A thrilling cyberpunk story with compelling characters set in a fascinating world.
A detective investigates the artificial intelligence that controls the world in Chaffin’s SF thriller.
In the year 2139, Mason Truman is a private investigator most often hired to bust cheating spouses or traitorous employees. His assistant Sam is an artificial intelligence chip that is attached to his brain. In fact, most of society is run by AI, from the docbots who administer medical care to the Omninet everyone spends most of their life on to the world government of the Terran Republic. One day, Mason is approached by a woman looking for her missing brother Nathan; it should be a simple case, but as he delves into the search, he’s led down a more complicated path than he ever could have imagined. His investigation leads him to Miranda, an AI who is different from the others (“I have no tasks, no voice within the collective, no official role to play with humanity”), created under strange circumstances. Released into the Omninet and drawn to humans, she met Nathan. Nathan’s fate is tied to a conspiracy—Miranda has discovered that the AIs that control their world are planning something. After his initial conversation with Miranda, Mason is questioned by Senate Security for being involved with individuals possibly conspiring against the Republic. Not long after, Mason meets Miranda again; she wants his help, but he’s reluctant to get involved. Unfortunately for him, Miranda isn’t giving him a choice. Chaffin has created a convincing world with fantastic SF elements, demonstrating a flair for the intricate possibilities of the genre. The AI in this story is used not only to drive the plot but to build characters—the AIs have distinct personalities that act as foils to the human characters and deepen the narrative. Mason is a worthy hero, using his wits to get out of desperate problems and find a way to work with Miranda, a fascinating character in her own right.
A thrilling cyberpunk story with compelling characters set in a fascinating world.Pub Date: Dec. 25, 2023
ISBN: 9798867404352
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.
A violent attack hijacks a woman’s memory in this novel of domestic suspense.
McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from men who have betrayed them. That formula perfectly fits Dr. Charlotte McKenna, a 37-year-old dermatologist who isn’t looking for love until the most handsome man she’s ever seen begins to woo her. There are warning signs about Clark Douglas and Charlotte overlooks them to her detriment—but is he a killer? The novel has dual timelines split between events leading up to the day Charlotte barely survives a head wound meant to kill her and the months afterward, when she struggles to reclaim her memory and her mobility. In real life, McFadden is a physician trained to treat brain injuries. Her expertise gives Charlotte’s rehabilitation authenticity, and her writing talent makes it interesting and engaging. As good as that timeline is, readers will yearn to get back to the alternate timeline about who wants Charlotte dead. It’s only a matter of time before Charlotte starts to remember who tried to kill her, and the clock is ticking toward their next attempt. McFadden dishes up plenty of suspects: Charlotte’s secretive husband, Clark; a former patient turned stalker who confronts Charlotte on her honeymoon; and the angry husband of a patient who blames Charlotte for his wife leaving him. Though the story is delicious and dark, McFadden brightens things up with a possible love interest for Charlotte and a surprise ending sure to please the author’s many fans.
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249617
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
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
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