An engaging tale with a disturbing subject, fraught relationships, and a touch of romance.
In this thriller series opener, the brutal murder of a teenage girl rocks the students of a New Mexico high school and reconnects their psychological counselor with her former best friend.
Five years ago, after her mother’s tragic death in an automobile accident, forensic psychologist Kate Medina moved back to her family home in Alamogordo to care for her widowed father, Frank. Now, she is working as a counselor in the same school that she attended almost 20 years earlier. It is Friday, and Kate goes home disconcerted. Her session with Mandy Garcia is unproductive, and another student, Gabby Greene, is missing. During a difficult dinner that night with her father and her sister, Tilly, Kate learns that Frank is dying. Tuesday morning, her world turns even darker. She arrives at school to find police Detective Roman Aguilar, the best friend she left behind so long ago, waiting in her office. Gabby’s mangled body has been found in a creek, and the police are assuming the murder is gang related. But Kate and Roman are both chilled by the memory of an eerily similar killing that took place 17 years ago when the two friends discovered the body of a teenage girl in a burned-out car by the creek. Little do Kate and Roman suspect that the ensuing investigation will put their lives in danger. Although the plotline sometimes feels like a cross between an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and a Hallmark Channel movie, Rivers ably tackles the frightening topic of domestic sex trafficking of underage girls by malevolent, powerful men as well as the emotional baggage carried by victims of rape. Not quite a page-turner, the timely novel is nonetheless engrossing, with enough tension and dramatic angst—especially between Kate and Roman—to keep things intriguing. Despite the evasion of justice by too many bad guys, the story leaves hopeful possibilities with plenty of strings to be followed in the sequel. And Kate has the potential to be a sufficiently strong protagonist to carry the series forward.
An engaging tale with a disturbing subject, fraught relationships, and a touch of romance.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73451-604-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Compathy Press, LLC.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.
Evildoers plan attacks from America to India, and Jack Ryan Jr. is a prime target.
In Washington state, a man and his family are murdered, and President Jack Ryan learns it is another Poseidon Spear incident. Three retired members of that counterterrorism group have been killed now, and the U.S. government suspects a mole in its midst. Meanwhile, the Umayyad Revolutionary Council believes it has a holy and wholly anti-American mission. Against this backdrop, Jack Ryan Jr., and his fiancée, Lisanne Robertson, visit Delhi, India, to attend the wedding of Srini Rai, the brilliant surgeon who attached Lisanne’s prosthetic left arm. Lisanne had lost her arm in Tom Clancy Shadow of the Dragon (2020). Jack and Lisanne are both operators working for the Campus, a covert group that executes secret presidential directives. A wedding is a happy occasion, and the engaged American couple intend the trip as a vacation. Jack and Lisanne will attend a sangeet, an elaborate pre-wedding party. But it isn’t long before they survive a suicide bomb attack. As with all Clancy novels, there’s plenty of action on a global scale. In simultaneous strikes, terrorists plan to contaminate America’s Western water supply with radioactive waste from Washington’s Hanford nuclear power plant, blow up a spectacular new bridge in Kashmir, and kill the evil Ryan—or Junior, at least. It will be At-Takwir, the end of days. There is an appealing mix of Indian culture, high-speed action, and the rich lode of details that characterizes the whole series. And in the background lingers the question on several characters’ minds: Have Jack and Lisanne set their own wedding date?
A fun read. Terrorists make great Clancy fodder.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780593718032
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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