A fascinating, fast-moving crime story that explores the dangerous power of hate.
A timely thriller set in the world of far-right religious fanaticism.
In this installment of the Peter O’Keefe series, the private detective finds himself on a perilous mission to infiltrate an extremist group called The New Ark. (“They call the period we’re in now the ‘Tribulation,’ prelude to the Apocalypse and the Final Armageddon Battle, which are imminent—if not tomorrow then the day after tomorrow.”) It all starts when media mogul Richard Maxwell and his family become threatened by the group. The New Ark, bound by an ideology that upholds the “few real and true Christians” as the chosen people for the inevitable End Times, target Richard for being part of a vast conspiracy that they believe controls the media. Initially hired to provide personal protection for Richard, Peter quickly finds his assignment expanded to a full-blown undercover mission in which the detective and his partner, Sara Slade, pose as a married couple who humbly want to join The New Ark movement. Once accepted into the fold, Peter endeavors to find out all he can about the group’s broader plans, while Sara’s computer skills bring her into regular contact with David, aka The Prophet, The New Ark’s enigmatic and magnetic leader. The two uncover a plot to foment a violent revolution and must race against the clock to stop it without being discovered as traitors. Though the story takes place in 1989, it wouldn’t take much to place this smartly assembled procedural believably in the present. The narrative moves along at a steadily increasing pace, capturing in equal measure the deluded ravings of a self-appointed savior, the rising tensions inside the compound, and the web of law enforcement operatives navigating a complex matrix to prevent a deadly outcome. Out of his element, Peter shows uncertainty that contrasts with Sara’s confidence, creating a compelling dynamic between the capable allies as they become more deeply bonded by a situation that could cost them their lives.
A fascinating, fast-moving crime story that explores the dangerous power of hate.Pub Date: Dec. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9798991232531
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Arjuna Books
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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