A spy tale that works best as a character study of grief.
A troubled doctor becomes embroiled in a terrorist conspiracy in Purpura’s debut thriller.
In 2024, Vince DeLuca is a skilled obstetric surgeon in Santa Barbara, California, but he’s a depressed, alcoholic, and solitary person in his personal life. When his patient Jackie Carter needs emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy, she confesses, in her fentanyl stupor, that her pregnancy was the result of an extramarital affair with a man named Salaam. Vince also finds out that she and her lover are part of a plan to acquire missiles to attack the United States as revenge for the Iraq War. The doctor, who lost his betrothed, Helen, in the 9/11 terror attacks, feels compelled to act, and he brings this information to the FBI. Soon, Special Agent Carolyn Talbot arrives to work with Vince to uncover more information on Jackie and her role in the conspiracy, and an instant attraction sparks between her and the surgeon. Later, Vince finds himself the target of jihadis, and further secrets are revealed as he willingly becomes an informant for both the FBI and CIA. As he helps uncover connections to Jackie’s husband, a military contractor named Brent, he narrowly escapes death himself. Purpura, who’s an obstetrician and gynecologist, has created a sympathetic narrator in Vince, whose dour, piteous characterization believably motivates several rash decisions even as his work as a physician remains pristine. The book’s plot loses its momentum at times as it tries to balance Vince’s personal life with the somewhat far-fetched terrorism plot. Also, although Jackie is important early on, she remains out of the picture for most of the book, as the middle third focuses more on Carolyn and Vince’s relationship. The way that Purpura draws on his medical knowledge in compelling ways and his writing about Vince’s grieving process can be poignant, as when the protagonist wrestles with a new relationship: “I want to watch her think, hear her sarcasm, her innuendos, her confidence—I want all of her. Next to me. Woven inside me.”
A spy tale that works best as a character study of grief.Pub Date: April 17, 2023
ISBN: 9798886450132
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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