A promising setup about a defense lawyer facing her own limitations bogs down in obvious clues.
A former defense attorney comes out of retirement when her husband is charged with six murders.
Leslie Woodhouse is enjoying an early retirement in a beachfront Florida condo, whiling away the days with her companionable second husband, Robert, a former college art professor. She doesn’t much miss her career as a defense lawyer somewhat notorious for finding loopholes for her clients, but she’s thinking about it more as a story unspools in local news. Someone the media has dubbed the “Gulf Coast Killer” has abducted six people in towns near the beaches, apparently imprisoning them until they die of starvation and dehydration, then dumping the bodies. But the latest case is different: A 40-year-old woman was grabbed from the beach near Leslie and Robert’s home. She hasn’t been found, but her 8-year-old daughter got away—after getting a look at the abductor. Leslie has other things to worry about, though: Her beloved daughter, Stephanie Tressler, is off at her first year of college, and Leslie’s wealthy, flamboyant, but down-to-earth sister, Patricia Colton, has been diagnosed with cancer. Leslie also frets about Robert’s only family, his estranged son, Weston Adekins. The young man was born after Robert had a one-night stand with a student, and Weston fairly seethes with anger at Robert’s almost total absence from his and his mother’s lives. Leslie’s attention is forced to a focus when Robert is arrested and charged with the Gulf Coast Killer murders. The slight, mild-mannered 62-year-old seems an unlikely suspect, but the police make a serious case. The book has some suspenseful elements and makes skillful use of alternating first-person points of view. But the identity of the killer is clear early on, which makes maintaining suspense difficult. Some plot points stretch credulity: Would a court really permit a lawyer to defend her own spouse in a murder case? And a climactic chase brings some surprises but goes on so long it ends up dead in the water.
A promising setup about a defense lawyer facing her own limitations bogs down in obvious clues.Pub Date: July 7, 2026
ISBN: 9781668208656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
