Not for the picky.
A domestic thriller set among the Washington, D.C., in crowd starts with a bang.
Sen. Robert Chase and his wife, Sloane, have their beach weekend ruined by their friends Sen. Whit Montgomery and his screaming wife, Peg, who is convinced Whit is cheating on her. Two weeks later, Peg shoots Robert and herself as Whit stands helplessly by. The widowed partners eventually fall into each other's arms, raising eyebrows when they marry. With that whirlwind of belief-challenging events out of the way in the first few pages, the real story gets going. Sloane, who has lupus, is finally scheduling her hip replacement. A shady but stunningly attractive home health care worker named Athena is hired to live in for the first few weeks; she immediately begins snooping and controlling Sloane's medication. Meanwhile, Whit may still be tomcatting around and looks to be involved in some shady schemes of his own, including gaining control of Sloane's very well-endowed foundation. Some thriller fans are not super picky about writing—wooden dialogue and stereotyped characters can be forgiven if the twists are twisty enough. The sisters who write under the pen name Liv Constantine will have to count on that this time around, since not only is some of the dialogue and several of the characters laugh-out-loud ridiculous—the raunchy gold-digger sex kitten really takes the cake—but the most serious attempts at realism in the book involve granular detail on lupus and its treatment as well as fun facts about the White House and elite designer brand names. As for the main twist, it relies rather heavily on the omniscient third-person narrator misleading the reader and concealing information to a degree that could almost be seen as cheating. On the other hand, they did fool this reader, and the reveal scene was gaspworthy.
Not for the picky.Pub Date: May 23, 2023
ISBN: 9780593599891
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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
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