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
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
Maybe not the most thrilling thriller, but the role of AI in coping with grief gives this novel pathos and interest.
A widowed and disgraced plastic surgeon is drawn into a Russian oligarch’s evil schemes.
Witherspoon’s adult fiction debut, co-authored with thrillermeister Coben, opens as heart surgery performed by Dr. Marc Adams in a North African refugee camp is interrupted by the explosive invasion of armed militants. It's the last we will see of Marc in this dimension. The next chapter jumps ahead one year to a ceremony at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore where his widow, Maggie McCabe, is supposed to be presenting an award in honor of her mother. Miserable and anxious about appearing in public after having lost her medical license, she consults with her late husband on her phone—not via supernatural means, but using a "griefbot," an amazingly lifelike and functional AI app created by her genius sister, Sharon. Once the griefbot coaxes her to brave the sneering masses, she learns she’s been replaced on the podium anyway. But she runs into a former professor, a celebrity plastic surgeon, who requests a meeting with her at his office in New York and won’t take no for an answer. Next thing she knows, there’s $10 million in her bank account and she’s on a private plane heading to a palace outside Moscow where she’s been engaged to perform off-the-record surgery on billionaire Oleg Ragoravich (new face) and his girlfriend, Nadia (new boobs). And…we’re off. A whirl of surgeries, chases, and escapes ensues as Maggie gradually comes to understand who these people are and what they have in mind for her, and how it connects to Marc and their missing friend and business partner, Trace Packer. She is aided by her delightful father-in-law, Porkchop, owner of a biker bar in New York City and a very handy guy to have on your team if you've run afoul of an international criminal organization. From the palace in Rublevka the action moves to Dubai and then Bordeaux, climaxing in a high-stakes illegal heart transplant. But wait—is Marc really dead? What happened to Trace? Who is Nadia really? Though these smoldering questions don’t quite catch fire, it's a good first try for Witherspoon.
Maybe not the most thrilling thriller, but the role of AI in coping with grief gives this novel pathos and interest.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781538774700
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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