A relatable hero and genuine suspense make up for the less-than-credible plot points.
Troubles multiply for a bar owner stalked by a serial killer in this mystery.
Spirited New York City bar owner Jude Dillane returns in this third outing of Stoler’s Murder on the Rocksseries. Also back: sadistic murderer Art Bevins, the New Year’s Eve Serial Killer, still at large after escaping capture in Last Call(2020)and more determined than ever to add Jude to his victim list. As if that’s not enough, Jude may lose her beloved bar, The Corner Lounge, because her partner and chef, Pete Angel, can’t take any more mayhem, and one of her friends appears to be keeping criminal company. In addition, there’s something suspicious about glamorous Dolores Castel, now living in the killer’s former apartment in Jude’s building and making a play for the protagonist’s close friend Sully, the complex’s owner. At least Jude’s boyfriend, Eric Ramirez, has returned after their breakup, occasioned by her inability to stay out of danger and leave investigating to the authorities. (Fans of the series likely identified with Eric’s frustration; Jude’s concern that her actions put others in peril and upended personal relationships seemed shallow at best.) The author has somewhat softened that dynamic in this installment, though Jude dismisses the possible consequences if the killer learns of her visit to a key figure in the case, an older stage director. She also eludes one of her FBI bodyguards to do some independent sleuthing, fully aware that the agent could lose his job if her action is discovered. But with her business, her friends’ well-being, and her life on the line, Jude’s determination to find her own answers—despite a few of her huffy but significant “I’ll do it myself” lapses—is balanced by a more realistic, if grudging, awareness that a person who is being stalked by a sadistic killer may very well need a couple of FBI agents on hand as protection. She finally decides that keeping law enforcement in the loop is a good idea. Stoler adds a high level of suspense by periodically shifting from Jude’s first-person narration to Dolores’ third-person point of view, although the twist within a twist involving this femme fatale is quite a stretch.
A relatable hero and genuine suspense make up for the less-than-credible plot points.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Level Best Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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