An enjoyably twisty mystery.
When a routine investigation yields evidence of a serious crime, a medical examiner and an anthropologist find themselves in a killer’s crosshairs in this thriller.
Trudy Beasley, the assistant chief medical examiner for Philadelphia, expects the gritty crimes that come with working in a major city, but nothing prepares her for what is unearthed after a gas explosion. Investigators sifting through the rubble find skeletal remains that seem older and unconnected to the incident. In an attempt to learn more about the remains, Trudy contacts Benjamin Roberts, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania. Ben is fascinated by the discovery and estimates that some of the remains are those of a man who died within the last hundred years. (He “shows classic indicators of having used his fists for a living. If I was a betting man, I’d say he was a boxer in his youth.”) When Ben locates a fetal bone, Trudy is convinced a crime occurred. But Ben needs more evidence before he can make an official determination. They soon learn that they are not the only ones who are interested in the remains. Ben receives an email from a college student named Caroline Trey asking to work on the project, and Trudy’s office is vandalized. As the investigation progresses, an attraction develops between Ben and Trudy. While they are determined to identify the remains and find justice for the deceased, they must outwit a criminal who wants to keep the truth buried forever. This third installment of Flade’s Philly Heat series is a fast-paced thriller with the right amount of mystery and romance. Trudy and Ben are likable protagonists whose chemistry is palpable from the first chapter. While their romance is a significant subplot, it does not detract from the central mystery. The investigation of the remains unfolds slowly and methodically, enabling the author to introduce a colorful supporting cast of characters, including Special Agent Noah Danes and Pamela Dryden, a caregiver who harbors many secrets. Flade has a knack for finding opportunities to effectively add suspense to a scene, especially in one sequence in which a date between Ben and Trudy ends with an encounter with a potential stalker.
An enjoyably twisty mystery.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 225
Publisher: Tirgearr Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.
The 25th novel featuring Silva’s legendary protagonist.
During his intersecting careers as art restorer and Israeli spy, Gabriel Allon has tangled with Russian gangsters and al-Qaida terrorists. He has become well-acquainted with operatives in multiple security agencies and befriended a paid assassin. He has busted art thieves and created passable forgeries by Renaissance masters and abstract Modernists. This latest installment centers around his relationship with the pope and a newly discovered painting by Leonardo da Vinci that has gone missing from the Vatican. Silva’s novels tend to fall into two categories: books that reflect the politics of the day and books that don’t. His latest is one of the latter, which could be a treat for readers looking for escape, but it falls flat for a variety of reasons. Luxury has always been part of Gabriel Allon’s universe. It used to be an aspect of tradecraft, though. Allon would be wearing a very expensive suit and driving a very expensive car because he was posing as a client at a Swiss bank. Here, his wife is hosting a catered lunch for 150 of their daughter’s classmates in their apartment overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice. What once felt like a scintillating peek into the world of the obscenely wealthy now just feels…kind of obscene. Similarly, Allon goes chasing after a missing painting as a civilian—he retired from Mossad in Portrait of an Unknown Woman (2022)—the same way another man his age might buy a speedboat or get hair plugs. As the story progresses, the stakes are raised, but it’s hard to forget that Allon is now a middle-aged man pursuing a dangerous hobby, rather than a spymaster leading his intrepid team to prevent a disaster that will disrupt the global order.
A rather flat entry in a generally excellent series.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9780063384217
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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