A tense legal thriller with nary a courtroom scene.
In this sequel to The Firm (1991), star attorney Mitch McDeere tries to rustle up ransom for a kidnapped colleague in Libya.
In The Firm, he barely escaped the clutches of the corrupt law firm Bendini, Lambert & Locke. Now it’s 15 years later and Mitch is living in New York and is a partner at Scully & Pershing, the world’s largest law firm. He’s frustrated that his Alabama and Tennessee death row clients keep getting the needle, except for the latest one who supposedly hanged himself in his cell. He doesn’t want to take any more of these cases, so he agrees to help out on a lawsuit for Luca Sandroni, a Scully partner in Rome who’s dying of pancreatic cancer. The client is Lannak, a major Turkish construction company that's suing the government of Libya for an unpaid debt of $400 million. Please let my daughter, Giovanna, come and help you, Luca asks Mitch. She’s an associate in the firm's London branch. It’s 2005, the time of Muammar Gaddafi, who came up with the harebrained idea of building the “Great Gaddafi Bridge in central Libya, over an unnamed river yet to be found,” Luca says. (It’s true!) Mitch plans to see the bridge, but he comes down with a wicked case of food poisoning, so Giovanna volunteers to go instead. Soon she’s been kidnapped, and her guards and driver are murdered. In Manhattan, a mysterious woman tells Mitch’s wife, Abby, that the price of Giovanna’s return is $100 million, and she will die if anyone involves the government or police. Can Scully & Pershing put their hands on that much dough? And who are they dealing with? Mitch isn’t even certain whether Gaddafi is behind the crime or whether it's some unknown gang. Mitch and Abby come across as sympathetic and credible, while other characters are no deeper than they need to be. The story moves at a fast pace, leaving a trail of bodies in its wake.
A tense legal thriller with nary a courtroom scene.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780385548953
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.
On the isle of Capri, Helen Lingate seeks revenge on the people responsible for her mother’s death 30 years earlier—her own family.
When Sarah Lingate fell to her death on Capri in 1992, she left behind a 3-year-old daughter, Helen, and a legacy as a gifted playwright; her favorite necklace of golden snakes was lost to the sea. Thirty years later, Helen, chafing at the restrictions she’s grown up under as a member of the old-money Lingate family, hatches a plan with her uncle Marcus’ assistant, Lorna Moreno, to blackmail her uncle and her father with that same necklace, which mysteriously entered her possession a few months before. The novel begins on Capri just after Lorna disappears, and then traces her steps from 36 hours earlier. Interweaving chapters from the points of view of Helen, Lorna, and Sarah—as well as, later, a few others—we learn how Sarah gradually became stifled by the constant pressure of keeping up appearances until she became inspired to write a play, Saltwater, that was a not-so-thinly veiled tell-all revealing dark Lingate family secrets. It was shortly after this that she fell to her death. The loss of her mother has come to define Helen’s life, and if she can use the necklace as leverage to escape her family, and maybe learn the truth along the way, she’ll take the risk. Lorna’s motives are both murkier and more straightforward—she’s never had money, and she’s got a chip on her shoulder about it, so splitting 10 million euros with Helen sounds like a way to discard her past and start fresh. These strong, conniving women drive the drama and the narrative, and they are captivating enough that as twist after twist begins to unfurl, the novel still feels character-driven. The end—well, the end shocks. And it’s well earned. By the time the sun sets on the gorgeous excess and rugged coast of Capri, lives will have been destroyed.
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593875551
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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