A gripping murder mystery with absorbing subplots and a superlative cast.
The brutal killing of a Minnesota ex-priest stirs up dark secrets in this thriller.
After she lets a prime suspect get away, Det. Paige McGraw is determined to prove herself at the St. Paul homicide unit. Her latest case is a body in a college library showing signs of strangulation and post-mortem mutilation. The victim is Father Paul Sayer, a defrocked priest and convicted child molester out on parole. Readers know that his killer, called “Friend” (as he signed a note to Sayer), meticulously covers his tracks and already has a second target in mind. Meanwhile, Paige and her partner and potential mentor, Inspector Clarissa Wright, investigate with the assumption that the murder ties to Sayer’s disturbing crime and someone is out for revenge. But this increasingly complicated case soon ropes in a priest as well as a local businessman who’s reputedly the “richest person in Minnesota” and maybe even the country. The detectives hope a probable witness—student and assistant librarian Jiāo Xiè—can lead them to the murderer before he kills again. Bennetts’ deliberately paced story supplies multiple narrative perspectives. The tale oscillates among several characters, including Friend, the investigating partners, and, in flashbacks to an unknown time, a boy who falls prey to Sayer. As these characters take precedence over the mystery, it won’t be long before readers unmask the killer. The cast nevertheless enthralls, from appealing Jiāo to charmingly gruff Lou Nicosia, a former cop who’s now working a campus security job. Various characters are immersed in all sorts of things, including blackmail, a coverup, and anonymous calls from a burner phone. One player may be hiding sexual proclivities. The exciting final act is pleasantly unexpected, both in terms of its setting and characters. This leads to a coda that’s just as surprising and unforgettable.
A gripping murder mystery with absorbing subplots and a superlative cast.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781667873657
Page Count: 360
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
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
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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