A deftly composed and highly enjoyable crime story.
A recently reunited couple navigates the complex aftermath of a murder in Ben-Horin’s debut thriller set in 1985.
After local marijuana grower and controversial community-radio host Yosh Steinmetz is brutally murdered in Ukiah, California, local law enforcement initially think the crime is a drug deal gone bad. However, Yosh rankled many members of the community with his radio show, as he was happy to tackle any local issue and speak out against whomever he saw fit. This includedUkiah’s racist and antisemitic Rev. Footman, who oversees a cabal of White supremacists. Spider Lacey, a Vietnam veteran and car mechanic, discovered Yosh’s bloody corpse, which he surmised was the handiwork of “an army or an automatic weapon”; Spider had just gotten back together with Siobhan,with whom he fell in love 10 years prior. They separated when Siobhan moved to New York City for law school. Now she’s an environmental lawyer investigating a case in Ukiah, and as she and Spider rekindle their relationship, they become entangled in the murder case, which may be connected to political corruption. In this remarkable first novel, Ben-Horin offers adept prose with plenty of moments of humor. For example, when Spider and Siobhan check out an online forum for private investigators, the author describes it as consisting “of a single aspiring P.I. who enjoyed assuming different personas and engaging in coruscating dialogues with himself.” The major characters are all fully realized, down to their small quirks, such as Spider’s love of his video cassette recorder and his distaste for television commercials. The sociopolitical setting is also intricately woven into the story, as when its revealed that the woman who takes over Yosh’s business, Julie Choate, first met him through a network of political activists.
A deftly composed and highly enjoyable crime story.Pub Date: July 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64428-112-3
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Rare Bird Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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