An extraordinary hero stars in a legal tale as believable as it is riveting.
In this 15th installment of a thriller series, a Miami lawyer takes a stance against football after a high school player’s alarming injury.
As a former Miami Dolphins linebacker, attorney Jake Lassiter knows how dangerous football can be. All that contact on the field left him with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and he suffers the constant pounding of migraines and tinnitus. He also has problems with his memory and can’t recall coaxing his friend and old Dolphins teammate Langston “Tank” Pittman to forge his own wife’s name on a consent form—allowing the couple’s teen son, Rodrigo, to play football. So when Rod is seriously hurt during a game’s kickoff and may never walk again, guilt practically crushes Lassiter, the boy’s de facto uncle. The lawyer vows to “abolish” football, though he’s really after a temporary ban until the Florida High School Athletic Association declares the sport safe. He has barely filed suit (against the school’s coach and the FHSAA) when he gets a taste of the hostile defiance he was anticipating. The Consortium, a supposed organization of high-profile companies, aims to protect high school football, as a legal action against it also threatens the billion-dollar NCAA and NFL. But Lassiter has a solid case for “coaching malpractice,” from the coach keeping an unmistakably disoriented Rod in the game to the man running illegal pit drills during team practice. Unfortunately, the defense attorneys play dirty, as Lassiter suspects they’ve got people following, tracking, and wiretapping him. It’s sure to be a white-knuckled fight if Lassiter wants a win in the courtroom.
In this series outing, Levine’s recurring protagonist proves sublimely complex. He’s a whip-smart lawyer whose painful bouts with merciless CTE earn him sympathy. But he’s not always a purely ethical professional; as Rod’s mom rightly points out, Lassiter pursues this case more for himself than for the injured teen and his family. The rest of the cast is also strong—loyal pal Tank is the opposite of his wife, who blames Lassiter for their son’s tragedy, while the FHSAA’s attorney Sandra Day is a formidable and possibly unscrupulous opponent. The author fuels this legal thriller with an impressive pace, showing that a deceptively simple “wack-a-doodle lawsuit” can churn out endless surprises and bumps in the road. Lassiter, for example, digs up evidence from a TV news program—with the help of a skilled hacker—and from a crucial item that someone’s been keeping. The attorney is moreover up against the defense’s questionable evidence; an offer that looks an awful lot like a bribe; and strangers creeping around his property. Meanwhile, understated humor brightens the novel courtesy of Lassiter’s charming quips (even in court). But random citizens’ periodic tweets provide the biggest laughs; they’re rife with assumptions, sarcasm, and amusing spellings (“I heard Lassiter is dying. Well, I say good writtens”). The ending courtroom battle sears with intense and realistic turns, as at least one of Lassiter’s smoking guns unexpectedly fizzles. It all builds to an unforgettable closing scene.
An extraordinary hero stars in a legal tale as believable as it is riveting.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-73450-569-6
Page Count: 417
Publisher: Herald Square Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.
Second of the Walter Nash thrillers—following Nash Falls (2025)—in which the remade hero seeks vengeance.
Due to urgent circumstances, Nash has bulked himself up to become the “muscled and tatted fighting machine” now known as Dillon Hope. His antagonist is Victoria Steers, a global drug dealer who wants him dead. Not realizing his new identity, she enlists Hope to free her mother, Masuyo, from a prison in Myanmar. As an incentive, she shoots one of her associates and threatens to frame Hope for the murder unless he complies. She also wants him to find Nash. He in turn wants to kill Victoria to avenge the death of his innocent daughter, Maggie. “If I go down,” he muses, “I’m taking others with me. Starting with Victoria Steers.” He learns that Victoria had killed all her siblings to eliminate business competition. But as heartless as Victoria is, her mother, Masuyo, is even worse. In league with the Chinese government in a perverse plan to kill as many Americans as possible through fentanyl overdose, she shows contempt for Victoria for her perceived weaknesses. Readers won’t find many happy family relationships here: mother-daughter, father-son, husband-wife—all fraught. Hope’s employer, who accompanies him to Myanmar, is a billionaire chief executive with a dodgy past (i.e., probably killed his father). And there’s a mega-billionaire with an astronomical IQ and ditch-deep morals who, putting it mildly, does not have America’s best interests at heart. As a teenager, he’d defeated two world chess champions; as an adult, he regards his dealings with the world in terms of master chess moves. Only one character seems truly decent and credible—Hiroko, Victoria’s former nanny and lifelong companion, who provides Hope with valuable insights into the Steers’ background, which is partly Chinese. Searing grudges, simple evil, and not-so-simple misunderstandings carry the cast through this complex, action-packed plot. This sequel ties out the loose ends dangling in Nash Falls, which would be helpful to read first. To get to the requisite ending, though, Baldacci takes pains to surprise the reader. It works but often feels forced.
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781538758021
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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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