A woman gets in touch with her inner action hero in this bracing thriller.
In this novel, a restaurateur’s ex-husband—a journalist working on an explosive story—puts her and her son in danger.
Callie James is the owner of Le Cochon Bronze, a popular eatery in Seattle, where she returned, heartbroken and pregnant, after she caught her French spouse cheating on her. Fourteen years later, her former husband shows up at the restaurant. He is a renowned investigative reporter working on “the story of the modern terrorist world.” She wants no part of him and escorts him outside. No sooner does he inform her that someone is trying to kill him and he needs her help than a hit-and-run driver propels him through the front of her restaurant. He survives, and, against her better judgment, she agrees to hide him for the sake of the son he has never met. “This kind of risk-taking is not like you,” her sommelier notes. Her 13-year-old son, Lew, tells her: “You need someone to help you. Someone tough.” Callie knows just the guy: Cash Logan, “a scoundrel,” womanizer, and smuggler whom she turned over to the police two years ago. (“When you get out of jail, don’t ever come back here,” she told him.) While it is out of character for him, too, he agrees to help her (albeit for a sizable sum of money). One of the pleasures of this fast-paced franchise starter is Callie’s believably gradual transformation into someone who would spray bear mace on two assassins in a car. She is, as described, “a force of nature.” Weissbourd’s supporting cast of colorful characters just skirts the realm of clichés. In this entertaining tale, it is menacingly effective that the softer a villain’s voice gets, the angrier he is. Only the ex-husband is not as convincingly drawn. Still, as one character toasts, “Bravo, Callie James.”
A woman gets in touch with her inner action hero in this bracing thriller.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 9781733438209
Page Count: -
Publisher: Blue City Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2020
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
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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