An engrossing novel filled with political and psychological insight.
In Wilson’s thriller, an American photographer travels to Central America and is drawn into the region’s violent internal conflicts.
Robert Ellis is only 28 years old but already exhausted by the pressures of life—he’s haunted by the death of his mother from cancer and dogged by the gruesome memories of the war he covered in Afghanistan. Moreover, he’s depleted from leading a nomadic life; his peripatetic wandering has taken its toll on the relationship with his girlfriend, Kara. The author sensitively captures Robert’s premature weltschmerz: “It dawned on him that he never actually knew what he wanted, other than to keep shooting, and to keep traveling, and to have his photos published. Maybe something had changed in Afghanistan, he thought.” He is presented with an unusual offer—someone impressed with his photography wishes to purchase some photos for a considerable sum of money. To close the transaction, he must fly to Nicoya, a war-torn city in Costa Rica. It is hard to understand why it is necessary for Robert to make such a journey in order to sell digital photographs; he makes the trip anyway, and meets the buyer, Janvion Garcia, a powerful jefe who presides over an army of rebels, apparently backed by the United States. Garcia intends to use Robert to demonstrate his brutality—he plans to murder him—but Robert escapes, doggedly pursued by Garcia’s henchmen, including an elite American agent, Hull. There are some minor narrative missteps on Wilson’s part—Robert takes a stray puppy he befriended with him as he goes on the run, a ridiculous decision that feels like a cloyingly manipulative authorial device. However, the plot is thrilling, and Robert’s improbable struggle to survive is artfully made to seem quite plausible. Also, Wilson constructs a fascinatingly complex portrait of the protagonist, disillusioned by life so early on and compellingly juxtaposes that discontent with the sordidness of political life.
An engrossing novel filled with political and psychological insight.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 979-8986946252
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Kelp Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.
A violent attack hijacks a woman’s memory in this novel of domestic suspense.
McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from men who have betrayed them. That formula perfectly fits Dr. Charlotte McKenna, a 37-year-old dermatologist who isn’t looking for love until the most handsome man she’s ever seen begins to woo her. There are warning signs about Clark Douglas and Charlotte overlooks them to her detriment—but is he a killer? The novel has dual timelines split between events leading up to the day Charlotte barely survives a head wound meant to kill her and the months afterward, when she struggles to reclaim her memory and her mobility. In real life, McFadden is a physician trained to treat brain injuries. Her expertise gives Charlotte’s rehabilitation authenticity, and her writing talent makes it interesting and engaging. As good as that timeline is, readers will yearn to get back to the alternate timeline about who wants Charlotte dead. It’s only a matter of time before Charlotte starts to remember who tried to kill her, and the clock is ticking toward their next attempt. McFadden dishes up plenty of suspects: Charlotte’s secretive husband, Clark; a former patient turned stalker who confronts Charlotte on her honeymoon; and the angry husband of a patient who blames Charlotte for his wife leaving him. Though the story is delicious and dark, McFadden brightens things up with a possible love interest for Charlotte and a surprise ending sure to please the author’s many fans.
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249617
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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