Great atmospherics and intriguing ideas stretched too thin by an episodic, repetitive structure.
A man with psychic abilities can’t escape the grisly cases affecting his community in DiPego’s thriller.
Fifty-two-year-old Leonard Defore lives in a small Midwestern town and tries to lead a quiet life. When a young man disappears, the mother immediately seeks Leonard out, telling him, “I know about the… ‘remote viewing.’ I read all about that on the internet.” Leonard does indeed possess the inexplicable ability to sometimes see events far away from him, involving people he has never met, and he has helped the police in the past. But he’s reluctant to get involved, especially when the stern (yet also alluring) detective Betha Kane shows up at his door. “So, you had a dream and you called the police,” Betha tells him, trying to sniff out whatever con Leonard might be running. However, after Leonard successfully identifies key details from the disappearance and ends up helping Betha crack the case, she starts warming up to him. (“Oh, you’ll see me,” she tells him coyly. “In your dreams.”) With each chapter, DiPego jumps through time, showing us how Leonard and Betha’s relationship slowly blossoms into a full-fledged romance in between the various cases they take on together. These cases run the gamut of classic, spooky thriller scenarios: a series of stranglings; a disturbed young woman who may be trying to even a score against an elderly woman in town; a missing baby taken by someone confronting dark, deep traumas; random gunfire in a nearby town that may be just country kids playing—or could be something much more sinister. Throughout, the reluctant Leonard tries in vain to stay dreamless, but he’s powerless to resist the pull to help those in need, and he can’t deny the sway Betha holds over him with each new supernatural outing.
DiPego’s writing is immersive and impressive in the way it quickly establishes new stakes and characters. Each chapter functions essentially as a short story as the author deftly guides readers through the disappearances, serial killings, and various subplots that slowly flesh out Leonard’s chilly Midwestern world. (A troubled woman named Paula, in a chapter involving the kidnapping of an infant, stands out in particular for her dark past and disturbing visions of a metaphorical pit.) Betha is a formidable character, delivering some of the book’s best lines. Leonard’s struggle with what his powers mean hints at much deeper themes, like when he admits that he feels he “brings too much darkness” into his own daughter’s home. But the novel’s structure ultimately offers insufficient momentum to fully draw readers in; the series of miniature thrillers never feel connected as a satisfying narrative. Most of Leonard’s relationship with Betha evolves in between the chapters, only offering small asides to hint at what happened, and the rest of Leonard’s life remains a mystery. Without a broader narrative throughline, readers may feel as if they’re viewing Leonard only in fragments, the same way he sees terrible crimes with his strange power.
Great atmospherics and intriguing ideas stretched too thin by an episodic, repetitive structure.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798986224275
Page Count: 335
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2026
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
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
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