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STEALING HIS HEART

A sexy, suspenseful romance.

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A professional thief and the FBI agent tasked with catching her must collaborate to foil a kidnapping plot in DePaul’s romantic suspense novel.

Holly Bell is a thief. Her latest heist is interrupted by Jackson Kendrick, an FBI agent she finds foxy, even though he is her nemesis. She’s trying to steal a sword from a movie set; a huge explosion allows her to get away. In the chaos, Holly’s uncle, Liam, is kidnapped. The kidnapper, millionaire Darien Burton, demands a ransom: Holly must steal a device called the Infostrata Cryptix. Holly decides that the only person who can help is Jackson. She makes contact, and he tells her that the Cryptix contains a computer virus that can provide unfettered access to everything on the internet, including secure data. (It takes some doing, but he ultimately agrees to help.) Attraction zings between Holly and Jackson as they work together to find safe places to hide while they look for the Cryptix together. Tracking down a hacker to Saint Croix at a couple’s retreat, Jackson and Holly pretend to be a couple on the rocks, which only ratchets up the sexual tension between them. But in order to foil the kidnapping plot, Holly has to ask Jackson to compromise his values and put his job at risk, which he is reluctant to do—even for Holly, with whom he is starting to fall in love. The novel is a fun romp. There’s real danger, and Burton is a clever antagonist, but the dynamic between Jackson and Holly is the star of the show. The dialogue is zippy and the tension between the leads is thick enough to cut with a knife. (“If only Jackson hasn’t been living rent-free in my wildest fantasies. Working with him day in and day out has us discovering a sexy, unlikely obsession that can only lead to heartache since we’re on opposite sides of the law.”) There’s plenty of suspense to keep the story moving forward as Jackson and Holly have to wriggle out of various spots of trouble; overall, it’s a fun page turner.

A sexy, suspenseful romance.

Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024

ISBN: 9781959324072

Page Count: 343

Publisher: Northfair Publishing

Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025

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NEVER FLINCH

Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.

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Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?

In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.

Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.

Pub Date: May 27, 2025

ISBN: 9781668089330

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025

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THE SILENT PATIENT

Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.

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A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.

"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.

Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.

Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Celadon Books

Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018

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