An enthralling cast headlines this dark, edgy tale of vengeance and murder.
In this thriller, several women’s lives radically change after crossing a movie star with mob ties and possible homicidal urges.
Lucy Higgins, the 25-year-old assistant manager at a seedy New York City strip club in 1999, is great at her job. That doesn’t mean she relishes it, and popular actor Nick Terlotta is her shot at something better. She catches his attention dancing onstage (her former profession) and scores a role in a low-budget film Nick wrote and is producing. He’s captivating in a way Lucy can’t explain, but their relationship gradually reveals his kinks, including an appalling sexual taste. In a corresponding narrative set seven years earlier, Jackie Vintour works her poker mastery in the glitzy Las Vegas casinos. But she’s really there for Nick; he’s deeply involved with the mob and the likely reason Jackie’s older sister, Scarlett, disappeared in 1985. Jackie teams up with old friend Bill Brennan, who knew Scarlett and now works in a betting cage in the run-down Stardust. That’s Nick’s favorite Vegas haunt and the perfect place to kill the film star—and maybe even rob the casino at the same time. Minty’s character-driven tale showcases other narratives, from Scarlett’s story to teenage Nick’s, as his deplorable mob father in the ’50s shapes his adulthood. Nick’s self-indulgence and condescension make him repugnant, but the full extent of his depravity (has he killed someone?) isn’t immediately known. As such, suspense relentlessly fuels scenes, especially as the potential female victims are so appealing, notwithstanding turns like Jackie’s murderous revenge plot. The author establishes characters via dialogue, and while this produces plenty of conversations, brief exchanges and pithy chapters keep the story moving. The author also adds pop-culture nods for the changing time periods—primarily mob-related films and TV shows, as Mafia movies are Nick’s claim to fame. This somber thriller ends on a denouement that readers won’t soon forget.
An enthralling cast headlines this dark, edgy tale of vengeance and murder.Pub Date: May 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-943401-74-1
Page Count: 455
Publisher: Trimark Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Although it lacks the surgical precision of Slaughter’s very best nightmares, this one richly earns its title.
More than a decade after a Georgia man is convicted of a monstrous double murder, an uncomfortably similar crime frees him and resets the search for the guilty party.
In Clifton County, home to the Rich Cliftons and the other Cliftons, the disappearance of teens Madison Dalrymple and Cheyenne Baker during the Halloween festivities hits everyone in North Falls hard. Working with her father, Sheriff Gerald Clifton, Deputy Emmy Lou Clifton hears the clock ticking down as she races frantically to get leads on the two friends, who’d been secretly plotting to take off for Atlanta after some undisclosed big score. As a longtime friend of Madison’s mother, Hannah, Emmy hopes against hope to find the missing teens before they’re both dead. By the time Emmy’s hopes are dashed, two unpleasantly likely suspects with strong attachments to underage sex partners have emerged, and one of them ends up in prison. In a bold move, Slaughter jumps over the next 12 years to the case of Paisley Walker, a 14-year-old whose disappearance catches the eye of retiring FBI criminal psychologist Jude Archer, who promptly crosses the country to come to Clifton County and take charge—um, that is, consult—on this heartrending new investigation. Emmy, suddenly and shockingly deprived of counsel from the parents who’ve supported her all her life, doesn’t get along any better with Jude than with the larger circle of Cliftons and the Clifton-Cliftons. But together they identify one new suspect, then another, before a shootout that arrives so early you just know there are still more surprises to come.
Although it lacks the surgical precision of Slaughter’s very best nightmares, this one richly earns its title.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9780063336773
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
