Superb characters headline this chilling, slow-burn crime tale.
An idyllic small American town may hide a seedy underbelly in this thriller.
Scott Casey and his parents have lived in Ridgeport, Illinois, since 1986. It’s a veritable utopia, crime-free and abundant in neighbors who greet folks with a smile. That’s not by accident; residents must abide by copious rules lest they suffer fines or lose their “residency cards” that give them discounts at local stores. Scott is a mere 10 years old in ’96 when he first gets an inkling that Ridgeport isn’t so squeaky clean. While the town hasn’t seen any murders, a few people have mysteriously disappeared. When someone Scott knows vanishes years later, he and his best friend, Matt Norris, focus their suspicions on Matt’s mom, Sue Ellen. She created and heads the Neighborhood Watch Committee but may not be as stable as she appears in public. The boys desperately want to know what’s in her secret room in the basement—one so secure they’ll need to manipulate a fingerprint scanner to get inside. But neither friend can anticipate what lies beyond that door. Kenealy gradually builds suspense in a story that spans a couple of decades. The tale begins in the ’80s as Scott’s mother, Loretta, seems to fall under Sue Ellen’s spell. But the narrative teases the 2004 date of Ridgeport’s first homicide and works its way to that fateful year. The author’s largely unadorned prose aptly details the town’s centurylong history as well as its fat “residency book” (required reading for newcomers). Kenealy also wisely focuses on the cast. Young Scott’s rebellious acts form an enjoyable coming-of-age subplot that includes an episode in which he and his friends sneak alcoholic drinks at a wedding. But no character outshines Sue Ellen; even readers can’t be sure what the dubious woman has actually done. The revealing final act drops more than one surprise as it deftly cranks up the tension.
Superb characters headline this chilling, slow-burn crime tale.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-98520-980-8
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Bowker
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.
A middle-aged woman channels her best Miss Marple when she finds herself facing a nightmare from her past as she seeks to make sense of her present.
Jane Trevally is at a crossroads of sorts. After a traumatic childhood, she sought safety and solace in marriages with wealthy men. Now twice divorced and living with her four dogs in the crumbling English country mansion that is her birthright, she’s feeling the need to do something, to take a job, when one day a runaway dog turns up on her doorstep. The dog is chipped, and with the help of a local vet and her loyal stepson, Dexter Lombardi, Jane traces the dog’s home to the edge of Hampstead Heath, in London—a place that brings back the memory of a terrifying night from her youth, when a handsome man picked her up and took her back to this very house. Everything there felt wrong; she just managed to escape, certain that if she had stayed, she would have died that night. Now, soon after knocking on the door and returning the dog, she discovers that he had run away from an Airbnb near her house, where he had been staying with a young woman who seems to have disappeared. With the help of Dexter; his father, Tony, her second ex-husband; Tony’s former security enforcer, Tobias Wilson; and her own gift for connecting with people, Jane sets out to find the woman, taking her first steps on the path to becoming a private investigator. While Jane serves as the heart of the novel, Jewell also narrates chapters from several other characters’ points of view, all of which chip away at the horror that is the house on the Heath. By slowly revealing past and present simultaneously, Jewell keeps the mystery fresh as she plays with Gothic tropes and the timeless imagery of “a house of horrors” embodying human sin. She doesn’t flinch from exploring the depths of depravity in this house—and its humans.
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.Pub Date: June 23, 2026
ISBN: 9781668033906
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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