Compelling and suspenseful, with characters and locales that often surprise.
In this novel, a crime that unfolds in Ogallala, Nebraska, has far-reaching consequences for an indecisive man and the teenage girl he befriends.
Semi-retired Bennett, a man “accustomed to mild interest” in most things, embarks on a road trip to visit ex-girlfriend Jenn in Ann Arbor after she texts him out of the blue. He’s not expecting much but brings along lubricants and lotions just in case. Jenn, however, seems more interested in Bennett’s rental car than romance. Her teen daughter, Zoe, an MMA fighter, needs a ride to Utah for an important match. Zoe’s crusty trainer, Hector, tags along, coercing Bennett into stopping at a small Nebraskan town on the way to the fight. In Ogallala, Hector and his friend Hank continue treating Bennett as a chauffeur. They ask him to give them a ride to someone’s house, and he’s ordered to wait in a corn field. Sneaking to the house, he witnesses a murder. Involvement in the crime’s aftermath makes Bennett feel alive for once, but now he’s complicit. Still, he tries to be a positive influence for Zoe, whose perspective also shifts on this trip. Briefly staying with Hank’s kind sister-in-law and kids on a farm, she sees welcome alternatives to her usual life. The sense of place plays a large role here. Eichhorn skillfully captures the small-town ambiance, at least as seen through the eyes of educated urbanite Bennett. Bennett envisions Ogallala as a place with “a rat-infested motel” and thinks the flat plains “emptiness felt like abandonment.” The town’s predominant clothing style is “bib overalls and greasy T-shirts.” Amber, the sex worker Bennett meets, has a second job at Walmart. Yet Zoe inhabits a much different Ogallala, petting a pig, noticing the high corn, eating delicious homemade pie. Like the landscape, the characters also show many sides. Though appearing shallow, Bennett actually seeks substance. Violent Hector at times encourages both Bennett and Zoe, and Hank is a proud father. Zoe is an especially convincing portrait, insecurely poised on the brink of adulthood without receiving much help in how to get there.
Compelling and suspenseful, with characters and locales that often surprise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9798891328747
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.
A middle-aged woman channels her best Miss Marple when she finds herself facing a nightmare from her past as she seeks to make sense of her present.
Jane Trevally is at a crossroads of sorts. After a traumatic childhood, she sought safety and solace in marriages with wealthy men. Now twice divorced and living with her four dogs in the crumbling English country mansion that is her birthright, she’s feeling the need to do something, to take a job, when one day a runaway dog turns up on her doorstep. The dog is chipped, and with the help of a local vet and her loyal stepson, Dexter Lombardi, Jane traces the dog’s home to the edge of Hampstead Heath, in London—a place that brings back the memory of a terrifying night from her youth, when a handsome man picked her up and took her back to this very house. Everything there felt wrong; she just managed to escape, certain that if she had stayed, she would have died that night. Now, soon after knocking on the door and returning the dog, she discovers that he had run away from an Airbnb near her house, where he had been staying with a young woman who seems to have disappeared. With the help of Dexter; his father, Tony, her second ex-husband; Tony’s former security enforcer, Tobias Wilson; and her own gift for connecting with people, Jane sets out to find the woman, taking her first steps on the path to becoming a private investigator. While Jane serves as the heart of the novel, Jewell also narrates chapters from several other characters’ points of view, all of which chip away at the horror that is the house on the Heath. By slowly revealing past and present simultaneously, Jewell keeps the mystery fresh as she plays with Gothic tropes and the timeless imagery of “a house of horrors” embodying human sin. She doesn’t flinch from exploring the depths of depravity in this house—and its humans.
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.Pub Date: June 23, 2026
ISBN: 9781668033906
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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