Give Me Your Hand (Abbott) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Abbott excels in evoking the strange mix of camaraderie and rivalry that exists in academic research…. Female friendship and ambition are threaded throughout her work, and here they form a rich tapestry…. Ultimately, though, the reason to read this compelling and hypnotic novel is… Abbott’s expert dissection of women’s friendships and rivalries. She is…one of the most intelligent and daring novelists working in the crime genre today.
Ruth Ware - New Times Book Review


Give Me Your Hand steadily intensifies its atmosphere of claustrophobia to the point of constriction.… Abbott deliciously draws out tension by hopping back and forth in time, slowly disclosing Diane’s skeleton-in-the-closet while divulging Kit’s moral failings that will inadvertently add to the body count.… Give Me Your Hand, like so many of Abbott’s disturbing tales, dramatizes the adage, "Be careful what you wish for."
Maureen Corrigan - Washington Post


Abbott strongly dissects obsessions that easily morph into destruction and aspirations that spiral into blind ambition. The personalities of Diane and Kit are manifested through their work.… Abbott again shows why she’s one of our best story tellers.
Associated Press


Abbott isn’t just any crime writer. She earned a Ph.D. from New York University studying noir literature and has built a blockbuster caree.… Abbott couldn’t resist the idea of a condition that could be both an explanation for bad behavior and an excuse that ignores the complexity of female killers. She masterfully mines that gray area to build tension.… Abbott’s talent lies in dissecting the complicated tension between women at any age.
Time


(Starred review) When Diane’s secret pulses to the surface, lives are lost and futures are put in doubt in a mad rush to keep the past in its place. No writer can touch Abbott in the realm of twisted desire and relationships between women, both intimate and feral.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review) [A] vividly realized world of intense competition and creates life-or-death stakes where we wouldn’t have known to look for them…. Procedural fans may have a few nitpicks, but this is a brilliant riff on… the ultimate unknowability of the human brain.
Booklist


(Starred review) In Abbott’s deft hands, friendship is fused to rivalry, and ambition to fear, with an unsettling level of believability. It will take more than a cold shower to still the blood thumping in your ears when you finish this.
Kirkus Reviews