An introspective tale that regrettably fails as crime fiction.
In 1994, a grad student investigates his mentor’s alleged suicide.
New York University Ph.D. candidate Milo Rossi owes his love of Italian literature and nascent academic career to Lenny D’Ambrosio, a kindly professor who has been guiding his studies for years. One night, after Milo attends a dinner party at Lenny’s Mamaroneck apartment, Lenny drops him at the train station and asks him to phone tomorrow, saying there’s something they need to discuss. Early the next morning, however, Milo receives a call from Detective Delzio of the Harrison PD: Lenny’s downstairs neighbor heard a commotion near dawn and went upstairs to find the door unlocked and Lenny’s corpse hanging from the rafter by a bedsheet. The police rule the death a suicide, but Milo isn’t convinced and starts digging, armed with details divulged by Delzio. To Milo’s shock, the “pathologically private” Lenny had an extensive VHS collection of sadomasochistic porn filmed in Italy, featuring indigent people and refugees. According to Delzio, Lenny’s supplier was none other than Valentino Cipolla, older brother of Matteo Cipolla, Milo’s late brother Carlo’s best friend. When Milo’s mother reveals that she’d found a videotape mailed from Italy among Carlo’s effects when he died six years ago, Milo tracks down and interrogates Val, whose answers only lead to more questions. Olshan’s latest explores the difficulties of truly knowing another person, be it a friend, lover, relative, or icon, as well as the pitfalls of uncovering the secrets of someone you respect and admire. The author writes fondly and colorfully of Italy, its culture, and its people, but this Italophilia conspires with discursive prose to create the air of a novel inexpertly translated. The convoluted central mystery disappoints, comprising little more than a string of increasingly improbable coincidences.
An introspective tale that regrettably fails as crime fiction.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781963101089
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Green City Books
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A particularly nasty villain heightens the stakes in this thriller about a woman learning how to be her own hero.
An author is targeted by a fan who just can’t let her go.
Arden Bowie has had plenty of tragedy in her life, but now she’s finally on top. After her parents died when she was a teenager, she moved from Brooklyn to Ohio to live with her aunt, uncle, and cousins. She soon became part of their loving family and grew up to become a writer and bookseller. When her debut novel is published, she meets Dustin Dubecki at her first event. He showers her with praise, asks for writing advice, and wants to take her out for coffee. Arden tells herself he’s just a little awkward, but then he keeps showing up at her local events—and, even stranger, she’s sure she sees him lurking at her event in New York City. When he bursts into her apartment one night and assaults her, Arden’s calm life is shattered. Dustin gets a five-year sentence at a psychiatric facility; Arden spends most of that time rebuilding her sense of stability. Eventually, she moves to Oregon to start a new life where Dustin can never find her. But even though she has a beautiful home, a thriving career, a doting family, new friends, and even a potential love interest in a former cop named Gideon Riley, Arden can’t escape Dustin’s rage when his sentence is finally up. Roberts toggles between Arden’s point of view and Dustin’s, giving the reader occasional glimpses into his extremely twisted mindset. Although Arden’s attempts to escape Dustin are engrossing, the story stalls in the middle when far too many pages are dedicated to Arden purchasing and decorating a house. But the excitement picks back up when Dustin, a truly odious villain, re-enters the story. It’s also satisfying to see Arden grow into someone who refuses to be a victim, even as she deals with horrifying circumstances.
A particularly nasty villain heightens the stakes in this thriller about a woman learning how to be her own hero.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781250413581
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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