A surprising, exciting, but uneven psychological thriller.
In this novel, a psychiatrist is forced to question his life’s work.
Dr. Oliver Powers had the perfect life. He was a highly successful psychiatrist who specialized and wrote about religious delusions. He had a wonderful wife, Hannah, and a charming daughter, Emily. Emily seemed perfect until she was overcome by mental illness and turned to spirituality for an answer. Her suicide left Oliver reeling and mentally checked out from his marriage. He was left drowning in his own guilt and grief. That’s all that he can remember when he wakes up in a hospital, strapped to a bed (“I look down at my body. It’s clad in a hospital johnny—cowboy-boot patterned for no conceivable reason—and draped in a bedsheet. From the hall come the sounds of a medical device pinging, a loud phone ringing, a speaker paging Dr. Mukherjee”). Oliver is told his name is Cornelius T. Greenbird. What follows is a series of terrible events where he must face the sins of his past and transform into a different person if he hopes to survive. He’s left behind a trail of failed patients with varying severities of mental illnesses, and now they’ve come back for revenge. At the heart of the conspiracy is Harkins Hovarth III, a disturbed former patient with a tragic past who has the wealth to orchestrate the strange scheme. He doesn’t intend to let Oliver off easy and will do anything to force him to change. The journey Oliver embarks on and the treatment plan he undergoes will bring into question everything he thought was true. And in the end, he will find himself in a place beyond belief. Wolfendon’s ambitious novel offers unpredictable plot twists and unexpected disclosures. But while the plot is full of thrills, the story has a few problems. Many of Oliver’s decisions and much of his character development only happen because he is tortured. In addition, the ending includes a significant revelation that will mystify and dissatisfy some readers. There are also passages about mental disorders that are debatable. For example, the legitimacy of medication for the treatment of mental illness is questioned. That said, the tale is well written, and Oliver’s narrative voice is engaging, empathetic, and at times entertaining.
A surprising, exciting, but uneven psychological thriller.Pub Date: Dec. 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-68513-093-0
Page Count: 367
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Yes, it has its playfully witty moments, but it’s a distinctly minor work in the author’s brainteasing canon.
Murder disrupts the filming of—what else?—The Word Is Murder, based on the first novel starring author Horowitz and his sometime partner, ex-copper Daniel Hawthorne.
With commendably dramatic timing, gofer Izzy Mays bursts into the middle of a pivotal shot on location at The Stade in Hastings to announce that Hawthorne’s been murdered. Of course, what she means (though Horowitz takes his time clarifying this ambiguity) is that David Caine, the rising star playing Hawthorne, has been fatally stabbed in the neck. Suspicion falls on James Aubrey, the agent Caine had just fired; Izzy, because Caine had caused her to be fired, too, though he ended up making his exit first; Ralph Seymour, the washed-up actor who’d returned from New Zealand to play Horowitz opposite Caine, his mortal enemy; and producer Teresa de León, who’s abruptly lost an important source of funding for the project; director Cy Truman; and screenwriter Shanika Harris, because why not? After Hawthorne builds meticulous hypothetical cases against several of these suspects, provoking Teresa’s apt rejoinder, “All those questions in the script and now you’re asking them for real,” he responds to Horowitz’s theory that he may have been the intended target after all by sharing a story from his early days as a private investigator in what ends up looking like the most elaborately extended red herring in the history of detective fiction. The two plots, past and present—or, to be more precise, past and present-day-adaptation-of-a-story-from-the-less-distant-past, are eventually woven together in ways only Horowitz’s most devoted fans will celebrate.
Yes, it has its playfully witty moments, but it’s a distinctly minor work in the author’s brainteasing canon.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9780063305748
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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