A well-crafted, disturbing, and entertaining medical thriller.
When a young reporter attempts suicide, a doctor finds himself once again chasing dangerous bad guys in this sixth volume of a mystery series.
A widower, father of two teenage daughters, and family physician, Dr. Sean Nolan cannot stay out of trouble. This time, just days shy of New Year’s Eve 2019, he receives a frantic call from the mother of globe-trotting investigative reporter ABCDE Garner, informing him that her daughter has cut her wrists and is now in the psychiatric ward of a San Francisco hospital. Within hours, Sean is on a plane to the Golden City. He and ABCDE have a history from a previous novel, and he holds the journalist’s health-care proxy. Employing his customary, irreverent jocularity, Sean signs the young woman out of the hospital and brings her back to his Woodhaven, Washington, home to recuperate. It turns out that after returning from an assignment in Syria, ABCDE began suffering from PTSD. Prescribed a recently approved anti-depressant, Serenetine, she subsequently began experiencing unusual side effects that were not described in the application for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approval. Once Sean begins investigating the trial studies and notices an unusually high, unexplained dropout rate, he comes to the attention of Colton Pierce, head of security for Villarian Pharmaceutical, a drug manufacturer with potent connections and much to hide. Now, the game is afoot. Fortunately, Sean has a solid backup team of cohorts, including a powerful, behind-the-scenes player of his own. This amiable cast of secondary characters will be familiar to readers of the earlier volumes, but it is Sean, Johnson’s likable protagonist, always willing to color outside the lines when necessary, who gives the novel its energy. Sean’s enthusiasm for his new avocation as part-time amateur detective is infectious. Although the early sections focus on labor-intensive investigative efforts, the book gradually builds to page-turning action scenes. Dialogue and narration are tightly managed, with nary a wasted word. And the author adds a special chill to the evil pharma tale when he introduces the first signs of the Covid-19 pandemic to the plot. This sturdy installment certainly holds up as a stand-alone.
A well-crafted, disturbing, and entertaining medical thriller.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2022
ISBN: 979-8410429115
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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