An entertaining and layered psychological thriller.
In this novel, a psychiatrist steps in when a young girl vanishes and the prime suspect refuses to talk.
Four-year-old Mia Edwards disappeared during a play date at her friend Zoe’s house. Suspicion falls on Zoe’s mother, Jessica Green, given her history of anxiety and a police report following an attack on her own husband, Clay. A media frenzy and Mia’s single mother, Holly, who points her finger at Jessica, turn the case into a circus. Weeks later, placed on remand, Jessica is still not talking about what happened, and fears grow that Mia may be dead. Forensic psychiatrist Oscar de la Nuit closely follows the case and takes a gamble on trying to help Jessica by getting her transferred to where he works, Whitner Psychiatric Hospital, so he can oversee her case. Oscar believes they have some things in common and that he will be able to get her to open up about what really happened. Is she protecting someone? Does she know where Mia is? But the more the two spend time together, the more questions are raised about Oscar’s impartiality and Jessica’s guilt. Webb’s series opener is a self-contained, slow-paced, and intriguing take on psychopathy and the things people will do to protect those they care about. The narrative deftly builds up momentum to the climactic clash of two timelines, which alternate between Oscar’s present and Jessica’s past. The former focuses on Jessica’s treatment, Oscar’s determination to see the matter through, and his angst over the heartbreaking secret he is keeping about his past and the death of his beloved son, Riley. The latter follows Jessica and her budding relationship with newcomers Holly and Mia as the two become a large part of her life as well as her work as a freelance journalist writing an article on how to spot a psychopath. Just why Jessica is tackling that story fuels most of the whodunit, which, despite a lull in the middle and some repetition, will keep readers guessing to the end.
An entertaining and layered psychological thriller. (Thriller. 18-adult.)Pub Date: April 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-645-35201-6
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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