An energetic, empathetic romp for series fans and newcomers alike.
A missing troubled teen, a series of shell corporations, and a menacing security firm spell trouble for a superpowered protagonist in Seaborne’s thriller, one in a series.
Will Stewart can defy gravity in more ways than one. As the chief (and only) pilot for the Christine and Paulette Paulesky Education Foundation in Essex County, Wisconsin, he takes to the skies in his beloved Piper Navajo. Then there’s “the other thing”; when he pictures thrusting the Navajo’s controls in his head, he vanishes with a “Fwooomp!” and his feet leave the floor. He navigates invisibly through the air with handheld power units, giving him an edge when he and his wife Andrea “Andy” Stewart, a police detective, run into trouble outside of their day jobs. Andy and Will are preparing to welcome their first child when trouble comes knocking: Andy’s sister hears from her college friend Caroline that her daughter is missing, and she’d like Will and Andy to investigate off the books. Baxter Gaffney is a “classic…New York rich kid” who vanishes from an expensive, exclusive therapy camp in Upper Michigan. The crimefighting couple fly to Three Lakes, Wisconsin, where they find a musclebound man called King Kong holding Caroline hostage. Their improvised plan soon falls apart, and King Kong shoots and kills Caroline. The same bullet lodges a shard of bone in Andy’s amniotic sac, requiring her to be immobilized for 15 weeks so that she can safely deliver the baby. While fearing for Andy’s life, Will joins forces with his old friend, FBI Special Agent Leslie Carson-Pelham. The pair begins to uncover a trail of shadowy businesses, including a tiny “personal injury” firm that owns and operates a private jet; an urgent care clinic in a Rochester mall; and a high-level personal protection firm, Gallica Security, that guards its clients “better than POTUS.” All the clues lead back to dirty money and the empire of tech disruptor Bindle Foss, but with Andy in danger back home and Leslie dealing with White House–ordered firings and a new FBI regime, even Will’s “other thing” might not be enough to win the day.
Seaborne works effectively with a familiar cast of characters from past installments—foulmouthed pilot Cassidy “Pidge” Paige, business whiz Arun Dewar, and the personnel of the Essex County police department, to name a few—but the heart of this snappy thriller is Will’s devotion to the “stunning, loving woman” he married, which is clear from the first page. Unlike the romantic relationships in many hypermasculine hardboiled thrillers, their partnership doesn’t come with a side of condescension. The pair banters frequently and easily (“‘Be careful.’ ‘I can’t… Tuesdays and Thursdays are ‘Be Careful’ days this week’”), always showing respect for each other’s smarts. Their compelling, never saccharine marriage and Will’s disdain for the ultrawealthy (“leave it to the rich to figure out how to make money off mental issues”) lend the novel its fierce heart. At times, the focus on personal life scrambles the pacing—for a while, Seaborne seems to forget about Gaffney’s disappearance—which is a shame, since it was introduced with such a compelling hook.
An energetic, empathetic romp for series fans and newcomers alike.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Maybe not the most thrilling thriller, but the role of AI in coping with grief gives this novel pathos and interest.
A widowed and disgraced plastic surgeon is drawn into a Russian oligarch’s evil schemes.
Witherspoon’s adult fiction debut, co-authored with thrillermeister Coben, opens as heart surgery performed by Dr. Marc Adams in a North African refugee camp is interrupted by the explosive invasion of armed militants. It's the last we will see of Marc in this dimension. The next chapter jumps ahead one year to a ceremony at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore where his widow, Maggie McCabe, is supposed to be presenting an award in honor of her mother. Miserable and anxious about appearing in public after having lost her medical license, she consults with her late husband on her phone—not via supernatural means, but using a "griefbot," an amazingly lifelike and functional AI app created by her genius sister, Sharon. Once the griefbot coaxes her to brave the sneering masses, she learns she’s been replaced on the podium anyway. But she runs into a former professor, a celebrity plastic surgeon, who requests a meeting with her at his office in New York and won’t take no for an answer. Next thing she knows, there’s $10 million in her bank account and she’s on a private plane heading to a palace outside Moscow where she’s been engaged to perform off-the-record surgery on billionaire Oleg Ragoravich (new face) and his girlfriend, Nadia (new boobs). And…we’re off. A whirl of surgeries, chases, and escapes ensues as Maggie gradually comes to understand who these people are and what they have in mind for her, and how it connects to Marc and their missing friend and business partner, Trace Packer. She is aided by her delightful father-in-law, Porkchop, owner of a biker bar in New York City and a very handy guy to have on your team if you've run afoul of an international criminal organization. From the palace in Rublevka the action moves to Dubai and then Bordeaux, climaxing in a high-stakes illegal heart transplant. But wait—is Marc really dead? What happened to Trace? Who is Nadia really? Though these smoldering questions don’t quite catch fire, it's a good first try for Witherspoon.
Maybe not the most thrilling thriller, but the role of AI in coping with grief gives this novel pathos and interest.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781538774700
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Fast-moving and disturbingly plausible.
Robots may be the future of warfare in this final father-son DeMille collaboration.
In Camp Hayden, Army Maj. Roger Ames is found dead, his skull crushed. Chief Warrant Officers Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor, special agents of the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division, are sent to the Mojave Desert, “a.k.a. in the middle of nowhere,” to investigate. In this fictional military installation, Army Rangers conduct field training exercises with lethal autonomous weapons. These “dangerous new toys,” nicknamed “tin men,” may become the future of warfare if they can be programmed to distinguish between friend and foe. Anyway, the Rangers’ job is to train the tin men, not the other way around. They are AI-driven robotic prototypes called D-17s, but even prototypes can kill. Did a bot kill the major? And was there criminal liability or intent, or was it a tragic accident? Brodie and Taylor discover that not everyone loves these beasts, and they must find out if humans are programming them for mischief or even trying to set up the program for failure. Meanwhile, the bots have nicknames. Bot number 20 is Bucky, seen on a video as a “seven-foot-tall titanium machine with hands covered in blood and brain matter” that has “a face but no eyes, with hands but no skin, with a body but no soul.” As scary as these beasties are, Brodie and Taylor must also look at the humans at Camp Hayden, because they learn that the “machines don’t have motives….They have inputs and outputs,” which naturally come from human programmers. They have neither brains nor courage nor honor; they do have brute force, speed, and agility. Obviously, plenty goes haywire in this enjoyable yarn. It feels a bit too believable for comfort, and that’s to the DeMilles’ credit as storytellers. Nelson DeMille had begun this project with his son Alex, who had to finish it alone after his father’s death.
Fast-moving and disturbingly plausible.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781501101878
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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