The emotional core and dangerous setting elevate this heart-pounding neo-noir.
In Fullilove’s thriller, a man haunted by the disappearance of his daughter agrees to investigate the death of a young woman in Uganda.
Billy Senchant is an American investigator with a reputation for successfully taking on difficult cases in Africa. When a wealthy American hires Billy to clear the name of his son, who has been named the lead suspect in the murder of a young woman named Nola, Billy agrees to travel to Uganda to investigate her death. Nola, who was working for the United Nations as a contractor, reminds Billy of his daughter, Jennifer, who went missing in Kenya two years earlier (she is presumed dead) and also worked in the aid and nonprofit field. This seems like a suicide mission—Uganda is fraught with corruption and recently ravaged by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army, but Billy, diagnosed with cancer, divorced, and missing his daughter, is willing to risk it (“do you want justice? One last, heroic act, perhaps?”). When Billy arrives in Uganda, he soon discovers that things aren’t as they seem. Nola lived lavishly until her death, despite her meager pay, and seemed to have connections to an array of institutions (including the LRA). Billy’s investigation is complicated further when he meets Brooke Reynolds, a woman claiming to work for the U.S. State Department, who brings him news that his daughter might still be alive. Fullilove braids together flashbacks from the vantage of both Nola and Jennifer. This material is challenging to read—the author doesn’t hold back when describing the violent cruelty that the Lord’s Resistance Army inflicts on Nola, her family, and the children they kidnap to serve as child soldiers. Fullilove’s prose is clear and confident, and the narrative builds to a devastating final scene that renders the novel more memorable and affecting than the run-of-the-mill thriller. The politics are complicated, and can leave the reader a little disoriented, but once all the key players are established, it’s a gripping mystery built upon Uganda’s terrifying recent past.
The emotional core and dangerous setting elevate this heart-pounding neo-noir.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9798891328204
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.
Second of the Walter Nash thrillers—following Nash Falls (2025)—in which the remade hero seeks vengeance.
Due to urgent circumstances, Nash has bulked himself up to become the “muscled and tatted fighting machine” now known as Dillon Hope. His antagonist is Victoria Steers, a global drug dealer who wants him dead. Not realizing his new identity, she enlists Hope to free her mother, Masuyo, from a prison in Myanmar. As an incentive, she shoots one of her associates and threatens to frame Hope for the murder unless he complies. She also wants him to find Nash. He in turn wants to kill Victoria to avenge the death of his innocent daughter, Maggie. “If I go down,” he muses, “I’m taking others with me. Starting with Victoria Steers.” He learns that Victoria had killed all her siblings to eliminate business competition. But as heartless as Victoria is, her mother, Masuyo, is even worse. In league with the Chinese government in a perverse plan to kill as many Americans as possible through fentanyl overdose, she shows contempt for Victoria for her perceived weaknesses. Readers won’t find many happy family relationships here: mother-daughter, father-son, husband-wife—all fraught. Hope’s employer, who accompanies him to Myanmar, is a billionaire chief executive with a dodgy past (i.e., probably killed his father). And there’s a mega-billionaire with an astronomical IQ and ditch-deep morals who, putting it mildly, does not have America’s best interests at heart. As a teenager, he’d defeated two world chess champions; as an adult, he regards his dealings with the world in terms of master chess moves. Only one character seems truly decent and credible—Hiroko, Victoria’s former nanny and lifelong companion, who provides Hope with valuable insights into the Steers’ background, which is partly Chinese. Searing grudges, simple evil, and not-so-simple misunderstandings carry the cast through this complex, action-packed plot. This sequel ties out the loose ends dangling in Nash Falls, which would be helpful to read first. To get to the requisite ending, though, Baldacci takes pains to surprise the reader. It works but often feels forced.
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781538758021
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
Yes, it has its playfully witty moments, but it’s a distinctly minor work in the author’s brainteasing canon.
Murder disrupts the filming of—what else?—The Word Is Murder, based on the first novel starring author Horowitz and his sometime partner, ex-copper Daniel Hawthorne.
With commendably dramatic timing, gofer Izzy Mays bursts into the middle of a pivotal shot on location at The Stade in Hastings to announce that Hawthorne’s been murdered. Of course, what she means (though Horowitz takes his time clarifying this ambiguity) is that David Caine, the rising star playing Hawthorne, has been fatally stabbed in the neck. Suspicion falls on James Aubrey, the agent Caine had just fired; Izzy, because Caine had caused her to be fired, too, though he ended up making his exit first; Ralph Seymour, the washed-up actor who’d returned from New Zealand to play Horowitz opposite Caine, his mortal enemy; and producer Teresa de León, who’s abruptly lost an important source of funding for the project; director Cy Truman; and screenwriter Shanika Harris, because why not? After Hawthorne builds meticulous hypothetical cases against several of these suspects, provoking Teresa’s apt rejoinder, “All those questions in the script and now you’re asking them for real,” he responds to Horowitz’s theory that he may have been the intended target after all by sharing a story from his early days as a private investigator in what ends up looking like the most elaborately extended red herring in the history of detective fiction. The two plots, past and present—or, to be more precise, past and present-day-adaptation-of-a-story-from-the-less-distant-past, are eventually woven together in ways only Horowitz’s most devoted fans will celebrate.
Yes, it has its playfully witty moments, but it’s a distinctly minor work in the author’s brainteasing canon.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9780063305748
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
