The benefits of this briskly entertaining, if sometimes-familiar, debut outweigh the risks.
In Essay’s courtroom drama, an attorney whose career is on the rise faces off against a powerful pharmaceutical company.
Claire Hewitt is a new partner at the Philadelphia law firm of Blackman & Bradford, and she’s been made first chair in a case that could make or break her career. Wealthy Clifford and Margo Satori are accusing Novo Analgesic Systems, one of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical companies, of medical negligence in the opioid death of their teenage daughter, Emma. The case is personal for Claire, who’s still haunted by the opioid death of her beloved younger sister. The Satoris want vengeance, and so does Claire: “A new revenge,” she declares. “A revenge called justice.” She’s paired with Alec Marshall, “the firm’s prodigy,” and harbors insecurities that any setbacks in the case will be blamed on “a female partner who’s not quite ready to run with the big boys.” However, she impressively takes on a formidable array of courtroom combatants, including the company’s in-house counsel, its slippery CEO, and a team of doctors with varying degrees of fidelity to the Hippocratic oath—as well as an obstinate judge. Readers won’t find very much that’s new in this thriller’s depiction of the devastation wrought by opioids and Big Pharma, which, in recent years, has become a ubiquitous villain in fiction. As such, revelations of corruption, conspiracy, and murder are unsurprising developments, although there’s no denying that the prescription drug industry remains a potent adversary. Fans of the courtroom-drama genre will even recognize an exchange from A Few Good Men (“Are we clear?” “Crystal”). However, Essay knows her way around this material and has clearly done her research on aspects of the opioid epidemic. Also, Claire and Alec make a good team, and readers will likely want to see them take on more cases.
The benefits of this briskly entertaining, if sometimes-familiar, debut outweigh the risks.Pub Date: July 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781647427047
Page Count: 352
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Red-hot storytelling.
Two master storytellers create one explosive thriller.
Mauna Loa is going to blow within days—“the biggest damn eruption in a century”—and John “Mac” MacGregor of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory leads a team trying to fend off catastrophe. Can they vent the volcano? Divert the flow of blistering hot lava? The city of Hilo is but a few miles down the hill from the world’s largest active volcano and will likely be in the path of a 15-foot-high wall of molten menace racing toward them at 50 miles an hour. “You live here, you always worry about the big one,” Mac says, and this could be it. There’s much more, though. The U.S. Army swoops in, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff personally “drafts” Mac into the Army. Then Mac learns the frightening secret of the Army’s special interest in Mauna Loa, and suddenly the stakes fly far, far beyond Hilo. Perhaps they can save the world, but the odds don’t look good. Readers will sympathize with Mac, who teaches surfing to troubled teens and for whom “taking chances is part of his damned genetic code.” But no one takes chances like the aerial cowboy Jake Rogers and the photographer who hires him to fly over the smoldering, burbling, rock-spitting hellhole. Some of the action scenes will make readers’ eyes pop as the tension continues to build. As with any good thriller, there’s a body count, but not all thrillers have blackened corpses surfing lava flows. The story is the brainchild of the late Crichton, who did a great deal of research but died in 2008 before he could finish the novel. His widow handed the project to James Patterson, who weaves Crichton’s work into a seamless summer read.
Red-hot storytelling.Pub Date: June 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780316565073
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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