This novel falls just short of its ominous premise but will beguile readers with its captivating characters.
A mysterious stranger at a cabin door sets off a series of explosive events in Cobb’s moody mystery.
Jack Pate is awakened one night by the sound of barking dogs to discover a disheveled stranger at the door of his isolated cabin in North Georgia. “Let’s just say I’m a friend you didn’t know you had,” the stranger says. The well-spoken but gruff-looking man immediately sets off Jack’s suspicions as he resembles Eric Rudolph, the real-life Centennial Olympic Park bomber—but Jack’s curiosity overpowers his hesitation about letting the man stay. The stranger identifies himself as Yardley Bennett and claims to know Jack from their mutual hometown of Villa Rica, Georgia, where the two led surprisingly parallel lives. However, before Jack can get more information, Yardley vanishes, leaving only a note behind. Just as Jack is trying to track down the mysterious figure, he learns of a recent deadly explosion only miles from his cabin. Strangely, Jack has been haunted by explosions and fires throughout his life. As Yardley begins to taunt Jack with sudden reappearances and cryptic gifts, Jack finds himself the prime suspect in the most recent conflagration, leading him to question his memories, his family, and his own sanity. Cobb crafts a creepy central premise that will engross readers from the first page. Yardley’s wit and erudite vocabulary (“Waggish. Puckish. That’s me,” he announces playfully), juxtaposed with his resemblance to a domestic terrorist, creates a spooky, almost supernatural figure; he’s as intriguing as he is menacing. Through flashbacks, Cobb explores Jack’s past, slowly weaving in the true, grisly details of the Olympic Park explosion while also hinting at more sinister events in Jack’s family’s past. The effect is a thrilling unease as readers question just how trustworthy Jack is as a narrator and how comfortable they should feel with him. Unfortunately, the eventual revelations and twists feel rushed and out of step with the eerie setup, but mystery fans will still appreciate Cobb’s fresh, unsettling ideas.
This novel falls just short of its ominous premise but will beguile readers with its captivating characters.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2025
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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