A simple yet delightfully left-field take on a fight against oppression.
Murray offers a near-future thriller sequel about a war on personal freedom.
In the first series installment, New York City was shown to have been taken over by a government that’s hostile to individual rights, particularly regarding religion. Enforcers known as Thought Police have the power to arrest and detain anyone. As one character explains it, they “don't believe in religion or moral values. They just act on the orders they are given by the soulless city government.” Two Jewish people in their 40s, Sue and David, fled to Long Island. The Thought Police don’t have jurisdiction there, and it’s home to a hotel turned safehouse run by Hilda, a leading member of the rebellious New York Freedom Fighters. She was kidnapped by the Thought Police at the end of the previous book, but her fellow Freedom Fighters find her, and she has ideas on how to fight against the city. To kick things off, several of her organization’s members, including Sue and David, head into Manhattan to rescue some Jewish people being held against their will in an apartment. The entire gang conduct the operation dressed as Batman; if anyone asks any questions, they plan to say that they’re merely in the city for a costume party. Although the mission is a success, it’s clear that much more will be required to make a dent in the oppressive society and to foil the Thought Police’s plan for an all-out assault on the city. David reflects on his new existence: “My life had become like an action movie.”
As in an action film, things move quickly in this brief book. No sooner has Hilda recovered from her abduction ordeal that she’s ready to try something new. “The cowards didn't have the guts to kill me,” she says of her kidnappers. And, indeed, throughout the story, the villains continually prove to be inept. The Freedom Fighters, by contrast, are highly skilled—sometimes despite themselves. For example, at one point, David says, “I don't know much about guns. I'm not sure how to fire it,” but he still manages to shoot a moving vehicle while riding in another. Such moments, combined with a mostly bloodless storyline (although there are some deaths) gives the story a unique feel that’s much different from a traditional thriller. It certainly proves to be stranger and more playful than one might expect in a work about a citywide totalitarian government. For instance, as in the first installment, there are dogs in the middle of the fray; when David is preparing to take the fateful shot, for instance, Sue, who’s in the car with him, struggles to keep a canine named Tim from “jumping up to look out the window.” The animal is humorously subdued with the help of some peanut butter cookies. Although it seems clear early on that the good guys will emerge triumphant (either in this volume or a later one), the fun comes in following the offbeat path they travel along the way.
A simple yet delightfully left-field take on a fight against oppression.Pub Date: April 8, 2022
ISBN: 9798449217967
Page Count: 108
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 3, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Maybe not the most thrilling thriller, but the role of AI in coping with grief gives this novel pathos and interest.
A widowed and disgraced plastic surgeon is drawn into a Russian oligarch’s evil schemes.
Witherspoon’s adult fiction debut, co-authored with thrillermeister Coben, opens as heart surgery performed by Dr. Marc Adams in a North African refugee camp is interrupted by the explosive invasion of armed militants. It's the last we will see of Marc in this dimension. The next chapter jumps ahead one year to a ceremony at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore where his widow, Maggie McCabe, is supposed to be presenting an award in honor of her mother. Miserable and anxious about appearing in public after having lost her medical license, she consults with her late husband on her phone—not via supernatural means, but using a "griefbot," an amazingly lifelike and functional AI app created by her genius sister, Sharon. Once the griefbot coaxes her to brave the sneering masses, she learns she’s been replaced on the podium anyway. But she runs into a former professor, a celebrity plastic surgeon, who requests a meeting with her at his office in New York and won’t take no for an answer. Next thing she knows, there’s $10 million in her bank account and she’s on a private plane heading to a palace outside Moscow where she’s been engaged to perform off-the-record surgery on billionaire Oleg Ragoravich (new face) and his girlfriend, Nadia (new boobs). And…we’re off. A whirl of surgeries, chases, and escapes ensues as Maggie gradually comes to understand who these people are and what they have in mind for her, and how it connects to Marc and their missing friend and business partner, Trace Packer. She is aided by her delightful father-in-law, Porkchop, owner of a biker bar in New York City and a very handy guy to have on your team if you've run afoul of an international criminal organization. From the palace in Rublevka the action moves to Dubai and then Bordeaux, climaxing in a high-stakes illegal heart transplant. But wait—is Marc really dead? What happened to Trace? Who is Nadia really? Though these smoldering questions don’t quite catch fire, it's a good first try for Witherspoon.
Maybe not the most thrilling thriller, but the role of AI in coping with grief gives this novel pathos and interest.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781538774700
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
At turns spooky and funny, with bits of inside baseball and a swimming pool’s worth of blood.
Hill, son of the master, turns in a near-perfect homage to Stephen King.
Arthur Oakes has problems. One is that his mom, a social justice warrior, has landed in the slammer for unintentional manslaughter. And he’s one of just three Black kids at an expensive college (in Maine, of course), an easy target. A local townie drug dealer extorts him into stealing rare books from the school’s library, including one bound in human skin. The unwilling donor of said skin turns up, and so do various sinister people, one reminiscent of Tolkien’s Gollum, another a hick who lives—well, sort of—to kill. Then there’s Colin Wren, whose grandfather collects things occult. As will happen, an excursion into that arcana conjures up the title character, a very evil dragon, who strikes an agreement with fine print requiring Arthur and his circle to provide him with a sacrifice every Easter. “It’s a bad idea to make a deal with them,” says Arthur, belatedly. “Language is one of their weapons…as much as the fire they breathe or the tail that can knock down a house.” King Sorrow roasts his first victims, and the years roll by, with Arthur becoming a medieval scholar (fittingly enough, with a critical scene set at King Arthur’s fortress at Tintagel), Colin a tech billionaire with Muskian undertones (“King Sorrow was a dragon, but Colin was some sort of dark sorcerer”), and others of their circle suffering from either messing with dragons or living in an America of despair. There’s never a dull moment, and though Hill’s yarn is very long, it’s full of twists and turns and, beg pardon, Easter eggs pointing to Kingly takes on politics, literature, and internet trolls (a meta MAGA remark comes from an online review of Arthur’s book on dragons: “i was up for a good book about finding magical sords and stabbing dragons and rescuing hot babes in chainmail panties but instead i got a lot of WOKE nonsense.…and UGH it just goes on and on, couldve been hundreds of pages shorter”).
At turns spooky and funny, with bits of inside baseball and a swimming pool’s worth of blood.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9780062200600
Page Count: 896
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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