Plenty of imagination, with a peek at plausible near-future technology.
This sixth in Child’s Jeremy Logan series pits the vaunted enigmatologist against high-tech evil.
A scientist falls, with the help of an ax in his back, down a deep crevasse on an Alaskan glacier. Later, a business mogul suffers an apoplectic, bloody death in a Manhattan business meeting. Then a Beechcraft pilot fatally crashes for no obvious reason. All three are members of the board of directors for the mega-company named Chrysalis, and the connection among their sudden demises is a mystery. So the company urgently requests the assistance of Jeremy Logan, a paranormal sleuth who has at least five major successes under his belt. He drives his Lotus to a facility hidden deep in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. It’s a highly secure, secret building shaped like a torus, or doughnut. There, he meets with both techs and execs and receives complete authority to investigate—to ask any question of anyone inside the complex. Chrysalis is about to launch the newest version of its Venture product, and they are afraid that someone has programmed it to kill its users. Meanwhile, Logan is highly enamored of their current technology and already uses a virtual assistant called Pythia until his equipment is upgraded to the silken-voiced and ever so helpful Grace. “Grace, you’re a peach,” he tells her. “No, Jeremy,” she replies, “I am a virtual assistant.” It happens that the torus contains “a nest of fire ants,” and as Logan pokes and prods, people continue to die. What hath Chrysalis wrought? A killing machine? Whatever malware might drive the new device, humans amply supplement with intra-doughnut gunfights. Grace, Logan, and the dead mogul stand out among the characters, while the others make a lesser impression. Logan’s fans won’t be disappointed—and it’s an enjoyable stand-alone thriller, so it’s not necessary to read the series in order.
Plenty of imagination, with a peek at plausible near-future technology.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-385-54367-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
For readers who like their fun laced with skin-crawling weirdness.
A comic-strip artist loses first her cat and then, possibly, her mind.
Working with artists Horner and Staehle, as he did for Hidden Pictures (2022), Rekulak uses illustrations to support a paranormal thriller plot. Penny Padgett, a 27-year-old cartoonist living in Philadelphia, has published three beloved graphic novels about her life with her cat, Popcorn, and is working on a fourth when Popcorn darts out the window during a snowstorm and disappears. When all efforts to locate him fail, Penny spirals into unproductive despair. Her live-in boyfriend, Dean Everhardt, who works in finance, insists she accompany him to a cocktail party at the Brandywine Valley estate of his most important client, Evelyn Bruehl. At the party, Penny hears mewing that at first she’s sure must be Popcorn, but which turns out to be a very different cat named Godfrey. Godfrey immediately attaches himself to Penny, and when Evelyn—who’s about to take an extended trip to Europe—asks her to cat-sit, Dean pressures her to agree. Though at first Godfrey’s presence helps Penny break through her writer’s block, she’s completely disgusted by his custom-made food, which is delivered by his equally repugnant private veterinarian. And then something very strange starts happening to her artwork, which is suddenly filled with macabre and demonic imagery she can’t remember producing. Also, she’s losing weight and something terrible is happening to her skin. At this point the plot pivots into full-on horror, with a disgusting infestation of giant beetles and revolting odors taking over Penny’s house and a horrific murder next door. Penny finds some clues about what’s happening in a biography of Evelyn Bruehl’s grandfather, illustrator Barnabas Godfrey—the cat’s namesake. The 80-plus pages of illustrations include both Penny’s comic panels and Barnabas’ 19th-century images, the latter also filled with hints of what will emerge in the dramatic, screamworthy climax.
For readers who like their fun laced with skin-crawling weirdness.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781250895875
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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