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THE DEVIL'S RANSOM

Thriller fans will love the ticking-clock action.

Pike Logan and his extra-Constitutional Taskforce save the day in their 17th book-length outing.

It’s 2021, and Afghanistan is falling. The Taliban wants to capture mortal enemy Jahn Azimi before he escapes their clutches, which he does with help from Logan and his crew. Aside from having killed many Taliban, Jahn has the Bactrian Treasure (yes, this is a real thing, a pile of ancient gold coins said to be worth billions of dollars). The Taliban want both the man and the gold “really bad.” Blood flows, of course. Meanwhile, bad guys test “zero-click” ransomware on a Washington, D.C., consulting company that happens to have ties to the U.S. intelligence community, but that’s just a dry run for a much bigger show. A private enterprise plans to send some rich dilettantes into space to dock with the International Space Station. Criminals plan to spoil that flight in spectacular and deadly fashion unless the American government tells them where the treasure is. “This attack is going to make worldwide news,” a conspirator says. “It's going to cause America to go nuts.” Which is why President Hannister takes decisive action: “I want Pike Logan operational right now.” Much of the action takes place in Croatia, where Logan accurately says, “I'm probably going to go kinetic here.” The administration’s confidence is well placed: “I know it sounds strange,” an official says, “but that guy is never wrong.” Logan is a fun hero to follow, given that he only slaughters bad guys and has a degree of self-awareness. Every time he kills someone, he says, “it’s like a chip in the armor of your soul.” Whether modestly or carelessly, Pike Logan doesn’t mention his full name for well over 100 pages, never mind that he’s the main character. His fans already know who he is, but it wouldn’t kill the author to weave Chip’s—er, Pike’s—name into his first scene.

Thriller fans will love the ticking-clock action.

Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-06-322198-7

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022

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YOU'D LOOK BETTER AS A GHOST

Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.

Dexter meets Killing Eve in Wallace’s dark comic thriller debut.

While accepting condolences following her father’s funeral, 30-something narrator Claire receives an email saying that one of her paintings is a finalist for a prize. But her joy is short-circuited the next morning when she learns in a second apologetic note that the initial email had been sent to the wrong Claire. The sender, Lucas Kane, is “terribly, terribly sorry” for his mistake. Claire, torn between her anger and suicidal thoughts, has doubts about his sincerity and stalks him to a London pub, where his fate is sealed: “I stare at Lucas Kane in real life, and within moments I know. He doesn’t look sorry.” She dispatches and buries Lucas in her back garden, but this crime does not go unnoticed. Proud of her meticulous standards as a serial killer, Claire wonders if her grief for her father is making her reckless as she seeks to identify the blackmailer among the members of her weekly bereavement support group. The female serial killer as antihero is a growing subgenre (see Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, 2018), and Wallace’s sociopathic protagonist is a mordantly amusing addition; the tool she uses to interact with ordinary people while hiding her homicidal nature is especially sardonic: “Whenever I’m unsure of how I’m expected to respond, I use a cliché. Even if I’m not sure what it means, even if I use it incorrectly, no one ever seems to mind.” The well-written storyline tackles some tough subjects—dementia, elder abuse, and parental cruelty—but the convoluted plot starts to drag at the halfway point. Given the lack of empathy in Claire’s narration, most of the characters come across as not very likable, and the reader tires of her sneering contempt.

Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.

Pub Date: April 16, 2024

ISBN: 9780143136170

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Penguin

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024

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DAUGHTER OF MINE

Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.

The loss of her police officer father and the discovery of an abandoned car in a local lake raise chilling questions regarding a young woman’s family history.

When Hazel Sharp returns to her hometown of Mirror Lake, North Carolina, for her father’s memorial, she and the other townspeople are confronted by a challenging double whammy: As they’re grieving the loss of beloved longtime police officer Detective Perry Holt, a disturbing sight appears in the lake, whose waterline is receding because of an ongoing drought—an old, unidentifiable car, which has likely been lurking there for years. Hazel temporarily leaves her Charlotte-based building-renovation business in the capable hands of her partners and reconnects with her brothers, Caden and Gage; her Uncle Roy; her old fling and neighbor, Nico; and her schoolfriend, Jamie, now a mother and married to Caden. Tiny, relentless suspicions rise to the metaphorical surface along with that waterlogged vehicle: There have been a slew of minor break-ins; two people go missing; and then, a second abandoned car is discovered. The novel digs deeper into Hazel’s family history—her father was a widow when he married Hazel’s mother, who later left the family, absconding with money and jewels—and Miranda, a consummate professional when it comes to exposing the small community tensions that naturally arise when people live in close proximity for generations, exposes revelation after twisty revelation: “Everything mattered disproportionately in a small town. Your success, but also your failure. Everyone knows might as well have been our town motto.”

Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.

Pub Date: April 9, 2024

ISBN: 9781668010440

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024

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