Passion, art, assassins… Mahdavi’s tale has something for everyone.
Two teens meet in a Viennese museum, reconnect years later, and share a secret on-again, off-again love affair in Mahdavi’s intercontinental thriller.
The novel opens with a bullet fired from a sniper’s gun, then flashes back several decades: In 1960s Austria, precocious 13-year-old Rachel leaves her school group at the Vienna Kunsthistorisches museum to talk to 18-year-old Cyrus about a painting. Cyrus, a surrealistic painter, is a student of the world. Although his parents are American, he was born in Mexico, raised in Spain, and schooled in Austria. Rachel and Cyrus run into each other years later in New York. They become secret lovers, parted by her arranged marriage in Vienna. Later still, after Cyrus moves to Paris, she comes into the bar where he works when not painting. They resume their relationship, but Cyrus questions things she says, as she can “weave the real and the lies into a choking yet smooth reality.” But there are questions about Cyrus, too. His boss calls him a nowhere man, saying, “Like quicksilver, you can’t be pinned down. How many passports you got anyway?” In a world of international intrigue, expert assassins, and moving targets, better questions might be: Who is the killer, and who is the victim? Rachel’s secrets come home to roost in a haunting, violent ending that provides the answers. The author’s prose can be lyrical, as when Cyrus says of the time he spent with Rachel in New York, “All my other times of sadness after that year were measured against the happiness of that year.” Descriptions of paintings, a signature perfume, and the like are sensual. The narrative’s pacing works well at the start and end of the book but tends to drag in the second half, as conversation overtakes the action. Mahdavi’s experience as an artist living in Europe who holds several passports adds authenticity to the characters and settings.
Passion, art, assassins… Mahdavi’s tale has something for everyone.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 303
Publisher: Kindle Direct Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2023
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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