Virtually unputdownable, a stay-up-all-night-until-your-eyes-blur kind of read.
A former anesthesiologist searches for a missing investigator in Rajagopal’s mystery/thriller, one in a series.
Still coming to grips with her husband’s murder after two years have passed, Samantha “Sam” Arnsson attempts to begin a new chapter of her life in Dallas with her son, “little Vic,” and Quincy “Quin” Duncan, a new love interest. A data analyst for one of the government’s “alphabet soups of various security agencies,” Sam asks her brother-in-law, Jick (an amateur sleuth with experience investigating crimes), for help with a missing person case in Hawaii. A Honolulu-based investigator named Alicia Kehaulani Rogers disappeared almost eight months earlier while investigating a wealthy businessman, George Sturgis, who may or may not be involved in research involving the cloning of humans. Sam believes the probability of the investigator dying from an accident to be high and assumes that sending Jick to the Big Island will be a relatively easy—and safe—assignment. But following the investigator’s trail leads Jick into a tangled web of seemingly contradictory information and rumors. Sturgis suffered a traumatic brain injury while scuba diving and hasn’t been the same since the accident; he also may have been involved in a plan for him and his wife to have a child through a surrogate decades ago in Greece. Alicia was last seen near a hundred-acre parcel of land owned by Sturgis, a remote stretch of forest that Sturgis’ reclusive adult son calls his “playground.” Before Jick realizes, he’s entangled in a grand-scale conspiracy that spans decades and involves numerous murders and more than a few psychopaths.
Rajagopal’s third outing to feature former anesthesiologist Dr. Jayant “Jick” Arnsson (after 2023’s Rubato) is an utterly readable and impressively original fusion of amateur sleuth mystery, mainstream thriller, and speculative SF. The brilliance of this novel—and series—is in this blend of genre elements. The sheer unpredictability is glorious; buffeted by jaw-dropping revelations and bombshell plot twists, readers will be kept on the edges of their proverbial seats until the very last pages. The author’s use of multiple plot threads and nonlinear timelines makes Jick’s investigation even more complex and intriguing. Rajagopal’s writing style is immersive, with rich descriptions that place the reader fully in the narrative, living vicariously through the characters. In one scene, Jick experiences the breathtaking beauty of Hawaii: “Colorful orchids grew out of niches formed in the rock wall. A shoulder of vibrant emerald-green grass flanked either side of the road, its texture so smooth it could have doubled as a putting green. A ribbon of impossibly colorful ground orchids studded natural crevices in the lava rock where the grass met the lava field. Palm trees lined either side of the road; between the palms, alternating red and white bougainvillea bushes waved like pom-poms.” The natural beauty of the setting is balanced by the story’s dark undertones and unapologetically violent sequences, which are startling and more than a little disturbing: “he ambled into view carrying two decapitated heads like trophies.”
Virtually unputdownable, a stay-up-all-night-until-your-eyes-blur kind of read.Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2025
ISBN: 9798985898965
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
Another gem from Lippman, with a heroine who elevates being ordinary to an art form.
An ordinary woman finds extraordinary adventures on a river cruise on the Seine.
Muriel Blossom acknowledges that she’s a “no-frills” person, a trait that served her well when doing surveillance for Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan. When she gets an unexpected upgrade on her British Airways flight to Paris, she finds herself not only in business class, but on the other side of the looking glass. Allan Turner, a handsome stranger, befriends her in the Chesapeake Lounge, which her upgrade allows her to access. She misses her connection at Heathrow because of the weather, so he invites her to share his luxurious suite in a London hotel, paid for, he insists, by his firm. Then he sends her off on the Eurostar train to reach Paris via the Chunnel in time for her ship’s departure. Once in Paris, she meets another stranger, younger but equally attentive. Danny Johnson takes her to a friend’s atelier in the Marais where the plus-sized Muriel can find the fashionable clothing she deserves. A mysterious man in a bellman uniform knocks on her hotel-room door and invites her to leave her luggage in the hallway so it can be transferred overnight to her ship, but of course she realizes that’s nonsense. She also receives the news that Allan died in a fall from his balcony the night after she left London. When Danny turns up on her cruise, she knows something’s off, but she can’t put together the pieces. That’s because Lippman is unrivaled in her ability to lay out clues in a way that makes them seem not only mysterious, but downright surreal. Only at the end does everything fit together so naturally that it all seems blazingly obvious. Like Muriel, who’s patient and sensible to the end, you’ll just have to wait.
Another gem from Lippman, with a heroine who elevates being ordinary to an art form.Pub Date: June 17, 2025
ISBN: 9780062998101
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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