Gripping, timely, and unafraid to confront uncomfortable truths, this is a thriller that lingers well beyond its final page.
DeJesus’ thriller threads together personal tragedy, domestic terrorism, and systemic violence in a rapidly escalating plot.
In the thick of a Massachusetts winter, a young woman disappears under suspicious circumstances. Her bloodied car is discovered outside a suburban home, triggering a chain of events that spirals from domestic drama into something far darker and more dangerous. A pregnant woman, her paramedic husband, and a reclusive environmental engineer all find themselves entangled in the fallout, each forced to calculate what they’re willing to risk for the people they love. With rotating perspectives and a timeline that moves fluidly between days and locations, the skillfully wrought narrative builds suspense without sacrificing character depth. One early description—“An open box and a white plastic bag full of linen were smeared with blood”—sets the tone for what follows: a tightly wound exploration of violence, accountability, and vulnerability in all its forms. DeJesus excels at grounding high-stakes tension in personal histories. Abuse, grief, addiction, and climate anxiety thread through the lives of his characters, making their choices feel urgent and tragically believable. A subplot involving a meltdown at a hardware store that goes viral offers both comic absurdity and a sobering look at the speed of online judgment; “Depot Dan,” as the man involved is dubbed, is skewered on social media within hours. Meanwhile, his missing girlfriend’s past (including a restraining order and an alleged sexual assault) suggests far more sinister forces at play. The dialogue snaps with regional flair, and the settings, from snow-cloaked driveways to sunlit Florida condos, are rendered with just enough detail to feel lived-in. While a few scenes veer into melodrama, the pacing is strong and the emotional beats land. A police investigation drives the plot forward, but it’s the human cost of silence and survival that leaves the deepest impression.
Gripping, timely, and unafraid to confront uncomfortable truths, this is a thriller that lingers well beyond its final page.Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781644568095
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Indies United Publishing House, LLC
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2025
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
BOOK REVIEW
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
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