A page-turning thriller with enough emotional heft to keep readers intrigued until the last line.
In Cuban’s novel, a down-and-out former lawyer searches for answers about his girlfriend’s sudden death.
Jason Feldman is an erstwhile attorney in long-term addiction recovery working as a security guard in a Pittsburgh department store. He hates the boss (a former cop) he works under, and he’s been professionally disgraced—Jason was disbarred after lying to the FBI during a murder investigation in which he was, at first, the prime suspect—but he is slowly putting his life back together while he waits for his suspended law license to be reinstated. The main thing keeping him together is his girlfriend Emily, another former addict and current employee of an organization that aims to help those affected by drugs. When Emily turns up dead in her own home, the police suspect an overdose, but Jason and Emily’s best friend, Delaney—an ER doctor and also Emily’s roommate—think it is nearly impossible that she has relapsed. It just so happens that the detective in charge of the investigation, Jeanette Keane, is the same person who put the squeeze on Jason years ago during the investigation Jason obstructed. When the autopsy reveals a fentanyl overdose, Jason is still skeptical—all the more so when Emily’s former employer begins hounding him, offering a preposterous cash reward for her company-owned electronics (which have gone missing). As Jason scrambles for more information and tries to convince Delaney he wasn’t involved in Emily’s relapse, he notices he’s being followed by a mysterious crew-cut man in a black Lexus. Cuban’s protagonist is richly drawn, and readers will find themselves sympathizing with his success-turned-self-sabotage-turned-recovery arc, especially in moments when he laments his lost relationship with his son. While there are some descriptions that misfire (“the blemish-free skin and rectangular facial structure are a cross between Halle Berry and Rosario Dawson”), Cuban’s prose is generallysolid enough to keep readers moving through his well-plotted and compelling narrative.
A page-turning thriller with enough emotional heft to keep readers intrigued until the last line.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9798888451588
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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