The best novel yet by a powerfully original artist.
Having been bludgeoned with a shovel and buried alive by his half brother and bank robbing partner in 1930s Montana, Benjamin Kilt rises from the grave determined to get even.
He has no idea where his brother, Sidney Bosco, has gone—with Kilt’s share of stolen money—and, following his “rebirth,” even more miseries await Kilt, who’s mauled by a lion. Passed out on his wandering mule, he’s found by Bonnie Grace, a 13-year-old Indigenous girl who nurses him back to health when not being brutally abused by the owner of the cabin in which she’s staying. Kilt rescues her from her circumstances, but not before taking care of her abuser with his ever-active Luger, which, along with a copy of Moby-Dick, is his prime possession. Flash back to 1912 Minnesota, where Benjamin, a sweet but passive 10-year-old who quit school after second grade, cleans a barroom in exchange for a place to sleep—until he’s trained by a charismatic bank robber, Nick Mercy, as his getaway driver. Before fate catches up to Mercy, he mysteriously urges Benjamin to head to Black Elk, Montana, where there are “nothing but answers” waiting for him at the Triple Nine Ranch. Its high-minded owner, Royal Wainwright, proves to know all about Benjamin. The promised answers are about the boy’s mother (who recently killed herself), the father he never knew, and his never-seen half brother. Partly told in retrospect by the aged Bonnie, this is a raw, biblically heated tale about generational trauma, the possibilities of redemption, and predetermined fate. With its parade of blood-spattered victims, its philosophical ponderings (“things evolve solely for the outcome of their own destruction”), and fiercely lyrical depictions of the American West (“the limbs of ponderosa bejeweled and frosted like enormous sticks of rock candy”), this is country noir at its grimmest while at the same time channeling hope. Its intensity never lets up.
The best novel yet by a powerfully original artist.Pub Date: April 21, 2026
ISBN: 9781640097544
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.
Second of the Walter Nash thrillers—following Nash Falls (2025)—in which the remade hero seeks vengeance.
Due to urgent circumstances, Nash has bulked himself up to become the “muscled and tatted fighting machine” now known as Dillon Hope. His antagonist is Victoria Steers, a global drug dealer who wants him dead. Not realizing his new identity, she enlists Hope to free her mother, Masuyo, from a prison in Myanmar. As an incentive, she shoots one of her associates and threatens to frame Hope for the murder unless he complies. She also wants him to find Nash. He in turn wants to kill Victoria to avenge the death of his innocent daughter, Maggie. “If I go down,” he muses, “I’m taking others with me. Starting with Victoria Steers.” He learns that Victoria had killed all her siblings to eliminate business competition. But as heartless as Victoria is, her mother, Masuyo, is even worse. In league with the Chinese government in a perverse plan to kill as many Americans as possible through fentanyl overdose, she shows contempt for Victoria for her perceived weaknesses. Readers won’t find many happy family relationships here: mother-daughter, father-son, husband-wife—all fraught. Hope’s employer, who accompanies him to Myanmar, is a billionaire chief executive with a dodgy past (i.e., probably killed his father). And there’s a mega-billionaire with an astronomical IQ and ditch-deep morals who, putting it mildly, does not have America’s best interests at heart. As a teenager, he’d defeated two world chess champions; as an adult, he regards his dealings with the world in terms of master chess moves. Only one character seems truly decent and credible—Hiroko, Victoria’s former nanny and lifelong companion, who provides Hope with valuable insights into the Steers’ background, which is partly Chinese. Searing grudges, simple evil, and not-so-simple misunderstandings carry the cast through this complex, action-packed plot. This sequel ties out the loose ends dangling in Nash Falls, which would be helpful to read first. To get to the requisite ending, though, Baldacci takes pains to surprise the reader. It works but often feels forced.
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781538758021
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
Yes, it has its playfully witty moments, but it’s a distinctly minor work in the author’s brainteasing canon.
Murder disrupts the filming of—what else?—The Word Is Murder, based on the first novel starring author Horowitz and his sometime partner, ex-copper Daniel Hawthorne.
With commendably dramatic timing, gofer Izzy Mays bursts into the middle of a pivotal shot on location at The Stade in Hastings to announce that Hawthorne’s been murdered. Of course, what she means (though Horowitz takes his time clarifying this ambiguity) is that David Caine, the rising star playing Hawthorne, has been fatally stabbed in the neck. Suspicion falls on James Aubrey, the agent Caine had just fired; Izzy, because Caine had caused her to be fired, too, though he ended up making his exit first; Ralph Seymour, the washed-up actor who’d returned from New Zealand to play Horowitz opposite Caine, his mortal enemy; and producer Teresa de León, who’s abruptly lost an important source of funding for the project; director Cy Truman; and screenwriter Shanika Harris, because why not? After Hawthorne builds meticulous hypothetical cases against several of these suspects, provoking Teresa’s apt rejoinder, “All those questions in the script and now you’re asking them for real,” he responds to Horowitz’s theory that he may have been the intended target after all by sharing a story from his early days as a private investigator in what ends up looking like the most elaborately extended red herring in the history of detective fiction. The two plots, past and present—or, to be more precise, past and present-day-adaptation-of-a-story-from-the-less-distant-past, are eventually woven together in ways only Horowitz’s most devoted fans will celebrate.
Yes, it has its playfully witty moments, but it’s a distinctly minor work in the author’s brainteasing canon.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9780063305748
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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