Fast-paced action and a compelling study of friendships power this suspenseful thriller.
Four former friends are reunited when a secret from their past puts a killer on their trails.
Twenty-five years ago, five young teenagers living in a foster home did something very bad. This book’s prologue gives us a glimpse of it before shifting to the present, when those once-lost kids are adults who, at least from the outside, look like successes. Arty is a wealthy tech mogul, Donnie a fading but still recognized rock star, Nico a reality TV producer, Jenna a very happily married mom to two stepdaughters. And Ben became a judge—but now he’s been murdered. The other four survivors of Savior House haven’t seen each other in years, but Ben’s death will shake and imperil them. First to feel the seismic shock is Jenna, who, it seems, had a former career as an assassin, having been recruited at 15 right out of the foster home by a shadowy outfit called The Corporation. She gets a message she hoped never to get, summoning her back to her old job. But things go awry, and she hurries her family into hiding and goes on the hunt for Ben’s killer. In the meantime, Donnie, whose band is playing on a cruise ship, falls overboard but is miraculously rescued; Nico, on the job for a reality series about coal miners, is trapped underground when a tunnel collapses but also is rescued. And Arty is a target as well. Someone from their shared past is after them—but who, and why, and who is the mysterious woman who seems to have tried to kill each of them? Jenna is an engaging action hero, and Finlay makes skilled use of point of view, whipping the reader from Jenna to Donnie to Nico as they struggle to understand and survive, separately and then together again.
Fast-paced action and a compelling study of friendships power this suspenseful thriller.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781250863720
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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