A rare misfire by one of spy fiction’s most consistent artists.
#MeToo-banished Hollywood comic Hal Knight is roped by the CIA into spying on Eastern European oligarch Nikolai Horvatz—known to be a big fan of his films.
Knight, who has been hiding out on a Caribbean island, is asked by the agency to simply observe everything about (fictitious) Bolrovia’s “crypto-fascist strongman,” who is certain to invite the one-time star for an official visit. Given the chance to redeem himself or at least perform before a friendly audience, Knight agrees. But it isn’t long before his missteps start raising the hackles of Bolrovian security forces, led by the dour Branko Sarič, “the goon of all goons.” And when his big moment does arrive, Knight sends shock waves through the room and the media by appearing to make Horvatz the butt of a joke. With the violent cracking down on immigrants who have crossed Bolrovia’s southern border, not to mention the curious arrival of American media types including right-wing TV pundit Baxter Frederickson (read: Tucker Carlson), it is not a good time to be risking the president’s ire. A departure for Fesperman, who is known for his tense, finely wrought spy novels—most recently Winter Work (2022)—the new book does as well with a shaky concept as it could. But it’s never made clear what the CIA, which “had gone dark” in Bolrovia when Horvatz began cozying up to Russia and China, hopes to learn from Knight’s efforts. There’s also scant evidence that Knight is (or was) capable of being funny. His one-time popularity is as mysterious as the wisdom he supposedly derives from the marked-up copy of Philip Roth’s American Pastoral he carries around.
A rare misfire by one of spy fiction’s most consistent artists.Pub Date: July 22, 2025
ISBN: 9780593802236
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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