A fun thriller with compelling strains of personal drama.
Cover’s sequel novel finds Dr. Thomas Simpson, the director of communications for Sessions University, in treacherous political waters as a campus lab produces a possible cure for cancer.
Provost Samuel Kravitz died by suicide, and his family hired the Blaylock Agency to investigate why a “man of consummate ego” would do such a thing. Newly installed university president Jack Wentz warns Thomas that he’ll soon be interviewed by a detective, and he worries that he’ll inadvertently reveal what he knows of a plan to place spies in Sessions’ international centers. Better news comes from Zoltan Vastag, a Sessions cancer researcher and Thomas’ best friend, who’s apparently succeeding in treating cancer in mice. This results in “pharmaceutical companies...falling all over themselves to get into bed” with the university. Frank Lusby, Thomas and Zoltan’s colleague, suspects that Jack will spin this development to enrich himself. At home, Thomas notes that things are unsettlingly quiet now that his teenage daughter, Sarah, is attending the Sessions Center for Gifted and Talented Youth. Also, his son, Tommie, who has Asperger syndrome, has turned his obsessive nature from firetrucks to computers. Pleasantly complicating things is Alicia McDonald, the striking detective assigned to interview Thomas. Cover adds a fresh murder, a coverup, and a packet of scandalous photos to amp up his second Sessions University thriller. The well-drawn characters, however, frequently steal the show, including Zoltan, who’s like an uncle to Sarah and Tommie, and billionaire Mark Berger, whose Boston accent (“Howaryah?”) entertains as often as it grates. The author gleefully has Alicia and charming reporter Emily Sayzak go after Thomas as if he were the last man on Earth; however, Thomas, especially at home, often experiences a sense of loss that resonates: “The family room was empty. My daily reminder of Sarah’s new maturity. Why did she have to grow up?” Overall, such domestic scenes feel truer and more engaging than the thriller plot.
A fun thriller with compelling strains of personal drama.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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