More dialogue than action, but a satisfying yarn.
A Texas police officer fights to rescues her kidnapped daughter in Marshall’s thriller.
Madison Jackson, a police officer with the Texas State Department of Parks and Wildlife, was once held captive by a Mexican cartel and forced to marry Jose Miranda, the second-in-command to kingpin Alejandro Rosales. Madison and Jose had a daughter, Anna, who now lives at home with Madison in Texas while Jose is in prison for his “cartel connections.” One night, Madison discovers her baby has been taken—after a visit to a maximum security facility to check on Jose, she is certain that he and his cartel are responsible for Anna’s kidnapping. Madison enlists the aid of her former Ranger father, Grant Jackson, as well as the Texas governor, Dixon Tucker, who also harbors feelings for her. Madison’s priest, Father Lee, discovers Anna is, indeed, in Mexico, where the cartel is planning to baptize her; Madison decides to steal Anna back in lieu of waiting for a slow court system to address the problem. This novel, the 19th installment in a series, is a quick read that is well-paced and boasts emotional heft. The prose is focused on scene-setting and is very descriptive, sometimes needlessly so: “The driver dressed in a traditional black suit, put the vehicle in park, got out of the car, unlocked the gate, and swung the metal access to the side of the road. He reentered the car, drove forward, then repeated the process to close the gate.” Additionally, the dialogue can feel a bit stilted and old-fashioned, as when Dixon, the governor, flirts with Madison: “You must promise that you will meet me for dinner at least once a week, here in the conservatory…It is the rare woman that I invite to my home twice.” There is also an infelicitous moment when Madison’s dad, while discussing “female intuition,” says, “Don’t think I’ve gone trans on ya,” which is eye- roll-inducing. Setting these flaws aside, Marshall’s story is an effective thriller.
More dialogue than action, but a satisfying yarn.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 3, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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