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
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
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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