A diverting thriller set at the intersection of art, commerce, and crime.
A business opportunity in Italy takes a violent turn for two American businessmen in Balter’s thriller, the second in a series.
Rome, 2004: Entrepreneur Marty Schott and his hulking business partner, former football player and racecar driver Bo Bishop, are in the Eternal City for the deal of a lifetime. They plan to buy the world’s most valuable sculpture foundry, the Fonderia Chiurazzi in Naples, and use it to build reproductions of the sculptures in the Vatican collection—an exclusive deal they’ve just worked out with the Holy See. The only reason the recently nearly bankrupt Marty and Bo are in a position to make the deal is their newest business partner, the Russian oligarch-backed Natalya Danilenko, whose money and connections seem nearly bottomless. In addition to its prestige as a foundry, Chiurazzi comes with a cache of authentic molds capable of reproducing—illegally—some of the most famous sculptures of Renaissance art. It should come as no surprise that Marty and Bo are not the only parties interested in controlling the foundry, and they soon discover they have been drawn into a larger game involving the Neapolitan Mafia, the Russian mob, and the Vatican Bank. When Natalya is kidnapped soon after their arrival in Rome (Marty and Bo receive her fingernail in a bag as proof of her capture), the two men have to act fast to ensure they aren’t put out of business…permanently. Balter’s measured prose complements the deceptive warmth of wintertime Italy as well as the ambiguous agendas of many of the characters. Here, Marty describes spotting a menacing figure across the street: “His face was in shadow, but his figure was hauntingly familiar—the robust frame trim yet thick. His right shoulder drooped slightly as if his right arm held something heavy—like a 9mm Beretta.” Neither Marty nor Bo has much personality, a fact that would perhaps go unnoticed if there were only one of them. Still, the presence of great art and shadowy Vatican functionaries adds a fun element to what might otherwise be a standard international crime caper.
A diverting thriller set at the intersection of art, commerce, and crime.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.
A violent attack hijacks a woman’s memory in this novel of domestic suspense.
McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from men who have betrayed them. That formula perfectly fits Dr. Charlotte McKenna, a 37-year-old dermatologist who isn’t looking for love until the most handsome man she’s ever seen begins to woo her. There are warning signs about Clark Douglas and Charlotte overlooks them to her detriment—but is he a killer? The novel has dual timelines split between events leading up to the day Charlotte barely survives a head wound meant to kill her and the months afterward, when she struggles to reclaim her memory and her mobility. In real life, McFadden is a physician trained to treat brain injuries. Her expertise gives Charlotte’s rehabilitation authenticity, and her writing talent makes it interesting and engaging. As good as that timeline is, readers will yearn to get back to the alternate timeline about who wants Charlotte dead. It’s only a matter of time before Charlotte starts to remember who tried to kill her, and the clock is ticking toward their next attempt. McFadden dishes up plenty of suspects: Charlotte’s secretive husband, Clark; a former patient turned stalker who confronts Charlotte on her honeymoon; and the angry husband of a patient who blames Charlotte for his wife leaving him. Though the story is delicious and dark, McFadden brightens things up with a possible love interest for Charlotte and a surprise ending sure to please the author’s many fans.
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249617
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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