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Title details for The Tip Line by Vanessa Cuti - Available

The Tip Line

A Novel

by Vanessa Cuti
ebook
3 of 3 copies available
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3 of 3 copies available
A reimagining of the Gilgo Beach Murders, perfect for fans of Caroline Kepnes and Megan Abbott, this twisty debut is an unsettling thriller that asks just how far you should go to find love.
Eager to get married, thirty-year-old Virginia Carey lands a job as an operator at a police tip line, where she thinks finding a husband will be easy. There’s Charlie Ford, a surprisingly sweet homicide detective, and charming police chief Declan “Deck” Brady. But just as Virginia’s plans begin to fall into place and she can almost picture a ring on her finger, she answers a call from Verona—a mysterious woman who provides a tip about four bodies on a remote local beach. 
Verona, a sex worker, also gives Virginia details on sordid and raucous parties attended by law enforcement officers, and on the strange fetishes of cops she has been involved with. Then comes an explosive tip: Verona thinks it’s a police officer who is responsible for the killings.
But it can’t be true—the cops Virginia works with are marriage material, even if they are a little rough around the edges. While Verona trusts that her tips are being heard because she and Virginia have formed an unusual connection, Virginia realizes that the key to solving the case is ultimately in her hands. 
The tip line will reveal the truth about those murders. So long as Virginia is willing to hear it.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 18, 2023

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781639102655

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781639102655
      • File size: 714 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from February 13, 2023
      “I just wanted to get married,” declares 30-year-old Virginia Carey at the start of Cuti’s exceptional debut, a psychological thriller built in part from elements of a still-unsolved Long Island crime. After Virginia lands a job at the Suffolk County, N.Y., police department fielding calls to its anonymous tip line, Det. Charlie Ford asks her out. Virginia immediately decides she loves Charlie and imagines their romance, sex, and marriage in detail. Their first date is postponed after a woman who identifies herself as Verona calls to say that several dead prostitutes lie in the dunes at a nearby beach. The discovery of four corpses propels Charlie and police chief Declan Brady, another unmarried man who attracts Virginia’s interest, into a serial killer investigation. In later calls, Verona claims that a police officer whose name she doesn’t know is involved in the killings. Virginia has grown to trust the other woman, yet refuses to believe that her marriage prospects could be killers. Cuti uses sharply honed prose to evoke a mind driven by desire and denial. Fans of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels will want to take a look. Agent: Maria Whelan, InkWell Management.

    • Library Journal

      April 1, 2023

      DEBUT Thirtysomething Virginia is eager to find a husband, so she takes a job answering the tip line for the Suffolk County PD--a lot of the cops are eligible bachelors, she's the only attractive single woman in the station. There an anonymous caller tips her off to the bodies of four dead sex workers near a beach. Then she gets the attention of the police chief, a hunk with a reputation for pushing boundaries, not just at work but in his personal life. Alcohol, coke, sex--their life together heats up. Virginia narrates the story, and she's perpetually abandoning what's happening now for her fantasies of how things could be in the future. Then she returns to reality, and the novel moves a step forward. But doubts build: the killer could be a policeman, and the caller implicates her lover. The ending is a shocker, the best part of an otherwise too slow tale. VERDICT There are echoes of Patricia Highsmith and Margaret Millar, but this debut takes too long to get there and is not so much about detection as about obsession.--David Keymer

      Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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