A simple but satisfying crime novel that will keep readers hooked.
Two down-on-their-luck entrepreneurs must chase down millions of dollars and a long-lost work of art to save their business and their own lives in Balter’s thriller.
Bo Bishop and Marty Schottare desperate for their latest pitch meeting to go well. They’re the owners of Paladin, a struggling online-retail startup based in Lake Oswego, Oregon, which is losing money fast. Their families are tired of the constant stress, long hours, and financial troubles; the pair hope that this will be the meeting that changes everything—and it does, but not in the way they hoped. It starts with a cryptic phone call from an anonymous investor promising a massive cash infusion if they meet him in his Mt. Hood cabin; there, Bo, Marty, and their silent partner, Nico, are threatened by a towering Russian thug, who holds them at gunpoint and demands $10 million and a missing painting. Bo and Marty don’t know what the man is talking about, but they do know that admitting ignorance will likely get them killed. They have four days to get their hands on the cash and a painting that’s been lost for years—one with a dark history and more than a few criminals itching to get their hands on it. This race takes Bo, Marty, and other colorful characters to strip clubs, sleazy motels (“No one stays in this dump, not even cockroaches”), and towering mansions—and scenes of total mayhem. Readers will find Balter’s novel to be a strong start for a debut author, as he very confidently moves his players around the plot’s chessboard, and each chapter is thoughtfully plotted and delightfully easy to follow. The characters are only sketchily developed, but they feel pleasantly familiar, and as such, the cast as a whole feels solid. Readers will enjoy hunting for clues right alongside the seemingly fearless Bo and Marty, and they’ll be entertained by all the dangerous, unexpected scenarios that they get themselves into along the way.
A simple but satisfying crime novel that will keep readers hooked.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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