A fast-paced espionage tale brimming with action and smartly constructed.
In this cloak-and-dagger novel, a military catastrophe is explored from the multiple perspectives of characters whose professional lives intersect.
A team of American special forces soldiers raids a weapons cache held in Nigeria by Boko Haram, the militant Islamic group, and the operation goes terribly wrong. A massive explosion kills 14 American soldiers, the result of a targeted strike by a weaponized drone produced by the Chinese. Scott panoramically portrays the fallout of that debacle from the varying viewpoints of several characters—all in some way participants in the shadowy world of covert military operations. Isaac Northe is a former Marine and the best friend of Jimmy Taylor, one of the soldiers presumed dead in the explosion. After Northe hears the news, he muses: “I’d always been under the notion that Jimmy was invincible, even immortal.” While working as a security consultant for Omniburton, a massive defense contractor, Northe discovers that the outfit was likely in control of the drone that delivered the carnage. His employer, Sarah Powers, is a former CIA spook code-named Athena. She hails from Project Olympus, the same elite program that trained Naomi Kaufman, the CIA agent who was in Nigeria when the mission went south, and Marissa Diaz, an assassin currently on a lethal assignment for her client, a Swiss bank. The author deftly keeps the nuanced intricacy of the plot impressively lucid, and the shifts in perspective paint an intelligent perch from which to assess the wages of nihilistic corruption. Furthermore, Scott furnishes a striking peek into the shadowy corridors of espionage, one paradoxically characterized by both the bonds of soldierly loyalty and moral indifference. The plot can feel a touch familiar—the principal weaknesses of the novel are a general lack of originality and a preponderance of the genre’s clichés. And while the author’s writing style is unimpeachably clear, it is otherwise plain. Nevertheless, for readers in search of a thoughtfully composed spy thriller, this book is an attractive option.
A fast-paced espionage tale brimming with action and smartly constructed.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2022
ISBN: 979-8986323206
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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