This swiftly paced mystery boasts intrigue and an irresistible cast.
A British Egyptologist becomes embroiled in a murder and a conspiracy in this installment of Bailey’s thriller series.
London-based Alex MacLure’s latest job takes him to sunny California, where he’ll be translating ancient clay tablets for billionaire Simon Blanchard’s private museum. Blanchard’s prized possession is also his “biggest secret”: a glowing black stone etched with symbols that resemble but most likely predate Egyptian hieroglyphics. Not long after Alex sees this relic, he discovers Blanchard’s body at the museum. On a wall-screen, the museum’s “state-of-the-art, AI-based security” runs CCTV footage of Alex killing the billionaire, which definitely did not happen. Once he realizes the real murderer also stole the black stone, Alex flees. Meanwhile, FBI Special Agent Charlotte “Charlie” Rebb is in Iceland, investigating the homicide of a fellow federal agent. Andrew, Alex’s brother, calls Charlie to tell her that Alex, whom she’s worked with before, is presumably missing. By the time Charlie gets back to the States, the Egyptologist is wanted for murder. If she wants to work this case, Charlie will have to cooperate with the investigating detective: Greg Sykes, her “unfaithful douchebag” ex. Charlie has trouble believing that Alex killed anyone, despite the evidence, and she uncovers a probable connection between Blanchard’s murder and the agent’s homicide in Iceland. As she diligently tries to prove Alex’s innocence, Alex hides as best he can. He quickly learns that several people who desperately want the relic are convinced that he has it.
Bailey shrouds this third entry in The Egyptian Stones series in mystery. The stone itself, for example, is a pure enigma; it’s one of a handful of stones that some people refer to by number and are collecting for a purpose that’s not immediately clear. The characters are frequently secretive, and Alex gets help from people who aren’t trustworthy and whom he doesn’t know well. They include Marie Dubois, the woman who previously held Alex’s job and left for a reason she can’t discuss; another is George Lambros, a journalist who disgraced himself by relying on “questionable sources” but found success later with a conspiracy book. As Alex learns, these characters could have hidden agendas, which contributes to the consistently high narrative tension. Fortunately, Charlie intermittently alleviates this uncertainty, her belief in Alex rarely faltering. The glee she takes in irritating Sykes is fun; he’s a blowhard who’s easy to despise. (“You know what, Charlene?” he says, fully aware that’s not her real name. “Save your bleeding-heart spiel. Yeah, it’s a tragedy. Boo hoo.”) Questions accrue as the story progresses, and plenty of real-life Egyptian history pops up (like the figure of Yanhamu, who wrote the code for the Amarna Letters found on the clay tablets Alex is hired to translate). The answers remain elusive, since the introduction of more characters leads to more theories about the black stones’ intended use. The exciting final act draws to a curious ending that implies another installment—or series.
This swiftly paced mystery boasts intrigue and an irresistible cast.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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 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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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