A brisk and atmospheric true-crime thriller.
A dark, twist-filled mystery, the last in British author Peace's trilogy set in occupied 1940s Tokyo following Occupied City (2009) and Tokyo Year Zero (2007).
Veteran crime writer Peace, who (following James Ellroy) has said that he sees no reason to invent new crimes, follows his own precept here, focusing on one of Japan's most infamous unsolved cases: the death in 1949 of the National Railways' first president, Sadanori Shimoyama. Under pressure from the American occupying authorities, Shimoyama was being forced to lay off 100,000 workers, which made him a man both despised and depressed. One morning he was picked up as usual by his chauffeur, taken first to a bank and then to a department store. He said he'd return in five minutes, headed in—and disappeared. Late that night, Shimoyama's body was discovered alongside a rail line, grotesquely dismembered by a passing train. But was it suicide or homicide? Had he been dead hours before, as an autopsy indicated? If so, why did several people spot him that evening—or think they did—near the scene of his body's discovery, wandering and plucking weeds? Peace's intricate retelling/reimagining of the story begins in the immediate aftermath, with a disillusioned, hard-drinking American detective named Harry Sweeney. It then jumps forward to 1964, amid a revived city preparing to host the world for the Olympic Games. There, private investigator Murota Hideki, a policeman during the occupation, searches for an eccentric missing writer who was a loud proponent of the theory that Shimoyama was murdered—and who battles his own demons. Then the book leaps forward one last time, to 1988. There, against the backdrop of the emperor's protracted final illness, elderly American expatriate Donald Reichenbach, a teacher and translator, ends up being the one who must finally unravel, and reckon with the implications of, the now 40-year-old mystery. Sometimes Peace's style overrelies on line-by-line repetition, but the book has a songlike cadence that—thanks both to the riddles within riddles of the so-called "Shimoyama incident" itself and Peace's sure veteran hand with suspense—trundles the reader along with a train's inexorable momentum.
A brisk and atmospheric true-crime thriller.Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-307-26376-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.
A violent attack hijacks a woman’s memory in this novel of domestic suspense.
McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from men who have betrayed them. That formula perfectly fits Dr. Charlotte McKenna, a 37-year-old dermatologist who isn’t looking for love until the most handsome man she’s ever seen begins to woo her. There are warning signs about Clark Douglas and Charlotte overlooks them to her detriment—but is he a killer? The novel has dual timelines split between events leading up to the day Charlotte barely survives a head wound meant to kill her and the months afterward, when she struggles to reclaim her memory and her mobility. In real life, McFadden is a physician trained to treat brain injuries. Her expertise gives Charlotte’s rehabilitation authenticity, and her writing talent makes it interesting and engaging. As good as that timeline is, readers will yearn to get back to the alternate timeline about who wants Charlotte dead. It’s only a matter of time before Charlotte starts to remember who tried to kill her, and the clock is ticking toward their next attempt. McFadden dishes up plenty of suspects: Charlotte’s secretive husband, Clark; a former patient turned stalker who confronts Charlotte on her honeymoon; and the angry husband of a patient who blames Charlotte for his wife leaving him. Though the story is delicious and dark, McFadden brightens things up with a possible love interest for Charlotte and a surprise ending sure to please the author’s many fans.
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249617
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
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
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