A superior thriller with real-world chaos and well-credentialed heroes that will engage fans of the genre.
Uranium stolen in 1994 is used in a present-day attack on a United States Navy command ship with a threat of more to come in DeGrandpre’s thriller.
“Me?…I’m just an interpreter,” proclaims young CIA officer Bill Estes. Right, and Jack Ryan was just an analyst in Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October. Based on his smarts and resourcefulness in this techno-thriller, Bill Estes, too, may have a franchise in his future. Estes, “a natural for the intelligence service,” is just 18 months into his employment with the CIA when he receives his first field mission to Kazakhstan. With no authority to make anything happen, he is promised that the mission will be “neither terribly exciting nor demanding.” Wrong on both counts: A nuclear device destroys a Navy command ship, wipes out a fishing village, and disrupts communications and electronics. Is this a test device? Estes believes so, and together with FBI Special Agent Michelle Marsh he pursues whoever stole the uranium used in the attack. The plan is simple, Estes tells Marsh: “Relentless pursuit.” The pursuit leads them to Konstantin Pavlovich, who is obsessed with nuclear gadgetry, and to mercenary and arms dealer Grigori Kirill, who, as he demonstrates with ruthless efficiency, is not someone to be messed with. DeGrandpre brings a sense of authenticity to this propulsive global thriller that spans decades and features far-flung locations from Tennessee to Russia. Understatement serves the author well, heightening the suspense and menace: “Kon never learned exactly what Yuri had done to upset Kirill; all he knew was that the man must have done something, because one day, some ex-Soviet KGB henchmen showed up in a military 4x4 and shot Yuri pointblank for trespassing.” Chapter headings undermine the story’s momentum, but the characters, major and minor, are strongly defined, and an effective open ending sets the stage for an anticipated second mission.
A superior thriller with real-world chaos and well-credentialed heroes that will engage fans of the genre.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 321
Publisher: Sad Story Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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