Entertaining and sure to please thriller fans.
Second in the military crime series featuring Special Agents Scott Brodie and Magnolia "Maggie" Taylor, after The Deserter (2019).
In Berlin, U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Harry Vance slips out of his lover’s bed for a mysterious nighttime meeting. He is an operative in the American Terrorism and Criminal Investigation Unit, or TCIU, and a sniper shoots him dead. Army brass speculates that this is the work of Islamic terrorists, so they bring in Brodie of the Criminal Investigation Division and assign him Taylor as his partner. On foreign soil, “officially and legally” they cannot gather evidence, question witnesses, or make arrests. The two have a one-novel history together, including tension both professional and sexual. “Sex, lies, and betrayal notwithstanding,” though, “they made a pretty good team.” As they search for justice for their fallen colleague, maybe they can figure out why the assassin killed from long range and then apparently walked over and gouged out Vance’s left eye. Maybe evil forces are up to much more than meets the eye, if you’ll pardon the expression. Anyway, the partners complement each other: Taylor is the more rational and level-headed, while Brodie blatantly disregards jurisdictional boundaries when he needs to. He has that nothing-to-lose attitude, given that his career is swirling down the toilet bowl anyway. So if it seems a bit odd that she trusts his judgment, it’s because he's usually right. Co-authors Nelson DeMille and his son Alex have created interesting characters, though Brodie might be the type that appears more in fiction than in the real world: About to be handcuffed by a pair of armed men, he “suddenly spun around and delivered a ball-busting kick, under the guy’s ballistic vest, and into his non-ballistic balls.” Then he bloodies the other fellow before he can draw his weapon. The partners deliver a few punchlines of their own in this fast-moving story that’s replete with twists and danger. Brodie and Taylor are sympathetic characters who accomplish a lot given their limited authority.
Entertaining and sure to please thriller fans.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9781501101816
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
IN THE NEWS
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
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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