More good fun from a master storyteller.
Motherhood is no barrier to crime busting in this clever thriller.
Mickey Gibson is an ex–crime scene tech, ex-cop, ex-detective, and a single mother of two tykes, including one who's been known to throw up on her. She works at home as an investigator for ProEye, chasing down criminals online, and she is quite good at it. Her ex-hubby, the rat, had said he wanted a big family but bugged out on her when the “daddy do list” “ruined” his weekends. Now a phone call turns her life upside down. A woman she doesn't know, ostensibly from ProEye, asks her to do some fieldwork: inventory the contents of an old mansion. The woman at first goes by Arlene, but she might really be Clarisse or Francine. In other words, “she’s a liar, plain and simple,” and she has strong motivation to get Mickey involved. Naturally, the contents of the mansion include a murder victim, a smelly corpse that had once been “a criminal on a global scale.” Mickey feels compelled to solve the crime, though she’s emphatically told “it’s not your job to solve this sucker. You’re not a cop anymore.” More murders follow as the possibility of a hidden treasure looms. Two strong, engaging women drive the complicated plot—the multitasking mom who’s compelled to solve a crime while defending against threats to her children, and the childless manipulator who has her own big-time personal issues. She—let’s call her Clarisse for now—has the best lines: “Hell, with just the right eyeliner I can rule the world,” and “Life was a shell game. The winners could just hide the truth better than everybody else.” And she has a lot to hide. In the end, the plot elements are all tied up in a neat little bow.
More good fun from a master storyteller.Pub Date: April 18, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5387-5063-6
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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