A spy tale that delivers several surprises but fails to capitalize on an intriguing premise.
A secret agent investigates a conspiracy theorist in this debut horror-tinged thriller.
Theory is a man: Elysium Theory, celebrated conspiracy theorist, television host, and functional alcoholic. The man with the unlikely name is mourning the loss of the love of his life, and his grief is manifesting itself in destructive ways—such as tricking his fans into leaping off a building so he can see how they fall through space. Theory’s production manager, Simeon White, is trying to keep his boss happy and out of prison, mostly in hopes that he will inherit Theory’s media empire when the host inevitably exits the stage. But the deaths have not escaped notice. Selena Black is a member of the Black Syndicate, a secret government-backed intelligence operation of nearly unlimited power. The Blacks raid Theory’s offices, capture Simeon, and blackmail him into turning against his boss. But Theory isn’t Selena’s only problem: Something has been murdering Black agents and leaving only their epidermal tissue behind. Whatever is sucking people out of their skins, the archives prove that it first struck 100 years earlier. The cases turn out to have more to do with each other than it immediately appears. Even stranger, it seems that Selena looks identical to the mysterious woman whom Theory is pining for. Carlos’ urgent prose teases out the tensions in every scene: “Selena depressed the button to the eleventh floor. She started to get a bit nervous; something was off. Maybe it was her own behavior. This was just uncharacteristic of her and went against every Black Syndicate protocol. Selena was operating without a safety net.” The novel offers some fun twists and turns. But it suffers from a cast of characters who will fail to stir much emotion in readers. None are sympathetic, and some—including Theory—are quite abominable. The author sets him up to be something between Alex Jones and Julian Assange, but he lacks such specificity. Even more problematically, everyone speaks and thinks in action-movie clichés, as in this passage focusing on Selena: “There was one problem: she hadn’t planned on falling in love. It wasn’t part of the mission parameters.” The result is pure pulp.
A spy tale that delivers several surprises but fails to capitalize on an intriguing premise.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-66988-5
Page Count: 199
Publisher: MACHIAVELLI PRODUCTIONS LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
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