Thriller enthusiasts will want to add this well-sculpted heist drama to their collections.
In this thriller, a security guard gets involved in a scheme to steal a trio of Matisse sculptures from a museum, a plan that ultimately leads him to fight for his innocence and his life.
Camden Swanson, a San Francisco security guard, admits to a stunningly tall, sexy woman: “I’m a lazy drunk who’s a complete loser.” On behalf of her “clients,” the unnamed woman hires him to be part of an elaborate art theft at the museum where he’s worked for six months. Formerly, Camden wrote for a newspaper in Boston, where he broke a story on a major art heist. Then, in San Francisco, he produced an LSD–fueled article claiming the city was under attack by monkeylike creatures that resulted in the end of his journalism career. Camden’s successful girlfriend, artist Georgia Léveque, supports him, but that gravy train is poised to derail. So the offer of a hefty payment to play a role with other co-workers (including the crushworthy Veronica Zarcarsky) in the robbery of three Matisses is an offer Camden can’t refuse. But before the theft can take place, another robber snags the sculptures. The tall woman’s clients, who believe Camden was part of the operation, are out for payback. Ostrowski, a former resident of both Boston and San Francisco, thoroughly knows the territory the intriguing characters roam. The places range from a hidden foodie gem in Boston’s North End to where the steep slope of Powell Street meets Sutter in the San Francisco fog. The author also worked as a gallery guard, but his name-checking of artists seems excessive, and his estimate of how much a successful young artist can command is unrealistic. Still, humor weaves throughout the smoothly written story. For example, Camden says his wine has an intense black cherry taste “with a hint of clowns on a bright summer day.” But the mood can change quickly. The tension rises in this enjoyable tale as unhappy clients attack, often fatally.
Thriller enthusiasts will want to add this well-sculpted heist drama to their collections.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-950301-11-9
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Quill
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PROFILES
More than any of his earlier cases, the comatose hero’s 26th adventure bears the hallmarks of a formal detective story.
Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Joe Pickett has been shot plenty of times before. But this time may be the last.
As Joe hovers between life and death in a Billings hospital, Box indicates that Dorn Peddy and James Dale O’Bryan are the two men who ambushed him, shot him, and left him for dead. But he doesn’t reveal who hired them or why. That’s left up to Joe’s three daughters: bird-abatement firm chief executive Sheridan, Bozeman private eye April, and University of Wyoming undergrad Lucy. Since the man who reported the incident to the Twelve Sleep County Sheriff’s Department has disappeared, the most that newly appointed Sheriff Steve Sondergard can do is to warn Sheridan and her sisters away from the case. But the fact that both the shooters and the witness seem to have come from one of exactly three places presents an obvious appeal to the younger Picketts, who plan to each visit one place and question the owners simultaneously before they can warn each other that anyone’s coming. The only problem is that all the possible suspects—billionaire Michael Thompson and his wife, Brandy, of the Double Diamond Ranch; ranchers John and Shelby Bucholz, of the Bucholz Cattle Company; and secretive sisters Lisa and Lainie McElwee, of McElwee Land and Cattle Ranch—act equally guilty. As Box unspools a series of flashbacks showing what Joe was up to in the weeks before the ambush, one question assumes paramount importance: Can Joe’s daughters identify which of them is behind the plot to murder their father before the hired gunmen visit the hospital and try again?
More than any of his earlier cases, the comatose hero’s 26th adventure bears the hallmarks of a formal detective story.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780593851098
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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
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