A bracing revenge tale with a strong cast.
A novel revolves around a genius computer geek who desires vengeance for the death of his best friend—a man essentially killed by relentless, greedy lawyers battling to possess his revolutionary work in data mining and analysis.
Gregory Portnoy and Joseph Leege, who have been best friends since childhood, attend MIT in the late 1980s. There, they work together on a highly profitable video game, one of the first split-screen games ever to be played over a modem. With a small group of computer mastermind friends, they start doing work for businesses focusing on internet security and efficiency as well as trading stocks on the internet. But as the best friends rise to the strata of up-and-coming internet innovators, the two have a fundamental difference of opinion. The idealistic and highly sensitive Leege thinks software should be free for all of the world to use, while Portnoy believes owning and selling it to approved companies is the path to take. The two eventually go their separate ways—Portnoy struggling to come to grips with losing the love of his life, a young woman named Chana. When Portnoy discovers that Leege is dead—largely because of incessant legal bullying from a group of attorneys—he sets out to avenge his friend. But Portnoy is not alone: He has someone—or something—helping him who is close to omnipotent. Trial lawyer Buschel’s second novel (after 2016’s By Silent Majority) is a page-turning blend of SF, legal thriller, and financial crime drama. (Think John Grisham meets Isaac Asimov and Bernie Madoff in a bar for drinks.) There’s a lot to love here—the seamless fusion of SF and science facts is compelling, as are the well-developed characters, all of whom possess their own insecurities and flaws. Portnoy’s tumultuous relationship with Chana is an impressively rich subplot. The one minor criticism concerns the bulk of legalese (bankruptcy law, etc.)—while relatively interesting, some of it isn’t critical to the storyline and slows down the momentum.
A bracing revenge tale with a strong cast.Pub Date: March 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-68433-892-4
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 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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