An engaging tale of murder, politics, and good old boys being no good at all.
His discovery of a bullet-ridden body steers a former Arizona homicide detective to resume investigating, even if it leads to corruption at the highest state level.
In Bacon’s fifth installment of a mystery series, ex-homicide detective Lyle Deming finds the body of a caterer in the parking lot of the Nostalgic City theme park in Arizona. Working as a cab driver at the park to escape the stress of his former occupation, Lyle discovers the body the morning after the place’s informal “gay day.” The killing is personal to Lyle, as his adopted daughter, Sam, a college student, is a good friend of the deceased’s daughter. Because the caterer serviced gay weddings and the park just had the large LGBTQ+ gathering, the murder might have been a hate crime, but Gov. Rod Gudgel disagrees, saying, “The woke media are making too much out of this. Just a random shooting.” Gudgel soon starts antagonizing park officials and, without reason, labels Nostalgic City rides as potentially unsafe, creating a nightmare situation for Kate Sorensen, the park’s public relations director and Lyle’s girlfriend. Known for his unbridled hate speech against marginalized groups, Gudgel and his minions threaten to divide Arizona society. The governor’s connection with a Saudi company called Ecoperi, which owns land in Arizona, raises even more concerns. To help her friends Lyle and Kate bring down Gudgel, 30-something park Vice President Drenda Adair infiltrates the governor’s campaign office, getting far more than she bargained for. The fairly predictable story is perhaps a bit too on the nose, given the country’s current political climate. That said, the novel is a rapid-paced, engrossing thriller. Although the lucid book works effectively as a stand-alone mystery, reading the series in order would be helpful as the backstories of the characters are not thoroughly fleshed out. The conversations certainly seem authentic, but touches of humor are missing; there is a lot of talk about commercial planning, shooting ranges, and beer.
An engaging tale of murder, politics, and good old boys being no good at all.Pub Date: March 15, 2025
ISBN: 9798218515942
Page Count: 404
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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