A knowing, nuanced #MeToo story from the world of corporate law, with juicy The Wolf of Wall Street–type action.
The perils and pleasures—if that’s the right word—of a high-powered young woman working as a first-year associate at a major Manhattan law firm.
One of the key sentences in this debut novel is in the author bio on the last page: “Erica Katz is the pseudonym for a graduate of Columbia Law School who began her career at a major Manhattan law firm.” Another is in the acknowledgments: “To everyone who sees ugly parts of themselves in these characters and wonders if I’m writing about them, I’m not. (But I am…).” Clearly the story of Alexandra Vogel’s life at Klasko & Fitch is grounded in experience and first-hand observation. It’s an intense, disturbing #MeToo story that takes the significant risk of making its main character neither innocent nor completely likable. The book opens with an excerpt from a transcript of a New York Supreme Court trial. The defendant is Gary Kaplan, whom we will come to know as the firm’s most important, powerful, and wealthy client. What the charge is, or exactly why Alex is called to testify in such detail about her experiences at the firm, will not be clear until very late in the book. Before that, we go with Alex on the wild ride that is an associate’s first year as she tries to impress the bigwigs in order to “match” with a desirable department. Towering above them all is Mergers and Acquisitions—the best, brightest, toughest, most important—so naturally Alex, a mega-achiever whose accomplishments include a world record in girls junior swimming, sets her sights on it. Almost immediately the furiously competitive situation changes her into something of a monster. Multiday work sessions alternate with exorbitant dining, drinking, and drugging, taking quite a toll on her relationships with her boyfriend and her parents. Meanwhile sexual tension is building between her and more powerful colleagues while her relationships with the few women in the firm are…poor. She doesn’t see the situation for what it is until late in the book, when nuance goes out the window; her awakening is rushed and less realistic than what’s gone before.
A knowing, nuanced #MeToo story from the world of corporate law, with juicy The Wolf of Wall Street–type action.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06296-148-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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