A satisfying blend of legal drama and psychological thriller.
In Greco’s thriller, a lawyer defending a serial rapist in a high-profile trial suspects something dark is at play when his girlfriend goes missing and bodies begin to pile up.
Jedidiah “Jed” Bouvier has spent 17 years as a public defender in Murrieta County, California. His most difficult case begins when he takes on client Dexter Wayne Jones, a serial rapist and possible killer on trial (again) for the decades-old slayings of an entire family. With the previous trial having ended with a hung jury, the pressure is on to make this one count. Jed feels the evidence is circumstantial enough to possibly set Dexter free, but the case’s bulldog prosecutor, Catalina “Cat” Galvez, has other ideas. An already complicated situation gets even messier when one juror from the first trial is found murdered and a second goes missing. Jed’s new girlfriend of a few months, Amy, also disappears, leading him to wonder if he ever really knew her in the first place. It soon becomes clear, from jury tampering and threats of violence, that someone is interfering with the proceedings. As the trial finally nears its end, Jed unsuspectingly hurtles toward a shocking revelation that changes everything. Greco delivers a dialogue-heavy courtroom drama that manages to move briskly and avoid any tedious legal verbiage. Although the book’s main twist is not particularly surprising, the buildup to get there is more than worthwhile. This success is thanks to the author’s clear and occasionally sardonic narrative voice (Jed “often wondered whether practicing law or drinking whiskey was more to blame for wrecking his life”), believable dialogue, and a cast of characters who manage to transcend their plot functions to feel like real people. (Jed’s oft-contentious conversations with his ex-wife prove particularly illuminating.) The result is a satisfying, if somewhat predictable, yarn that meaningfully probes themes of justice, forgiveness, and revenge.
A satisfying blend of legal drama and psychological thriller.Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9798999855008
Page Count: 332
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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