A gut punch to the soul of America and a must-read for all those who value their freedom and future.
Ritchie’s debut novel—equal parts political thriller, dystopian narrative, and blood-soaked cautionary tale—looks ahead to “democracy’s last stand in America.”
Election Day is quickly approaching as two candidates with radically different agendas face off in a contest to become the 50th president of the United States. Charismatic Democratic senator Anna Hoffman, nicknamed the Lioness of Georgia, is leading in the polls, but Texas governor Mack Leach’s campaign, characterized by disinformation, racism, misogyny, violence, and blatant corruption, is narrowing the gap. The race is billed as “potentially the most consequential election in American history.” The country’s already murky future becomes even more muddied when popular news anchor Caitlin Kincaid is contacted by the Truth Chamber, a revolutionary AI-enhanced lie detector whose operators are abducting and interrogating potential enemies of the state. Lying to the Truth Chamber means escalating torture—and potentially death—via electric shocks. As hate-fueled violence sweeps the nation, the Georgia senator asks her old friend Admiral Liam Driscoll, who’s still struggling with the losses of his son and wife (to combat and brain cancer, respectively), for help with winning the election and saving the country from devolving into a fascist dictatorship. The novel’s impressively deep character development, breakneck pacing, and intricate plotlines are effectively complemented by unapologetically brutal violence and a disturbing sense of dread that builds throughout the narrative like an ever-thickening poisonous fog. Ritchie’s numerous (yet subtle) references to iconic songs and musicians are symbolically powerful, such as Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’” and the Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House,” to name a few. The biggest takeaway is the eerily prescient quality of the writing—readers may feel like they’ve found a history book from the future instead of a contemporary thriller: “When fascism comes to America, he’ll wear a flag pin, brandish a Bible, and call himself a patriot.”
A gut punch to the soul of America and a must-read for all those who value their freedom and future.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9781764538701
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Nail-biting and pressure-packed.
Jack Ryan Jr. and company race to stop a killer wave in this Tom Clancy thriller.
The ship Meridian Star departs eastern Russia unknowingly carrying a pair of containers with radioactive cesium chloride. The vessel is hijacked and scuttled in Micronesia near the Mariana Trench, and the crew is murdered. A huge insurance claim results, and Jack, an accomplished deep-sea diver who works for Hendley Associates, is there to investigate. The hostile Chinese learn it’s there and want that illicit cargo. Meanwhile, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center discovers a huge, mysterious object in 600 feet of water. At that depth, the pressure is unsurvivable without complex special equipment, which is vintage Tom Clancy. Whatever the strange object is, it’s “not a ship…not a submarine…not an aircraft.” On the side is a faded hammer and sickle and Cyrillic letters that spell Siren. Ryan teams up with Navy divers, and they look for a way to safely enter and explore the object. They discover that the underwater contraption has thermonuclear warheads attached, left and long forgotten by the USSR. If the warheads explode, they could still achieve their apparent purpose—to trigger a tsunami and destroy Guam, which is strategically important to the U.S. The Chinese know it too, and the race is on to take control. The result is plenty of high-stakes undersea action, where death can come from a bullet, a knife, or a sliced air hose. But there’s action on land, too. Navy master diver Carla Bennett and Jack take on a surprise assault in a hotel where Carla shows off stellar fighting skills—better than Jack’s. These two aren’t the only heroes here, as there’s a well-balanced cast of characters, all brave and likable. And of course—of course—where there’s a bomb, there’s a ticking clock.
Nail-biting and pressure-packed.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9798217183166
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2026
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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