A razor-sharp, ultra-cool, gritty hero ignites this worthy tale.
In this debut novel and series opener, a highly skilled ex-analyst trains for her chance to become a field operative.
Evangeline “Sam” Sampierre looks into missing hikers across the United States per her National Security Agency assignment. But she also has a personal investment; she’s still haunted by her childhood best friend’s unexplained disappearance years ago. Just when she links four of the missing hikers, she loses her job in a mass layoff. Yet Sam keeps looking, and now she can investigate on location instead of being stuck behind a desk. She can’t fund her probe for long without a paycheck, so she eyes government contractor The Baxter Group, headquartered in Washington, D.C. As a former NSA analyst, she’s a shoo-in as long as she survives a mandatory 20-week training program involving such skills as combat and firearms. Sam thankfully has a head start; she possesses an impressive array of strengths and is mere months away from earning a black belt in Israeli fighting and self-defense. She excels at training but, during the program, concedes that she’s a “lone wolf.” The Baxter Group may be the place where Sam learns that she doesn’t have to rely only on herself. She opens up and befriends fellow trainees, though she’s particularly drawn to her potential boss—the director of field ops (and the CEO’s grandson) Ben Baxter. Sam can’t easily predict “socially bipolar” Ben’s moods, whether during training or downtime. When it looks as if he’ll be working the missing-hikers case with her, the two will either join forces or butt heads.
Aurelius quickly establishes this hero as an intuitive, capable woman who more than deserves her own series. It seems as if Sam’s good at whatever she tackles, and she does everything with focus and tenacity. The novel opens with narrator Sam geocaching in Tennessee, tracking a lead in her investigation; she’s in the field alone to find someone and maybe prevent future disappearances. So it’s a bit of a letdown when the story switches gears to center on her recruitment by The Baxter Group, as she doesn’t return to her probe for a long time. But it’s in this section that Sam’s flaws gradually come out; she sometimes doubts herself and her abilities, which can hamper her shot at succeeding. Eloquently understated relationships between Sam and various men take the narrative reins—her bond with her old NSA boss, who “was more like a father figure…always looking out for her”; hints of romance with a trainee; and refreshingly warmhearted interactions with an ex-boyfriend. Her scenes with her female pals pale in comparison, as they mostly talk about men. Yet some moments do play out in the midst of colorfully described settings. Sam, for example, hikes trails in woods of multihued sights, from peaceful waterfalls and vibrant plant life to the setting sun peeking through trees. Aurelius moreover breathes life into a restaurant bar (where a drunken idiot spoils a girls’ night out) and Sam’s self-defense class (as she demonstrates how to disarm an assailant). Although the author clearly wrote this volume with a series in mind, it offers a touch of resolution before ending on a superb cliffhanger.
A razor-sharp, ultra-cool, gritty hero ignites this worthy tale.Pub Date: April 3, 2021
ISBN: 9781736695111
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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