Plenty of action, plenty of fun.
Fade is a badass operator whom even a coma can’t stop.
Salam al-Fayed is an ex-SEAL, ex-CIA, and ex-Homeland Security agent, an American of Arab descent who takes out an entire Black Ops team that’s charged with either “recruiting him or burying him.” You can call him Fade, as everyone else does. He’s a brave warrior and antihero who tries to help a girl in distress and gets stabbed and shot in the melee. He winds up in a coma from which he may never awaken, but of course he does. Then he may be destined to spend "the rest of his life rotting in a prison hospital bed,” but of course he doesn’t. After being pumped full of meds and blood from ethically questionable sources, he recovers and undergoes extensive rehab. But since the internet thinks he’s dead, his colleague and former friend Matt Egan tells him he’s now Frederick Abdel Darwish (so you can still call him Fade). All this is a creative setup for what is otherwise a standard thriller. Legendary warrior that he is, greater powers intend to use him for their own questionable purposes. Enter the obscenely wealthy Jon Lowe, who’s decided that the world’s so messed up he has no choice but to take it over. To make it a better place, of course. There’s also a Chinese scientist who engineered Covid-19 to target people over 70, whom he believes are useless. He’s going to try again, by creating a weapon of mass destruction from the building blocks of life. Reports of a secret lab bring a team including Fade to Madagascar, where they find a drought-stricken village that criminals are robbing of food aid. In the wilderness, Egan sets a challenge to a five-man team including Fade in which only four of them can possibly succeed. The unexpected result adds another dimension to Fade’s personality—he’s not a cardboard-cutout killer. One may sense that Mills began with a title and then built a character and story around it, but that’s fine. In time, a beautiful woman is assigned to share his apartment and watch over him, subject to terms and conditions. For example, sex no more than seven times a week. With that, the reader might expect at least one vivid sex scene. Alas, no. One person notes that Fade, pushing 40, was half nuts even before the coma. Apparently, that doesn’t change.
Plenty of action, plenty of fun.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9798893310399
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Authors Equity
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
Come for the forensics, stay for the nonhumans.
A Christmas bout between Kay Scarpetta and the Phantom Slasher.
But first, Scarpetta, Virginia’s chief medical examiner, has to figure out how software designer Rowdy O’Leary died. Fished from the Potomac River on Christmas Eve six years after a hit-and-run driver left him permanently disabled and a week after he plunked down the cash for a pricey emerald ring, he fell off his fishing perch and drowned—or did he? Scarpetta’s examination of his body is cut short by two disturbing developments: the discovery of an unidentified woman’s remains buried on the grounds of Mercy Psychiatric Hospital, and celebrity TV reporter Dana Diletti’s report that the red-eyed ghost associated with the Slasher’s three murders has floated through the window of her home. She’s got video, too, and the apparition looks real and scary. The final blow to Scarpetta’s plans for a Christmas getaway with her husband, Secret Service forensic psychologist Benton Wesley, is an attack on an Alexandria home that kills Mercy psychiatrist Georgine Duvall, who used to treat Scarpetta’s niece, Lucy Farinelli, and nearly kills graduate student Zain Willard, White House intern and nephew of presidential candidate Sen. Calvin Willard. This time the Slasher’s ghost has been spotted on the scene by none other than Pete Marino, head of investigations for the medical examiner’s office and Scarpetta’s longtime sidekick. Cornwell’s use of Robbie, Zain’s robotic dog, and Janet, Lucy’s AI companion, integrates the futuristic elements she favors more successfully than in her recent outings. But the solutions to all these mysteries will leave fans of the venerable franchise pursing their lips rather than gasping in awe.
Come for the forensics, stay for the nonhumans.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781538773963
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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