Space nerds will geek out, and everyone else eventually gets a pretty good ride.
A vast Cold War space thriller from astronaut Hadfield.
Incorporating real-life characters and events, spanning decades and distances both terrestrial and translunar, this NASA-heavy thriller has everything, including perhaps a bit too many meticulously reported technical procedures. The story opens with not one but two aircraft episodes—a bird strike wrecks an F-4 Phantom and a Cessna 170B is taken out for a rhapsodic spin—then follows the developing career of Kaz Zemeckis, who, until the bird strike cost him an eye, had been a military astronaut with good prospects of going to the moon. Repurposed as a crew liaison for NASA, Zemeckis is involved in both the training for and the mission of Apollo 18. Hadfield's use of real people brings historical authenticity to the novel, and there are many tidbits of NASA lore that only an insider could provide, but the devotion to technical facts has some drawbacks. There are more moving parts to this novel than there are in a Saturn V, and Hadfield is careful to give each part a complete description: provenance, purpose, design, and in-use characteristics are all faithfully recorded. This makes the first part of the novel so technically focused that it seems the action will never get off the launchpad, though doubtless there are readers who will revel in these details. In the event, Apollo 18 is a complex mission. Initially charged with collecting geological samples and sabotaging the new Russian moon rover, the three astronauts are then told to sabotage the Russians' new spy satellite, which is thought to be unmanned but is not. The crisis created by this bungled attempt at space vandalism establishes the main narrative thread, with Zemeckis back at Mission Control in Houston struggling to keep the mission going. There is a murder and other deaths as well as injuries, vomiting, and space brawls, all reported in close detail. Though the climax is somewhat over-the-top, the basic bones of a good thriller are here even if the beginning is a slow burn.
Space nerds will geek out, and everyone else eventually gets a pretty good ride.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-31626-453-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
Two hot people confronting their trauma, making passionate love, and solving violent crimes! ’Nuff said.
A heartbroken man lusts after his therapist while seeking revenge on a drug kingpin and his enforcer.
Mitch Haskell’s wife, Angela, died two years ago of an apparent suicide, but Mitch has always believed the scene was staged. Certainly, she would never have willingly left their young son, Andrew, behind. Consumed with a thirst for vengeance, Mitch—a former Marine and undercover agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration and currently a police detective—is struggling with alcohol dependency and uncontrolled rage. Andrew is living with his in-laws, who are making not-so-subtle suggestions that they might apply for permanent guardianship if Mitch can’t get it together. So his boss and best friend, John Bowie, mandates that he go into therapy, which puts him in the path of sexy Dr. Dylan Reede. Within a few days, Mitch makes a connection between two new murders and the death of his former partner; finds a big clue that points to the truth about Angela’s death; goes undercover as a homeless man; takes on a vicious drug cartel; and obnoxiously bullies Dylan with a charm offensive that leads them inevitably to bed. While Mitch seems to lean into the stereotype of the ex-soldier/cop with deeply buried trauma who believes that the ends justify the means—at least in law enforcement—Dylan offers the strength and sweetness to help him start breaking down his walls, allowing herself to be vulnerable in turn. Is passionate sex enough to ground a relationship and a family for the long term? For these characters, and the breakneck speed of this thriller, it’s as good a foundation as any.
Two hot people confronting their trauma, making passionate love, and solving violent crimes! ’Nuff said.Pub Date: March 17, 2026
ISBN: 9781538743027
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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