smith." In the Smith books, Oates explored themes of betrayal and deception, lust and murder, through stories involving twins, doubles, and hidden second identities—initially, keeping her own double identity a secret.
Hard Case Crime is proud to bring these extraordinary works of crime fiction, long unavailable in bookstores, back into print in definitive double editions, each pairing two complete novels and two never-before-collected Oates short stories, all linked thematically, to weave a sinister web filled with dark reflections.
In This Volume...
A model suburban husband grows obsessed with a beautiful stranger in DOUBLE DELIGHT, while an eminent professor preys on a vulnerable student in NEMESIS – and the echoes continue in the rare short stories “A Girl Worth Twenty Million” and “First Death.”
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF PSEUDONYMOUS SUSPENSE FROM JOYCE CAROL OATES
Four decades ago, acclaimed literary author Joyce Carol Oates penned her first novel of psychological suspense under the name "Rosamond Smith." In the Smith books, Oates explored themes of betrayal and deception, lust and murder, through stories involving twins, doubles, and hidden second identities—initially, keeping her own double identity a secret.
Hard Case Crime is proud to bring these extraordinary works of crime fiction, long unavailable in bookstores, back into print in definitive double editions, each pairing two complete novels and two never-before-collected Oates short stories, all linked thematically, to weave a sinister web filled with dark reflections.
In This Volume...
A model suburban husband grows obsessed with a beautiful stranger in DOUBLE DELIGHT, while an eminent professor preys on a vulnerable student in NEMESIS – and the echoes continue in the rare short stories “A Girl Worth Twenty Million” and “First Death.”
640 pages, Paperback
Published September 22, 2026
About the author
Joyce Carol Oates
922 books10.3k followersJoyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel Them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 23, 2026
I adored the first novel Double Delight. About a married father named Terrence Greene who falls in love with a younger woman named Ava Rose Renfrew and her family. This has wonderful details, visual and psychological. She takes advantage of him financially and there is violence and there is murder, not just to do with her. Is her evil family influencing him? Are they both bad so they belong together?
Like the best horror movies, this ends openly. Things can happen, things aren’t resolved.
Ava Rose has a twin named Ava Grace. I heard, well, read that Twins are a trope of Gothic Fiction.
I want to read this again.
Like the best horror movies, this ends openly. Things can happen, things aren’t resolved.
Ava Rose has a twin named Ava Grace. I heard, well, read that Twins are a trope of Gothic Fiction.
I want to read this again.
September 25, 2026
Double Delight is a tour-de-force brilliantly executed and flawlessly delivered. It starts slowly like the first whispers of a storm, but step by step builds into a howling crescendo.
In “Double Delight,” we meet Terence Greene, executive director of a foundation during the week and husband and father on weekends. He came from an impoverished background, but married well to Phyllis and he is the chairman of a charitable foundation that supports up and coming artists with a never-ending piggyback of funds. When the jury summons comes, he is advised to get out of it, but he is determined to do his civic duty and lands on an assault case, mesmerized by the gypsy princess victim who had flowing skirts, numerous bracelets, and feathers in her hair.
He can’t take his eyes off Ava-Rose Renfrew, his Helen of Troy. And he becomes foreman of the jury and proceeds to sway them all in her favor against the ex-boyfriend who won’t leave her alone. And he drives by her house in Trenton and befriends her aunt and steps inside a swirling maelstrom. For now Terence has two families, one is bored with and one full of life and vigorous, accepting of his gifts that he is so eager to make out if foundation funds.
Oates shows us who Terence is – a philanderer, a perverted creep preying on young women, a murderer, a thief, but Oates tells the story through Terence’s point of view. So we get to see him as a victim, as prey, as a chump, a fool, and, despite what he does, we have this sense that we want to hold him back and stop him from being such a fool.
But he can’t save himself from his own foolish compulsions. He can’t stop himself. And perhaps he only deserves pity.
The novel (“Nemesis”) is approached from an entirely different angle than Double Delight. It is structured more as a modern suspense novel than as an old-fashioned noir. The setting is an elite music school, Forest Park Conservatory, and it is told from the point of view primarily of Maggie Blackburn, a tall, aloof, music teacher who is looked at as a mother-figure by Brendan Bauer, a slightly-built, unsophisticated new student who has come from the hinterlands of Boise, Idaho, to be bedazzled by the bright lights of big-time music schooling and the legends who teach there such as Rolfe Christensen. Brendan stutters and is shy.
Maggie, for her part, is thirty-four, unmarried, unattached, a gifted pianist who fatally lacked confidence in her abilities and had chosen to direct her energy into teaching. Maggie would secretly visit her father in the home nearly every weekend, but their meetings were not pleasant.
The set-up here occurs when at the beginning of the school year Maggie throws a cocktail party in her home and, at the end of the evening, Brendan is lured by Christensen to his home, obstensibly to hear music. But, “whether Bauer was a guest, a ‘freely consenting and active participant’ in what occurred, or a captive, ‘held against his will,’ ‘terrified into submission’ by force and threats against his life, would be a matter of debate.” The next morning Brendan appears at Maggie’s door, dazed, cringing, unfocused, appearing to have aged years, skin scraped raw in several places, bruised, with broken glasses, and reveals he was raped by Christensen. The poor Brendan is broken in body and spirit, humiliated beyond anything imaginable.
And then, as so often seems to happen to victims of sexual harrasment in college or in the workplace, the victim Brendan is humiliated and destroyed by the very process of seeking help. Maggie urges him to go to the hospital and the police and to not let this terrible monster get away with it. Brendan, however, ponders what should he care about others, noting that nobody cared about him, and blaming Maggie for inviting him to the cocktail party and not warning him: “You must have known! Why didn’t somebody warn me!”
But, dear friends, this first part is all but a set up for the murder that comes later in December of the same year and the question of who-done-it and is it who you think and why you think or is it someone else for other reasons. And by the time you reach the end of the novel, you realize that she’s done it again and presented you with yet another masterpiece of human thoughts and deeds.
In “Double Delight,” we meet Terence Greene, executive director of a foundation during the week and husband and father on weekends. He came from an impoverished background, but married well to Phyllis and he is the chairman of a charitable foundation that supports up and coming artists with a never-ending piggyback of funds. When the jury summons comes, he is advised to get out of it, but he is determined to do his civic duty and lands on an assault case, mesmerized by the gypsy princess victim who had flowing skirts, numerous bracelets, and feathers in her hair.
He can’t take his eyes off Ava-Rose Renfrew, his Helen of Troy. And he becomes foreman of the jury and proceeds to sway them all in her favor against the ex-boyfriend who won’t leave her alone. And he drives by her house in Trenton and befriends her aunt and steps inside a swirling maelstrom. For now Terence has two families, one is bored with and one full of life and vigorous, accepting of his gifts that he is so eager to make out if foundation funds.
Oates shows us who Terence is – a philanderer, a perverted creep preying on young women, a murderer, a thief, but Oates tells the story through Terence’s point of view. So we get to see him as a victim, as prey, as a chump, a fool, and, despite what he does, we have this sense that we want to hold him back and stop him from being such a fool.
But he can’t save himself from his own foolish compulsions. He can’t stop himself. And perhaps he only deserves pity.
The novel (“Nemesis”) is approached from an entirely different angle than Double Delight. It is structured more as a modern suspense novel than as an old-fashioned noir. The setting is an elite music school, Forest Park Conservatory, and it is told from the point of view primarily of Maggie Blackburn, a tall, aloof, music teacher who is looked at as a mother-figure by Brendan Bauer, a slightly-built, unsophisticated new student who has come from the hinterlands of Boise, Idaho, to be bedazzled by the bright lights of big-time music schooling and the legends who teach there such as Rolfe Christensen. Brendan stutters and is shy.
Maggie, for her part, is thirty-four, unmarried, unattached, a gifted pianist who fatally lacked confidence in her abilities and had chosen to direct her energy into teaching. Maggie would secretly visit her father in the home nearly every weekend, but their meetings were not pleasant.
The set-up here occurs when at the beginning of the school year Maggie throws a cocktail party in her home and, at the end of the evening, Brendan is lured by Christensen to his home, obstensibly to hear music. But, “whether Bauer was a guest, a ‘freely consenting and active participant’ in what occurred, or a captive, ‘held against his will,’ ‘terrified into submission’ by force and threats against his life, would be a matter of debate.” The next morning Brendan appears at Maggie’s door, dazed, cringing, unfocused, appearing to have aged years, skin scraped raw in several places, bruised, with broken glasses, and reveals he was raped by Christensen. The poor Brendan is broken in body and spirit, humiliated beyond anything imaginable.
And then, as so often seems to happen to victims of sexual harrasment in college or in the workplace, the victim Brendan is humiliated and destroyed by the very process of seeking help. Maggie urges him to go to the hospital and the police and to not let this terrible monster get away with it. Brendan, however, ponders what should he care about others, noting that nobody cared about him, and blaming Maggie for inviting him to the cocktail party and not warning him: “You must have known! Why didn’t somebody warn me!”
But, dear friends, this first part is all but a set up for the murder that comes later in December of the same year and the question of who-done-it and is it who you think and why you think or is it someone else for other reasons. And by the time you reach the end of the novel, you realize that she’s done it again and presented you with yet another masterpiece of human thoughts and deeds.
November 9, 2026
A new book from the legendary Joyce Carol Oates is always something to celebrate. However, the publication of a work that she wrote four decades ago under the pen name Rosamond Smith is truly special.
SECOND NATURE not only is celebrating 40 years of pseudonymous suspense with two complete Rosamond Smith novels, it also contains two rare short stories: “A Girl Worth Twenty Million” and “First Death.” While these tales are solid, I will focus on the two novels in this review.
DOUBLE DELIGHT
Terence Greene is the executive director of a charitable foundation and appears to be happily married to Phyllis. He came from humble beginnings and gained wealth via his marriage to help him in his professional climb. He also is a father who loves his weekend family time. But he has secrets and feelings that sometimes go unchecked and are difficult to control.
This all comes to a head when he finds himself on the jury of a case involving the assault of a young gypsy lady named Ava-Rose Renfrew. He instantly becomes obsessed with this woman who is so different from what he is used to and works his way into the role of jury foreman so he can manipulate the deliberations in her favor.
Terence soon inserts himself into Ava-Rose’s life, and readers learn more about his perversions and secrets, some of which are deadly. Ava-Rose is no fool, and DOUBLE DELIGHT will take Terence on a ride where the duplicitous face he shows to his family as a way of satisfying his secret delights will come back to bite him in the worst ways. This is an intense story.
NEMESIS
The setting of NEMESIS is the world of academia, specifically the Forest Park Conservatory of Music. A single middle-aged woman, Maggie Blackburn is a gifted yet unaccomplished pianist who has turned her goals into a teaching career. One of her students whom she goes out of her way to mentor is Brendan Bauer, a gangly and hopeful young man who is drawn to this renowned school to learn from faculty members like the great Rolfe Christensen.
Maggie is hosting a cocktail party, where both Brendan and Rolfe are in attendance. Rolfe is able to lure Brendan to his home, and it turns into a full-blown case of sexual assault. Brendan appears in Maggie’s classroom the next day and tells her what happened. She insists he get medical treatment and vows to support him in his outing of her monstrous colleague. However, as in many cases such as this one, things get wildly out of control and even will become murderous before the dust settles in this very unpredictable tale.
Although stylistically different, each of these novels displays Oates at the height of her skills. This is hard to believe based on how early this was in her career. It proves that the glimpses of greatness shown here were mere harbingers of the fictional output to come from a writer who remains an American institution.
Reviewed by Ray Palen
SECOND NATURE not only is celebrating 40 years of pseudonymous suspense with two complete Rosamond Smith novels, it also contains two rare short stories: “A Girl Worth Twenty Million” and “First Death.” While these tales are solid, I will focus on the two novels in this review.
DOUBLE DELIGHT
Terence Greene is the executive director of a charitable foundation and appears to be happily married to Phyllis. He came from humble beginnings and gained wealth via his marriage to help him in his professional climb. He also is a father who loves his weekend family time. But he has secrets and feelings that sometimes go unchecked and are difficult to control.
This all comes to a head when he finds himself on the jury of a case involving the assault of a young gypsy lady named Ava-Rose Renfrew. He instantly becomes obsessed with this woman who is so different from what he is used to and works his way into the role of jury foreman so he can manipulate the deliberations in her favor.
Terence soon inserts himself into Ava-Rose’s life, and readers learn more about his perversions and secrets, some of which are deadly. Ava-Rose is no fool, and DOUBLE DELIGHT will take Terence on a ride where the duplicitous face he shows to his family as a way of satisfying his secret delights will come back to bite him in the worst ways. This is an intense story.
NEMESIS
The setting of NEMESIS is the world of academia, specifically the Forest Park Conservatory of Music. A single middle-aged woman, Maggie Blackburn is a gifted yet unaccomplished pianist who has turned her goals into a teaching career. One of her students whom she goes out of her way to mentor is Brendan Bauer, a gangly and hopeful young man who is drawn to this renowned school to learn from faculty members like the great Rolfe Christensen.
Maggie is hosting a cocktail party, where both Brendan and Rolfe are in attendance. Rolfe is able to lure Brendan to his home, and it turns into a full-blown case of sexual assault. Brendan appears in Maggie’s classroom the next day and tells her what happened. She insists he get medical treatment and vows to support him in his outing of her monstrous colleague. However, as in many cases such as this one, things get wildly out of control and even will become murderous before the dust settles in this very unpredictable tale.
Although stylistically different, each of these novels displays Oates at the height of her skills. This is hard to believe based on how early this was in her career. It proves that the glimpses of greatness shown here were mere harbingers of the fictional output to come from a writer who remains an American institution.
Reviewed by Ray Palen
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Excellent! "Second Nature" is a collection of two Joyce Carol Oates novels and two stories, published decades ago under the pseudonym Rosamund Smith.
The first novel, "Double Delight", is a page-turner that explores hidden personalities, reality vs. fantasy, obsessive love, masterfully written going backwards and forwards in time all with an overarching sense of dread. Oates does dread very well. And ambiguity. Is a murderer always a bad guy? What if he only kills bad people? Oates actually creates the portrait of a sympathetic serial killer.
Oates continues wtih the theme of ambiguity in the second novel, "Nemsis". Set in a music conservatory, an evil composer-in-residence is murdered with poisoned chocolates. A number of students and teachers at the conservatory have ample motive to kill him. Is it Maggie, the cool, blond pianist? Brendan, the victim of a sexual assault? Calvin, the conservatory head who's being blackmailed? Or a cellist who mysteriously disappears? It's like an old Agatha Christie who-done-it but with themes of sexual ambiguity, relationship ambiguity, and the mystery solved by an ordinary person.
Thank you Hard Case Crime for the ARC with the gorgeous cover!
The first novel, "Double Delight", is a page-turner that explores hidden personalities, reality vs. fantasy, obsessive love, masterfully written going backwards and forwards in time all with an overarching sense of dread. Oates does dread very well. And ambiguity. Is a murderer always a bad guy? What if he only kills bad people? Oates actually creates the portrait of a sympathetic serial killer.
Oates continues wtih the theme of ambiguity in the second novel, "Nemsis". Set in a music conservatory, an evil composer-in-residence is murdered with poisoned chocolates. A number of students and teachers at the conservatory have ample motive to kill him. Is it Maggie, the cool, blond pianist? Brendan, the victim of a sexual assault? Calvin, the conservatory head who's being blackmailed? Or a cellist who mysteriously disappears? It's like an old Agatha Christie who-done-it but with themes of sexual ambiguity, relationship ambiguity, and the mystery solved by an ordinary person.
Thank you Hard Case Crime for the ARC with the gorgeous cover!
November 5, 2026
A new novel from the legendary Joyce Carol Oates is always something to celebrate. However, a release of work she did four decades ago under the pen name Rosamond Smith is something truly special.
The collection called SECOND NATURE not only is celebrating 40 years of pseudonymous suspense with two complete Rosamond Smith novels but also contains two rare short stories entitled “A Girl Worth Twenty Million” and “First Death”. While those stories were solid, it is the two complete novels that I will focus on here.
DOUBLE DELIGHT
A theme that has always permeated the work of Joyce Carol Oates has been obsession and the fallout from it amongst the individuals involved. That is no different with her Rosamond Smith writing and this first novel is full of this activity.
Terence Greene is the executive director of a charitable foundation and seemingly happily married to his wife Phyliss. Terrence came from humble beginnings and gained wealth via marriage to help him in his professional climb. He is also a father who loves his weekend family time, but he has secrets and feelings that sometimes go unchecked and are difficult to control. This all comes to a head when he finds himself on the jury of a case involving an assault case of a young gypsy woman named Ava-Rose Renfrew. He becomes instantly obsessed with this woman who is so different from what he is used to and works his way into the role of jury foreman so that he can manipulate the jury deliberation in her favor.
He soon inserts himself into Ava’s life, and the reader learns more about Terence’s perversions and secrets, some of which are deadly. Ava is no fool, and DOUBLE DELIGHT will take Terence on a ride where the duplicitous face he shows to his own family as a way of satisfying his secret delights will come back to bite him in the worst, and most satisfying ways for the reader. This is an intense story.
NEMESIS
The second story is a suspenseful thriller told in a more straightforward style than the often crime noir take of the previous novel. NEMESIS continues to work through the themes that made the Rosamond Smith, and later Joyce Carol Oates, novels so famous. This thriller deals again with manipulation, here of a sexual nature, as well as dishonesty and characters who get caught in a situation where the outcome may be surprising and uncertain.
The setting here is the world of academia, the elite music school named the Forest Park Conservatory. Maggie is middle-aged and single; she is also a gifted yet unaccomplished pianist who has turned her goals into a teaching career. One of her students whom she goes out of her way to mentor is Brendan Bauer. A gangly and hopeful student drawn to this renowned school to learn from faculty like the great Rolfe Christensen.
Maggie has a cocktail party at her home where both Brendan and Rolfe are in attendance. Rolfe is able to lure Brenan to his own home where things get very unprofessional and turn into a full-blown case of sexual harassment. Brendan appears in Maggie’s classroom the next school day and confesses this to her. She insists he get medical treatment and vows to support him in his outing of her monstrous faculty colleague. However, as in many complex sexual harassment cases, things get wildly out of control and will even become murderous before the dust settles in this very unpredictable tale.
Two different novels stylistically, but each displaying Smith/Oates at the height of her skills. This is hard to believe, based on how early this was in her career and only proves that the glimpses of greatness shown here were mere harbingers of the fictional output to come from a writer who remains an American institution.
Reviewed by Ray Palen for Book Reporter
The collection called SECOND NATURE not only is celebrating 40 years of pseudonymous suspense with two complete Rosamond Smith novels but also contains two rare short stories entitled “A Girl Worth Twenty Million” and “First Death”. While those stories were solid, it is the two complete novels that I will focus on here.
DOUBLE DELIGHT
A theme that has always permeated the work of Joyce Carol Oates has been obsession and the fallout from it amongst the individuals involved. That is no different with her Rosamond Smith writing and this first novel is full of this activity.
Terence Greene is the executive director of a charitable foundation and seemingly happily married to his wife Phyliss. Terrence came from humble beginnings and gained wealth via marriage to help him in his professional climb. He is also a father who loves his weekend family time, but he has secrets and feelings that sometimes go unchecked and are difficult to control. This all comes to a head when he finds himself on the jury of a case involving an assault case of a young gypsy woman named Ava-Rose Renfrew. He becomes instantly obsessed with this woman who is so different from what he is used to and works his way into the role of jury foreman so that he can manipulate the jury deliberation in her favor.
He soon inserts himself into Ava’s life, and the reader learns more about Terence’s perversions and secrets, some of which are deadly. Ava is no fool, and DOUBLE DELIGHT will take Terence on a ride where the duplicitous face he shows to his own family as a way of satisfying his secret delights will come back to bite him in the worst, and most satisfying ways for the reader. This is an intense story.
NEMESIS
The second story is a suspenseful thriller told in a more straightforward style than the often crime noir take of the previous novel. NEMESIS continues to work through the themes that made the Rosamond Smith, and later Joyce Carol Oates, novels so famous. This thriller deals again with manipulation, here of a sexual nature, as well as dishonesty and characters who get caught in a situation where the outcome may be surprising and uncertain.
The setting here is the world of academia, the elite music school named the Forest Park Conservatory. Maggie is middle-aged and single; she is also a gifted yet unaccomplished pianist who has turned her goals into a teaching career. One of her students whom she goes out of her way to mentor is Brendan Bauer. A gangly and hopeful student drawn to this renowned school to learn from faculty like the great Rolfe Christensen.
Maggie has a cocktail party at her home where both Brendan and Rolfe are in attendance. Rolfe is able to lure Brenan to his own home where things get very unprofessional and turn into a full-blown case of sexual harassment. Brendan appears in Maggie’s classroom the next school day and confesses this to her. She insists he get medical treatment and vows to support him in his outing of her monstrous faculty colleague. However, as in many complex sexual harassment cases, things get wildly out of control and will even become murderous before the dust settles in this very unpredictable tale.
Two different novels stylistically, but each displaying Smith/Oates at the height of her skills. This is hard to believe, based on how early this was in her career and only proves that the glimpses of greatness shown here were mere harbingers of the fictional output to come from a writer who remains an American institution.
Reviewed by Ray Palen for Book Reporter
November 12, 2026
Joyce Carol Oates had written suspense novels under the pen name Rosamond Smith, and the Hard Case series has collected two novels and two short stories in this volume.
Double Delight: a suburban husband is obsessed with a beautiful stranger. Terence lives in an affluent neighborhood, has a son in college, a moody teenage daughter, and a preteen daughter in the early stages of an eating disorder. His wife puts him down, and his in-laws expect him to be properly grateful that they helped financially in the early days of his marriage. He's deeply unfulfilled, though he doesn't recognize it, when he's summoned for jury duty. He meets with the victim in the battery case and is drawn into her family life. Neither side of his life is going particularly well.
I found it very hard to like Terence. He had so much of his life handed to him from the start, which might be why he didn't appreciate the better aspects of it. The obsession he develops is uncomfortable to read, and I found it hard to sympathize with him. We're essentially watching someone implode, and for the longest time the suspense is waiting for both halves of his life to collide in an awful way. The ending isn't quite what we expect for his marriage or his life, but it works out better than I thought it would.
Nemesis: a professor preys on a vulnerable student. We thankfully don't see the actual assault, though we hear about it with the student telling his advisor and school provost about the event right after it happened. The provost isn't surprised, given past harassment complaints. When things shift at the Conservatory, the student becomes a suspect.
At first I wasn't sure why our POV was from a different professor in the program, but it eventually became obvious. Maggie isn't involved directly, but we see how the crimes affected her and the community. It also means we learn of details as she does, and are left wondering what actually happened. It's not exactly a cozy mystery, given the harrowing experience Brendan had and the finale when Maggie figured it out, but she does some sleuthing herself in the second half,
Short stories "A Girl Worth Twenty Million" and "First Death" match the themes of the two novels. The obsession makes little sense on the surface, but stems from an underlying unrest. If only they can have this one person who is just out of reach, then they'll be happy. It doesn't work out that way, and the characters don't always learn from their mistakes.
The novels were written in the manner of 1960's and 1970's style thriller novels, so it's less about intense action like modern ones but a slow descent into behavior that should get them arrested. Nods to AIDS and the lack of cell phones or modern devices place the stories firmly in the 1980's, allowing for gaps in time, communication, and receiving help. The novel Nemesis specifically has dates in 1988. I liked that novel the best, I think, because I was more attached to Maggie. I didn't particularly like the main characters in the short stories or Terence, though their obsessive nature was still compelling. It was more like watching train wrecks in slow motion, and certainly fits the Hard Case vibes.
Double Delight: a suburban husband is obsessed with a beautiful stranger. Terence lives in an affluent neighborhood, has a son in college, a moody teenage daughter, and a preteen daughter in the early stages of an eating disorder. His wife puts him down, and his in-laws expect him to be properly grateful that they helped financially in the early days of his marriage. He's deeply unfulfilled, though he doesn't recognize it, when he's summoned for jury duty. He meets with the victim in the battery case and is drawn into her family life. Neither side of his life is going particularly well.
I found it very hard to like Terence. He had so much of his life handed to him from the start, which might be why he didn't appreciate the better aspects of it. The obsession he develops is uncomfortable to read, and I found it hard to sympathize with him. We're essentially watching someone implode, and for the longest time the suspense is waiting for both halves of his life to collide in an awful way. The ending isn't quite what we expect for his marriage or his life, but it works out better than I thought it would.
Nemesis: a professor preys on a vulnerable student. We thankfully don't see the actual assault, though we hear about it with the student telling his advisor and school provost about the event right after it happened. The provost isn't surprised, given past harassment complaints. When things shift at the Conservatory, the student becomes a suspect.
At first I wasn't sure why our POV was from a different professor in the program, but it eventually became obvious. Maggie isn't involved directly, but we see how the crimes affected her and the community. It also means we learn of details as she does, and are left wondering what actually happened. It's not exactly a cozy mystery, given the harrowing experience Brendan had and the finale when Maggie figured it out, but she does some sleuthing herself in the second half,
Short stories "A Girl Worth Twenty Million" and "First Death" match the themes of the two novels. The obsession makes little sense on the surface, but stems from an underlying unrest. If only they can have this one person who is just out of reach, then they'll be happy. It doesn't work out that way, and the characters don't always learn from their mistakes.
The novels were written in the manner of 1960's and 1970's style thriller novels, so it's less about intense action like modern ones but a slow descent into behavior that should get them arrested. Nods to AIDS and the lack of cell phones or modern devices place the stories firmly in the 1980's, allowing for gaps in time, communication, and receiving help. The novel Nemesis specifically has dates in 1988. I liked that novel the best, I think, because I was more attached to Maggie. I didn't particularly like the main characters in the short stories or Terence, though their obsessive nature was still compelling. It was more like watching train wrecks in slow motion, and certainly fits the Hard Case vibes.
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