A bleak but fascinating glimpse into a cold-blooded, diabolical mind.
Cops may soon have their eyes on a methodical serial killer who’s long evaded suspicion in this debut thriller.
Steve Balam is a wealthy, successful financial advisor in the Atlanta area. He spends what little free time he has with his loving wife, Emma, and their two kids. But Balam, who harbors “lustful urges,” also kills and rapes young women. He carefully avoids leaving evidence behind, except for someone else’s DNA, which he deliberately plants at murder scenes. One of Balam’s investments is a chain of massage parlors, where sex is one of the services on offer. That’s where he collects DNA—in one case, it belongs to a rival who’s been threatening him; in another, the DNA is random. Balam has certainly thwarted the investigation, but it surely won’t be long before police spot his distinctive strangulation MO linking several recent murders. Sackos centers this story, which launches a prospective series, largely on Balam’s deception. Scenes depict his meticulous planning (scheduling, purchases, etc.), though the spotlight sometimes shifts to the men whose lives fall apart after being arrested for Balam’s crimes. The villain isn’t cartoonish; despite his violent impulses, he genuinely loves his family. But the rest of the cast, including Emma and the detectives, fades into the background. The author’s taut writing (“The news vans were in rows, and the media element was a complete circus. Obnoxious reporters were sticking the microphone into people’s faces as they approached, hoping to get a juicy bit of gossip that would help their ratings”) adds to the drama without graphically lingering on the deaths themselves.
A bleak but fascinating glimpse into a cold-blooded, diabolical mind.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 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
BOOK REVIEW
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