An irresistible, high-stakes, cross-country adventure about a man with amazing gifts.
Seaborne’s thriller features the return of superpowered action hero Will Stewart.
In this 10th installment in his contemporary adventure series, the author continues the exploits of Will Stewart, an air charter pilot, and his wife, Andy, a detective in Wisconsin’s Essex County Police Department (characterized by her husband as “an equal opportunity juggernaut of justice”). Will and Andy are briefed by FBI Special Agent Leslie Carson-Pelham and her colleagues on the inner workings of a paramilitary insurgency group known as Company W (“The W stands for White and the military grade high-capacity semiautomatic rifles they carry promise supremacy of arms, if not intellect”). Will and Andy have had near-fatal encounters with Company W before and have always been stymied by the compartmentalized nature of the group. “It’s not an organization with a headquarters,” they’re told by Carson-Pelham. “It’s like a cloud or a fog moving across the landscape. Arch conservativism. Racism. White supremacy. Grievance. Fascism by a dozen different names.” The couple are swept up in a complex plot involving the desperate plight of children in a hospice program, with tendrils of corruption and evil extending from Galveston to the Florida Keys. The narrative includes a number of suspicious figures, some of them connected to an evil pharmaceutical company that will arouse readers’ suspicions right from the start. Though the narrative gives a generous amount of the spotlight to Andy, Will is a natural scene-stealer by virtue of his actual superpowers: He can both fly and vanish from sight.
Considering the outsized, comic-book premise, it continues to be downright amazing how grounded Seaborne’s world consistently feels. Yes, Will Stewart has some Marvel-style paranormal gifts, but both his abilities and personality are so thoroughly fleshed out and believable that, in no time at all, the reader matter-of-factly integrates these fantastical elements into the standard heroics-and-gunfire action without a second thought. “This isn’t one of your silly action movies where all the clues line up in the third reel,” Andy deadpans. “It’s hundreds of hours of boring investigative work, connecting dots, scouring phone records, scraping through emails and texts, building cases.” This latest entry in the series maintains the same grounded, workaday feeling, but both Will and Andy consistently strain against it—they’re full-fledged action heroes, always ready to respond with Hollywood-style quips and larger-than-life violence. The author effectively fleshes out even minor walk-on characters, and his portrayal of the loving relationship between his two heroes continues to be the most satisfying aspect of the series, the kind of three-dimensional adult relationship remarkably rare in thrillers like this one. The author’s skill at pacing is razor-sharp—the book is a compulsive page-turner right up until the obligatory exposition dump near the end. The descriptions of the actual workings of Will’s powers are uniformly gripping; it makes the book feel like the best possible combination of the Odd Thomas novels of Dean Koontz and the Jack Reacher novels of Lee Child.
An irresistible, high-stakes, cross-country adventure about a man with amazing gifts.Pub Date: May 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781958005781
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Trans World Data
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.
A violent attack hijacks a woman’s memory in this novel of domestic suspense.
McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from men who have betrayed them. That formula perfectly fits Dr. Charlotte McKenna, a 37-year-old dermatologist who isn’t looking for love until the most handsome man she’s ever seen begins to woo her. There are warning signs about Clark Douglas and Charlotte overlooks them to her detriment—but is he a killer? The novel has dual timelines split between events leading up to the day Charlotte barely survives a head wound meant to kill her and the months afterward, when she struggles to reclaim her memory and her mobility. In real life, McFadden is a physician trained to treat brain injuries. Her expertise gives Charlotte’s rehabilitation authenticity, and her writing talent makes it interesting and engaging. As good as that timeline is, readers will yearn to get back to the alternate timeline about who wants Charlotte dead. It’s only a matter of time before Charlotte starts to remember who tried to kill her, and the clock is ticking toward their next attempt. McFadden dishes up plenty of suspects: Charlotte’s secretive husband, Clark; a former patient turned stalker who confronts Charlotte on her honeymoon; and the angry husband of a patient who blames Charlotte for his wife leaving him. Though the story is delicious and dark, McFadden brightens things up with a possible love interest for Charlotte and a surprise ending sure to please the author’s many fans.
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249617
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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