Though slow to start, this novel features a unique hero cutting his own path through deadly circumstances.
A political thriller about a country gone awry and a politician trying to save it.
Meyer follows up In Defense of the Grid (2023) with book three in the Wayward Patriot series. In this installment, Minnesota native Patrick “Rick” Taylor becomes a United States senator. Rick, a humble type who goes to Washington with an intact moral compass, is helped along the campaign trail by a plucky song his wife Maggie writes. The president, one Gerald Donaldson, is pleased that Rick is in his party, though time will tell if Rick will toe the party line. (It soon becomes apparent that he will not.) Donaldson wants to dispatch the U.S. military to the southern border, ostensibly to halt illegal immigration and fight drug cartels. The plan involves the use of specially designed AI drones that will attack anyone carrying a weapon. Donaldson’s true intentions are much more aggressive, however, and he wants Rick’s vote to move the measure forward. When Rick refuses, the trouble begins: An assassin is dispatched to Minnesota to kill Rick and Maggie and make it look like a murder-suicide. Shortly thereafter, the operation at the border escalates into a deadly fiasco. Rick’s road to danger is lengthy—a large portion of early chapters are about him getting elected, with quite an emphasis on his wife’s song. (He later recalls of the tune, “I couldn’t have been prouder or more grateful.”) This is not the typical approach for a thriller; while a musically talented spouse does not add much to the narrative, the story bucks the conventions of the genre in ways readers will appreciate. Rick is not the toughest protagonist around, nor does he possess extensive training or secret knowledge; he simply wants to vote in congress how he sees fit. When the plot gets up and moving, and bullets start flying, readers will be compelled to find out where his moral compass will guide him.
Though slow to start, this novel features a unique hero cutting his own path through deadly circumstances.Pub Date: May 27, 2024
ISBN: 9798986293141
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Peak Performance,
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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