Well-developed female leads and loads of action and adventure make this a page-turning, if slightly predictable, read.
The first installment in Kulak’s new series is a thriller revolving around three female best friends and their attempt to rescue one of their own who becomes entangled with a sex trafficking ring.
Angie Hunter, Tiffany Knight, and Kaylee McDouglas have been close friends ever since childhood. Having grown up in Mount Miffsberg, the trio are still living in the town—and not exactly living the dream. Angie is a welder who moonlights teaching martial arts; Kaylee works at a sewage treatment plant, and Tiffany is a self-described “worthless stripper.” When Kaylee announces to her friends that she is engaged to a shady businessman from Bulgaria—and that she is traveling to the Balkans to meet her new fiance’s parents—Angie and Tiff know immediately that something isn’t right. After Kaylee’s text messages stop shortly after she arrives in Bulgaria, her two friends realize that she’s in danger. They don’t know where she is—or if she is even alive at all—so they travel to Bulgaria to investigate. Not knowing the language makes their mission difficult, but they befriend some locals—Og, a handsome bartender, and Dueza, a transgender woman with an intimate knowledge of the Bulgarian Mafia. They begin to piece together the tidbits of information. Kaylee’s fiance, it seems, is the head of a criminal organization that abducts women from all over the world and forces them into a life of sexual trafficking.
A healthy suspension of disbelief is needed here; the welder and her stripper friend take on and defeat, on numerous occasions, members of the Bulgarian mafia. The fight scenes, however, are well choreographed and believable, to an extent: “As soon as [Angie] had disabled his punching arm, she moved her quiet attention to his forward knee and kicked right through the tender cartilage, yielding a monstrous howl from the man. Elbow gone, knee gone. Not much he could do now except crumple to the floor. As he dropped, Angie pinched hard at the side of his neck until he fully passed out.” The humor is also a plus, making for some laugh-out-loud sequences. In one fight sequence, for example, Tiffany’s bout of explosive diarrhea helps to save the day: “Tiff couldn’t hold it any longer. She bent forward to let her colon relieve itself onto the lower half of Igor’s expensive suit.” But the real strengths here are twofold—the emotional connection and power of the three friends’ relationships and the thematic gravity of international sex trafficking. Kulak could’ve easily included gratuitous sex scenes to underscore the horrors of sexual slavery but, rightfully so, he only alludes to the brutality. The way the abductors treat women as objects, particularly American women, is terrifying enough: “We take America’s riches. The bitches are the riches.” The storyline does have minor issues, however, aside from the highly unlikely issue of two people going up against an entire crime syndicate. The overall ending concerning the three friends is a foregone conclusion—although the author does include a tantalizing twist that savvily leaves the door open for a natural sequel—and the description of Mount Miffsberg is underwhelming. The depiction of a rural American town could’ve had much a more thematic impact, but is only superficially explored.
Well-developed female leads and loads of action and adventure make this a page-turning, if slightly predictable, read.Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781304213860
Page Count: 251
Publisher: Lulu.com
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A standout in the series.
The sixth adventure of Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon explores the mysteries of human consciousness, the demonic projects of the CIA, and the city of Prague.
“Ladies and gentlemen...we are about to experience a sea change in our understanding of how the brain works, the nature of consciousness, and in fact…the very nature of reality itself.” But first—Langdon’s in love! Brown’s devoted readers first met brilliant noetic scientist Katherine Solomon in The Lost Symbol (2009); she’s back as a serious girlfriend, engaging the committed bachelor in a way not seen before. The book opens with the pair in a luxurious suite at the Four Seasons in Prague. It’s the night after Katherine has delivered the lecture quoted above, setting the theme for the novel, which features a plethora of real-life cases and anomalies that seem to support the notion that human consciousness is not localized inside the human skull. Brown’s talent for assembling research is also evident in this novel’s alter ego as a guidebook to Prague, whose history and attractions are described in great and glowing detail. Whether you appreciate or skim past the innumerable info dumps on these and other topics (Jewish folklore fans—the Golem is in the house!), it goes without saying that concision is not a goal in the Dan Brown editing process. Speaking of editing, the nearly 700-page book is dedicated to Brown’s editor, who seems to appear as a character—to put it in the italicized form used for Brownian insight, Jason Kaufman must be Jonas Faukman! A major subplot involves the theft of Katherine’s manuscript from the secure servers of Penguin Random House; the delightful Faukman continues to spout witty wisecracks even when blindfolded and hogtied. There’s no shortage of action, derring-do, explosions, high-tech torture machines, attempted and successful murders, and opportunities for split-second, last-minute escapes; good thing Langdon, this aging symbology wonk, never misses swimming his morning laps. Readers who are not already dyed-in-the-wool Langdonites may find themselves echoing the prof’s own conclusion regarding the credibility of all this paranormal hoo-ha: At some point, skepticism itself becomes irrational.
A standout in the series.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780385546898
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
Maybe not the most thrilling thriller, but the role of AI in coping with grief gives this novel pathos and interest.
A widowed and disgraced plastic surgeon is drawn into a Russian oligarch’s evil schemes.
Witherspoon’s adult fiction debut, co-authored with thrillermeister Coben, opens as heart surgery performed by Dr. Marc Adams in a North African refugee camp is interrupted by the explosive invasion of armed militants. It's the last we will see of Marc in this dimension. The next chapter jumps ahead one year to a ceremony at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore where his widow, Maggie McCabe, is supposed to be presenting an award in honor of her mother. Miserable and anxious about appearing in public after having lost her medical license, she consults with her late husband on her phone—not via supernatural means, but using a "griefbot," an amazingly lifelike and functional AI app created by her genius sister, Sharon. Once the griefbot coaxes her to brave the sneering masses, she learns she’s been replaced on the podium anyway. But she runs into a former professor, a celebrity plastic surgeon, who requests a meeting with her at his office in New York and won’t take no for an answer. Next thing she knows, there’s $10 million in her bank account and she’s on a private plane heading to a palace outside Moscow where she’s been engaged to perform off-the-record surgery on billionaire Oleg Ragoravich (new face) and his girlfriend, Nadia (new boobs). And…we’re off. A whirl of surgeries, chases, and escapes ensues as Maggie gradually comes to understand who these people are and what they have in mind for her, and how it connects to Marc and their missing friend and business partner, Trace Packer. She is aided by her delightful father-in-law, Porkchop, owner of a biker bar in New York City and a very handy guy to have on your team if you've run afoul of an international criminal organization. From the palace in Rublevka the action moves to Dubai and then Bordeaux, climaxing in a high-stakes illegal heart transplant. But wait—is Marc really dead? What happened to Trace? Who is Nadia really? Though these smoldering questions don’t quite catch fire, it's a good first try for Witherspoon.
Maybe not the most thrilling thriller, but the role of AI in coping with grief gives this novel pathos and interest.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781538774700
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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