A melodramatic, ultimately disappointing endeavor.
Fifteen years ago, Rachel Cunningham killed her parents. Or so she thought.
Rachel was only 11 when she shot her mother, watched her father turn his rifle on himself in their remote hunting lodge on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and then was found catatonic after having disappeared into the deep woods for two weeks. Now 26, she’s been in and out of psychiatric institutions, unable to come to terms with her terrible deed. The world thinks her father killed her mother, then himself: Rachel confessed, but no one believed her. One day, Trevor, an aspiring journalist, sits down with Rachel so she can tell her story and hopefully clear her father’s name. Then she plans to take her own life. But when Rachel catches a glimpse of the police report that says there's no way she could have fired that rifle, she questions everything she thought she knew about that day, and the gaps in her memory take on an even more ominous hue. She checks herself out of the hospital, calls Trevor for a ride, and heads back to the lodge, where her older sister, Diana, and her aunt, Charlotte, have lived for years. Choosing to hide out in the lodge rather than reveal herself, Rachel searches for clues about her parents’ deaths and soon realizes that Diana, and their complicated relationship, may hold the key to everything. Interspersed with Rachel’s present-day narrative, her mother, Jenny, who was a wildlife biologist along with Rachel’s father, Peter, details the years leading up to her death and the distressing events that marked their otherwise idyllic existence. Dionne has her locale down pat: It doesn’t get much creepier than a huge lodge filled with taxidermic animals where cell signals are scarce and dangers lurk in the surrounding woods. The characters lack nuance, though, and Dionne tends to clearly telegraph upcoming plot twists. Further, the book’s true villain does everything short of mustache twirling, and it’s not quite clear if readers should take Rachel’s earnest claim that she can talk to animals seriously. In the end, it’s all just a bit too much.
A melodramatic, ultimately disappointing endeavor.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-735-21303-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.
Second of the Walter Nash thrillers—following Nash Falls (2025)—in which the remade hero seeks vengeance.
Due to urgent circumstances, Nash has bulked himself up to become the “muscled and tatted fighting machine” now known as Dillon Hope. His antagonist is Victoria Steers, a global drug dealer who wants him dead. Not realizing his new identity, she enlists Hope to free her mother, Masuyo, from a prison in Myanmar. As an incentive, she shoots one of her associates and threatens to frame Hope for the murder unless he complies. She also wants him to find Nash. He in turn wants to kill Victoria to avenge the death of his innocent daughter, Maggie. “If I go down,” he muses, “I’m taking others with me. Starting with Victoria Steers.” He learns that Victoria had killed all her siblings to eliminate business competition. But as heartless as Victoria is, her mother, Masuyo, is even worse. In league with the Chinese government in a perverse plan to kill as many Americans as possible through fentanyl overdose, she shows contempt for Victoria for her perceived weaknesses. Readers won’t find many happy family relationships here: mother-daughter, father-son, husband-wife—all fraught. Hope’s employer, who accompanies him to Myanmar, is a billionaire chief executive with a dodgy past (i.e., probably killed his father). And there’s a mega-billionaire with an astronomical IQ and ditch-deep morals who, putting it mildly, does not have America’s best interests at heart. As a teenager, he’d defeated two world chess champions; as an adult, he regards his dealings with the world in terms of master chess moves. Only one character seems truly decent and credible—Hiroko, Victoria’s former nanny and lifelong companion, who provides Hope with valuable insights into the Steers’ background, which is partly Chinese. Searing grudges, simple evil, and not-so-simple misunderstandings carry the cast through this complex, action-packed plot. This sequel ties out the loose ends dangling in Nash Falls, which would be helpful to read first. To get to the requisite ending, though, Baldacci takes pains to surprise the reader. It works but often feels forced.
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781538758021
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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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