Readers introduced to Nova's new hero (is he a hero?) will be eager for his return.
The first in a Tinseltown-noir series by a veteran novelist.
Nova plainly had some fun with this, and the reader likely will as well. This isn’t exactly a mystery, because it's apparent early on who the bad guy is. Terry Peregrine is a vacuous, pretty-boy actor with a taste for underage girls. The very first sentence finds protagonist Quinn Farrell sensing that “Terry was thinking about killing the girl from Alaska.” Is Farrell the good guy? (Is anyone?) He’s a fixer, someone who makes problems go away. He has a vending-machine company that helps him launder cash, and he often seems to have five grand on him to persuade those who present a problem to disappear. The girl from Alaska represents a problem for Terry, and she wants way more than five grand to disappear. Farrell works for the producer of the film that Terry is currently shooting, and that producer’s goals may or may not align with Terry’s. Much of what plot there is involves these elements—cash, disappearance, pedophilia, the possibility of murder. Farrell has a bit of a stutter, which embarrasses him, and a triggering impulse toward fury, which he does his best to keep under control. He is deeply intuitive, surprisingly philosophical and well-read, and a bit of a romantic. He falls for his neighbor who has just moved in, and her work with teenagers who have terminal cancer gives them both some perspective on life’s big issues. Interconnecting subplots feature a python, a potentially rabid raccoon, a pair of Russian bagman thugs, a detective who once arrested Farrell and now occasionally helps him, and more girls who become involved with Terry. The insidious glitter and evil of Los Angeles and the promises and betrayals of Hollywood inevitably loom large, and a dark, bittersweet humor marks the tone. None of the corpses comes as much of a surprise, and there isn’t much crime-solving involved, but lively writing and colorful characters keep the reader engaged.
Readers introduced to Nova's new hero (is he a hero?) will be eager for his return.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-950691-22-7
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
This thriller’s eerie mood is deflated by a plot with more holes than a Halloween sheet.
Could making a movie about the disappearance of five women from an island reawaken an evil presence there?
Five dresses hang from the topmost limbs of an oak on a remote island in a Vermont lake. That memorable image marks a mystery from a century ago, when five women believed to have been part of a commune vanished forever. As this novel opens, another group gathers on the island to make a movie based on that tale. Marin Keane, the narrator, is surprised but thrilled to find herself cast as one of the leads; she’s a struggling actor whose biggest part so far has been “Bridesmaid with Eczema” in a drug commercial, so playing Daisy Rue, whose haunting diary is the basis for the movie’s script, could be a career-making move. Ronan Peters, the writer-director, is talented and, Marin notes, hot. His reason for gathering the cast on the island is a kind of boot-camp rehearsal: They’ll spend a week living there, wearing period clothes, and managing without internet or phone service. Oh, and holding séances. What could go wrong? Marin quickly meets the other women in the cast: regal character actor Julianne Brown, cool and competent Heather Benchley, bratty former Disney star Susie Hutchinson, and, striking awe in all of them, Violet Wright, a much-awarded Meryl Streep-ish figure who will play the woman who brought the others to the island, which she owned. They get to work, but soon enough someone disappears. The book’s plot, like the movie’s script, largely follows Daisy’s journal, and since the reader is supplied with pages-long sections of that journal, there’s not much suspense about what will happen next. There are some effective set pieces, such as the group’s first séance. But in its last quarter, the plot collapses into a muddle of #MeToo vengeance, improbable secrets, and jarring character reveals that is, as Marin says, “the most Scooby-Doo thing I’ve ever heard.”
This thriller’s eerie mood is deflated by a plot with more holes than a Halloween sheet.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2026
ISBN: 9798217044092
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2026
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
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