An unfocused story that’s hampered, in part, by its portrayals of female characters.
A dentist invents a device that revolutionizes espionage, which leads to the discovery of a plot to destabilize America’s economy.
Reggie Nelson is a man of many talents. He has a history of athletic prowess, got his pilot’s license at age 16, plays piano, attended Dartmouth College, and has a track record of incredible popularity with women. Now in his mid-50s, he’s a successful dentist in a loving 20-year marriage to Becky Wright, a vice president of a major insurance brokerage house. When Reggie decides to take up karate (again), he becomes close friends with instructor Ashonte’, who used to be a CIA Black Ops agent. Reggie tells Ashonte’ about his high-tech idea that could change spycraft: a micro transmitter secretly placed in a target’s dental filling. Ash brings the idea to his CIA contact, Lance Wood, and soon Project Loudmouth is underway. In his new Dubai clinic, Reggie implants transmitters into the teeth of Saudi Arabian oil moguls whom the CIA suspect of terrorism. Soon, the bugs pick up a plot to destroy the American economy. Author Nelson, who shares a name with his main character, presents a novel about patriotic men eager to serve their country. However, much of the book feels more like a list of actions and activities than a novel with immersive scenes. Frequent tangents about hotels, geography, oil, and characters' backstories make the pace drag. Also, narrator Reggie goes on vitriolic rants about his ex-wife, whom he characterizes as a sexually withholding pathological liar, and a female divorce-court judge: “The courts are not places for men when they are up against women in a dispute!” he says. Other women in the story, including Becky, seem to exist only to validate their spouses and serve as objects of male lust, and a major Arab character has a connection to terrorism. Readers may be amused at the various pop culture references, including a reenactment of a combat scene from the film Raiders of the Lost Ark. However, this doesn’t make up for the book’s problematic elements.
An unfocused story that’s hampered, in part, by its portrayals of female characters.Pub Date: June 30, 2021
ISBN: 9781647538521
Page Count: 302
Publisher: Urlink Print & Media, LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.
A middle-aged woman channels her best Miss Marple when she finds herself facing a nightmare from her past as she seeks to make sense of her present.
Jane Trevally is at a crossroads of sorts. After a traumatic childhood, she sought safety and solace in marriages with wealthy men. Now twice divorced and living with her four dogs in the crumbling English country mansion that is her birthright, she’s feeling the need to do something, to take a job, when one day a runaway dog turns up on her doorstep. The dog is chipped, and with the help of a local vet and her loyal stepson, Dexter Lombardi, Jane traces the dog’s home to the edge of Hampstead Heath, in London—a place that brings back the memory of a terrifying night from her youth, when a handsome man picked her up and took her back to this very house. Everything there felt wrong; she just managed to escape, certain that if she had stayed, she would have died that night. Now, soon after knocking on the door and returning the dog, she discovers that he had run away from an Airbnb near her house, where he had been staying with a young woman who seems to have disappeared. With the help of Dexter; his father, Tony, her second ex-husband; Tony’s former security enforcer, Tobias Wilson; and her own gift for connecting with people, Jane sets out to find the woman, taking her first steps on the path to becoming a private investigator. While Jane serves as the heart of the novel, Jewell also narrates chapters from several other characters’ points of view, all of which chip away at the horror that is the house on the Heath. By slowly revealing past and present simultaneously, Jewell keeps the mystery fresh as she plays with Gothic tropes and the timeless imagery of “a house of horrors” embodying human sin. She doesn’t flinch from exploring the depths of depravity in this house—and its humans.
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.Pub Date: June 23, 2026
ISBN: 9781668033906
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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