Although the cosmic-clash elements feel underserved, Bentley’s exploration of earthly sin is bankable entertainment.
Angels and demons take sides in a struggle between a church and a villainous sheriff in this Christian fantasy thriller.
Bentley’s novel opens with Bo Ostermon, pastor of the South Point Community Church in Texas, and his wife Mary adopting the Vasquez siblings—Jorge, Jacob, and Margarite—from a Mexican orphan camp. Their act of charity sours when Jorge, who proves to be a glue-huffing, machete-swinging psychopath devoted to the demoness Lilith, falsely accuses Bo of abusing him and tries to rape a girl. The Ostermons promptly return the Vasquezes to the camp, but not before a demon poisons Bo’s mind with negative thoughts (e.g., “You are a spineless coward”). Back in South Point, Bo runs afoul of the town’s evil Sheriff Marcus Wheeler, who frames him for rape. When Bo is paroled eight years later, Marcus continues persecuting him, and the Vasquezes, who now run a human trafficking ring with Marcus, abduct Bo’s daughter Julia. She manages to escape and falls in with the mysterious Manny Maylock, an amnesiac fisherman with a Labrador called Roxie. The plot gravitates toward a showdown at South Point Community Church, which hosts a public meeting to present video evidence exonerating Bo and implicating Marcus in many crimes.
Bentley’s yarn is in part about a grand celestial war between beings who are awesome—one demon “wielded a cruel whip of living fire in one hand and a massive shield glowing blood-red and black in the other”—but don’t have much of an impact. The teeming cast of angels and devils pop in and out of the story haphazardly without much individuation or dramatic presence, with the angels especially cutting rather stolid, Tom Clancy–ish figures. (“Double the patrol schedules. I want eyes on every approach to this town, and constant monitoring of the spiritual atmosphere.”) More gripping is Bentley’s noirish portrait of South Point’s small-town corruption and vendettas, where the bad guys steal the show: While the Christian heroes usually act as prayer warriors summoning angelic intervention through faith, Marcus acts with a worldly, swaggering verve rendered in punchy prose. (“‘I tell you what, Alice. If things go bad and I feel like I am in dire straits, rather than worry about what you may tell the authorities, how about I just come to your place and snap your pretty little neck!’”) Much of the book’s conflict occurs within human souls, and Bentley’s depiction of said struggle is vividly phantasmagoric, with demons perched on shoulders murmuring toxic ideas, as when a fellow pastor questions Bo over Jorge’s allegations. (“The imp of Deceit flitted between the two men like a mosquito, invisible wings beating frantically. Its whispers were silk-smooth poison, dripping doubt into Austin’s mind, rage into Bo’s heart. He doesn’t believe you, it hissed to Bo. Your own friend thinks you’re a monster.”) In passages like these, Bentley paints a shrewd and compelling Christian view of the psychology of evil.
Although the cosmic-clash elements feel underserved, Bentley’s exploration of earthly sin is bankable entertainment.Pub Date: May 1, 2026
ISBN: 9798994708064
Page Count: 588
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 5, 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
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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