A corrosive debut that makes you look forward to a sequel.
A down-on-his-luck Englishman who drives expensive cars really fast hooks up with a ruthless Detroit mobster and his violent crew.
The Brit is one-time rally driver Spencer Burnham, whose fortunes and mental state have been sliding since his wife, a Detroit native, died in a car accident following their move back to the U.S. His foreign car dealership faces foreclosure, and child protective services threatens to take his 11-year-old daughter, whom he raises with his late wife's uncle. After passing what proves to be a driving audition for the mobster, McGrath, who is impressed by Spencer's ability to move fast "without getting noticed," he lands both a high-paying job and a source of relief. Having grown weary of competitive driving, he reclaims his relationship with speed: "There wasn't winning or losing. There was just moving." But once people around him start getting hurt or killed, he tries to extricate himself from the gig. Standing in his way are McGrath, whose fondness for him would not preempt his murder; McGrath's right-hand man, Johnny Boy, a former Chicago mob lawyer; and the Yo-Yo, a bulky ex-con whose specialty is punching someone in the head "hard enough to fracture but not kill." The action rarely stops. When it does, it's for Spencer to deal with CPS case workers—first Lonnie, his bedmate from their second meeting, and then Caitlyn, a harder case who softens for him. Henderson is better at situational descriptions than advancing the plot—endgames are vague. But the first-time novelist brings a fresh, hardscrabble voice to Elmore Leonard land, albeit with more sentimentality.
A corrosive debut that makes you look forward to a sequel.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8021-5970-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.
A violent attack hijacks a woman’s memory in this novel of domestic suspense.
McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from men who have betrayed them. That formula perfectly fits Dr. Charlotte McKenna, a 37-year-old dermatologist who isn’t looking for love until the most handsome man she’s ever seen begins to woo her. There are warning signs about Clark Douglas and Charlotte overlooks them to her detriment—but is he a killer? The novel has dual timelines split between events leading up to the day Charlotte barely survives a head wound meant to kill her and the months afterward, when she struggles to reclaim her memory and her mobility. In real life, McFadden is a physician trained to treat brain injuries. Her expertise gives Charlotte’s rehabilitation authenticity, and her writing talent makes it interesting and engaging. As good as that timeline is, readers will yearn to get back to the alternate timeline about who wants Charlotte dead. It’s only a matter of time before Charlotte starts to remember who tried to kill her, and the clock is ticking toward their next attempt. McFadden dishes up plenty of suspects: Charlotte’s secretive husband, Clark; a former patient turned stalker who confronts Charlotte on her honeymoon; and the angry husband of a patient who blames Charlotte for his wife leaving him. Though the story is delicious and dark, McFadden brightens things up with a possible love interest for Charlotte and a surprise ending sure to please the author’s many fans.
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249617
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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