A gripping but uneven thriller that exposes the grim world of human trafficking.
In this novel, an ex-convict gets pulled into a human trafficking investigation that forces him to confront his past and test the limits of his hard-won stability.
Focusing on ex-convict Charles Langley, this tale portrays a 25-year-old man haunted by his checkered past despite his fight to stay on the straight and narrow. He spends his days performing menial labor at a factory and researching intelligence communities and listening to spycraft podcasts in his one-bedroom apartment. He is also dealing with a complicated relationship with a childhood friend named Abigail Smith. After his estranged father ends up in a hospital after a heart attack, Charles is pushed in a new direction by a chance encounter in the emergency room with Walter Faucet, who works at the Red Sea Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting human trafficking. Although Charles doesn’t meet the age requirement, he impresses Walter by skillfully dealing with an incident involving a dangerous prisoner at the hospital (“Charles handled pressure better than Walter had ever seen anyone do before”). Thus, Charles joins an active investigation that exposes the brutality of trafficking and the fragility of the hero’s own recovery. But Charles is ready for a change. At one point, he asserts: “I’m making an impact in the world around me by changing children’s lives for the better.” In this tense series opener, Mister C. offers a compelling premise: A former prisoner wracked by guilt and full of unused potential finds a chance at redemption when he joins a cause bigger than himself. Unfortunately, the prose is clunky, often outright stating what could have been shown through subtler storytelling. In addition, the pacing is sometimes disrupted by meandering introspections that drain the urgency from key moments. Dialogue, too, often feels forced, with characters speaking in ways that sound more like exposition than natural conversation. Despite these shortcomings, the book’s intentions are commendable, shining a light on the harsh realities of human trafficking and the moral ambiguities of those who fight against it. Olivia, a young girl trapped in horrific circumstances, carries the story as her resilience serves as the novel’s emotional center. There are also wonderful moments where readers see glimpses of genuine feelings—quiet reflections that hint at redemption.
A gripping but uneven thriller that exposes the grim world of human trafficking.Pub Date: May 3, 2025
ISBN: 9781967617005
Page Count: 444
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.
A middle-aged woman channels her best Miss Marple when she finds herself facing a nightmare from her past as she seeks to make sense of her present.
Jane Trevally is at a crossroads of sorts. After a traumatic childhood, she sought safety and solace in marriages with wealthy men. Now twice divorced and living with her four dogs in the crumbling English country mansion that is her birthright, she’s feeling the need to do something, to take a job, when one day a runaway dog turns up on her doorstep. The dog is chipped, and with the help of a local vet and her loyal stepson, Dexter Lombardi, Jane traces the dog’s home to the edge of Hampstead Heath, in London—a place that brings back the memory of a terrifying night from her youth, when a handsome man picked her up and took her back to this very house. Everything there felt wrong; she just managed to escape, certain that if she had stayed, she would have died that night. Now, soon after knocking on the door and returning the dog, she discovers that he had run away from an Airbnb near her house, where he had been staying with a young woman who seems to have disappeared. With the help of Dexter; his father, Tony, her second ex-husband; Tony’s former security enforcer, Tobias Wilson; and her own gift for connecting with people, Jane sets out to find the woman, taking her first steps on the path to becoming a private investigator. While Jane serves as the heart of the novel, Jewell also narrates chapters from several other characters’ points of view, all of which chip away at the horror that is the house on the Heath. By slowly revealing past and present simultaneously, Jewell keeps the mystery fresh as she plays with Gothic tropes and the timeless imagery of “a house of horrors” embodying human sin. She doesn’t flinch from exploring the depths of depravity in this house—and its humans.
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.Pub Date: June 23, 2026
ISBN: 9781668033906
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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