A sometimes-intriguing tale of global conflict, but one that breaks no new ground.
In Jacobs’ thriller sequel, a pair of Interpol agents investigate a shadowy organization’s development of new technology that can manipulate humans on a mass scale.
Global Futures Alliance, an international group of intellectuals and politicians bent on world domination, develops a technology that employs sound to trigger extreme emotions—a potentially powerful tool that can effectively control masses of people. The technology is housed within something that looks like what one person calls a “giant sugar cube with a bunch of fiber-optic hairs sticking out”—hence the title of Jacobs’ formulaic tale of political intrigue. First off, the GFA intends to influence an election in Liberia as a sort of test run. David Blum and Tina Santini, both American agents working for a joint task force for Interpol, must figure out the larger scheme for which GFA is manufacturing this advance in “artificial emotion.” To that end, they recruit bioacoustics expert Jessica MacManus and neurobiologist Mindy Tanaka—both of whom worked on the technology’s creation in a GFA project called Operation Cantemerle. The two notice that everyone associated with the project who raised questions about it has mysteriously disappeared. Over the course of this thriller, Jacobs limns an engaging portrayal of artificial emotion—one that’s as provocative as it is terrifyingly plausible. Also, the romantic tension that arises between David and Tina has a feeling of tenderness that shows authorial restraint. The plot proceeds far too slowly, however, and the novel feels far too long at nearly 400 pages; one can easily get lost amid the lengthy discussions of the science, laid out in bland prose. The novel also has a comic-book-style goofiness at times—particularly in the cliched notion of a clandestine group of murky characters who repeatedly attempt to take over the world.
A sometimes-intriguing tale of global conflict, but one that breaks no new ground.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2023
ISBN: 9781961624153
Page Count: 399
Publisher: DartFrog Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.
A middle-aged woman channels her best Miss Marple when she finds herself facing a nightmare from her past as she seeks to make sense of her present.
Jane Trevally is at a crossroads of sorts. After a traumatic childhood, she sought safety and solace in marriages with wealthy men. Now twice divorced and living with her four dogs in the crumbling English country mansion that is her birthright, she’s feeling the need to do something, to take a job, when one day a runaway dog turns up on her doorstep. The dog is chipped, and with the help of a local vet and her loyal stepson, Dexter Lombardi, Jane traces the dog’s home to the edge of Hampstead Heath, in London—a place that brings back the memory of a terrifying night from her youth, when a handsome man picked her up and took her back to this very house. Everything there felt wrong; she just managed to escape, certain that if she had stayed, she would have died that night. Now, soon after knocking on the door and returning the dog, she discovers that he had run away from an Airbnb near her house, where he had been staying with a young woman who seems to have disappeared. With the help of Dexter; his father, Tony, her second ex-husband; Tony’s former security enforcer, Tobias Wilson; and her own gift for connecting with people, Jane sets out to find the woman, taking her first steps on the path to becoming a private investigator. While Jane serves as the heart of the novel, Jewell also narrates chapters from several other characters’ points of view, all of which chip away at the horror that is the house on the Heath. By slowly revealing past and present simultaneously, Jewell keeps the mystery fresh as she plays with Gothic tropes and the timeless imagery of “a house of horrors” embodying human sin. She doesn’t flinch from exploring the depths of depravity in this house—and its humans.
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.Pub Date: June 23, 2026
ISBN: 9781668033906
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
