A masterclass in plotting. Warning to readers seeking emotional footing: the rug will be yanked again and again.
A quintessential British pub, an escalating quiz-night rivalry, and a deeply personal mystery unfold in this clever epistolary tale.
Making a pitch to a Netflix documentary producer, Dominic Eastwood promises a doozy of a yarn when he outlines the first part of the story of his aunt and uncle, Sue and Mal Eastwood. The couple runs The Case is Altered, a cozy Hertfordshire pub known for its community spirit and beloved Monday Quiz. Trivia lovers, including the Plucky Losers, the most regular regulars, treat the quiz with endearing gravity, mirroring Mal’s pride in crafting each week’s questions to be obscure, fair, and challenging. But the arrival of a new team, the enigmatic Shadow Knights, upends the pub’s gentle rhythms. Led by a mysterious figure known only as the General, the Knights dominate quiz night with eerie precision, raising eyebrows among the regulars. Mal is intrigued—can anyone really get every answer right?—while the Plucky Losers’ Chris grows increasingly obsessed with either beating the Shadow Knights or unmasking them. After all, why cheat for a prize that rarely tops £19? Dominic’s pitch to producer Polly takes a darker turn as a text exchange between Mal and a local police officer reveals that a body’s been found in the local waters. The victim, it turns out, was known for cheating at local pub quizzes—a detail that rattles Mal and Sue, especially as deeper ties to their past come to light. As Dominic’s emails unfold, what began as a quirky pub tale steeped in trivia is transformed as repeatedly as a chameleon on steroids.
A masterclass in plotting. Warning to readers seeking emotional footing: the rug will be yanked again and again.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668083536
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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
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