A tense, regionally grounded thriller that treats violence not as spectacle but as consequence.
In Amberg’s novel, an ER triage nurse living a carefully ordered and solitary life clashes with a violent secessionist movement.
Diane Johnson is a 47-year-old triage nurse living alone in a remote cottage in the Northern California wilderness, where solitude, routine, and nature are her stabilizing forces. A survivor of sexual assault, she has turned to physical disciplines such as tai chi, archery, and hiking to manage painful memories and endure the daily toll of working in an understaffed rural hospital. Her private world is narrow by design, centered around her two dogs, her Vietnam War veteran father, a contentious relationship with her famous twin brother, and her teenage niece and goddaughter, Mary, whose mother was lost in the 2018 Butte County Camp Fire. Practically next door, right-wing extremist Charles Moran organizes the Sons of Jefferson, a revived secessionist project fueled by rhetoric that calls for a second American Revolution (“To my last breath, I will sacrifice all that is necessary to secure the Birth of the State and the new Nation”). Diane witnesses one of their armed gatherings in a nearby wildlife area, drawing the Sons’ ire and increasingly despicable intimidation tactics. When the group’s plans are revealed, the distance between warning and action collapses into brutal triage. Amberg’s novel is at its strongest when evoking the Northern California of the early 2020s, where post–Camp Fire displacement, understaffed and underfunded rural hospitals, and long-simmering regional politics are juxtaposed against the area’s natural and vividly rendered beauty. Diane’s experiences with violence and suffering make her an unusually honest hero, wary of “the greater good” and moral grandstanding. Her work in triage reinforces this worldview, even when she’s confronted by villains who verge on caricature. Despite their lack of sophistication, the Sons of Jefferson remain unsettling as the author leans into the real-world horrors of disgruntled MAGA entitlement and secessionist rhetoric.
A tense, regionally grounded thriller that treats violence not as spectacle but as consequence.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9781956872576
Page Count: 278
Publisher: Amika Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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