A woman-in-peril page-turner that ambitiously explores the opposing philosophies of the characters.
A woman survives a mass shooting only to find herself forced to participate in a terrorist plot in Isenthal’s thriller debut.
An abandoned, alienated, hate-filled delinquent has a chance encounter with Flynn, a pretty waitress, who becomes the first person to ever show him kindness and respect. Ten years later, Flynn is a recruiter for the prominent Chicago-based telecommunications and technology giant Magnetic. Despite her successful and attractive exterior, Flynn empathizes with outcasts and misfits while remaining aloof to the starchy corporate organization men who insistently hit on her. Forced into an outing at Wrigley Field with co-workers, Flynn is caught in a horrific mass shooting and paramilitary attack by REDS, a vast underground conspiracy of mass murdering Nietzschean fanatics dedicated to the fall of society. (REDS is not depicted as absurdist or funny, though the group is amusingly untraceable by law enforcement.) Flynn is about to be killed by a REDS gunman when the shooter recognizes her—he is the same angry lad from 10 years earlier, taken in and groomed by REDS and renamed Wolf. Instantly smitten, Wolf violates REDS protocols and abducts Flynn, convincing his superiors that the traumatized woman must be kept alive as an asset to get Wolf hired by Magnetic and enable him to wreak epic havoc from within. The author consulted with experts on hate groups and extremism, and there are many dialogues between the virtuous heroine and her terrorist admirer about the ethics and merits of their separate worldviews (“Wake up, Flynn. You can’t solve this by sitting around in a circle holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya.’ It’s about time you come to terms with the fact that at the core, everyone is the same. They’re all selfish assholes”). The body count escalates beyond what readers may expect, and the politically inclined may be frustrated by the fact that REDS is not defined explicitly as either right-wing or left-wing, but that ambiguity may be explored in a future book, as a cliffhanger ending leaves things wide open for a sequel.
A woman-in-peril page-turner that ambitiously explores the opposing philosophies of the characters.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 979-8886450880
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Review Posted Online: May 31, 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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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