A complex, bonkers, and bracing conspiracy tale for adventurous readers.
A thriller set in 1991 focuses on the director of a mental hospital.
Say his name: Heimdallr. From Albania and lower Bavaria to upstate New York, the site of a mental hospital, this densely plotted novel is all over the map and resists an easy synopsis (but in a good way). In Albania, a beautiful widow defies attempts to compel her to become a sex worker for a better lifestyle. A Canadian mining director with suspect intentions hires her as a translator. Things go south quickly, leading readers to Birger Wallenberg, the recently hired director of the Asgard Park Institute for the Criminally Insane. En route by plane, he has a dream of using a remote probe that allows its user to access a psychotherapist’s patient’s mind and to experience what the person sees, feels, and thinks. In his dream, he enters a distant host, a woman who at that moment is flushing down a toilet $10 million worth of crack cocaine that a crime kingpin wants back, instigating the first crisis of Wallenberg’s directorship. In the real world, a schizophrenic from the institute escapes and murders two assailants sent to menace the woman, who’s a well-known scientist, and her 6-year-old daughter. And then things take a mythic turn: Wallenberg meets the institute’s former director, who warns him: “I brought you to Asgard Park for a purpose that is not to your liking.” Meaning Wallenberg must become “the chosen watchman; the vessel of Heimdallr, the god in Nordic mythology credited with social order on Earth.” Simonar has crafted a true What the Heck narrative that expands to include Burton Crane, “a roving troubleshooter,” investigating growing suspicions of “a secret empire out there…the world’s greatest conspiracy to defraud humankind.” The ambitious book is divided into four parts, and it can be easy to lose the thread as the story jumps to new perspectives. But patient and attentive readers will be rewarded when the intriguing strands come together. What keeps the pages turning is best summed up by one character’s declaration: “Wonders never cease at Asgard Park.”
A complex, bonkers, and bracing conspiracy tale for adventurous readers.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-91-987629-0-7
Page Count: 282
Publisher: Eventhor Media
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A particularly nasty villain heightens the stakes in this thriller about a woman learning how to be her own hero.
An author is targeted by a fan who just can’t let her go.
Arden Bowie has had plenty of tragedy in her life, but now she’s finally on top. After her parents died when she was a teenager, she moved from Brooklyn to Ohio to live with her aunt, uncle, and cousins. She soon became part of their loving family and grew up to become a writer and bookseller. When her debut novel is published, she meets Dustin Dubecki at her first event. He showers her with praise, asks for writing advice, and wants to take her out for coffee. Arden tells herself he’s just a little awkward, but then he keeps showing up at her local events—and, even stranger, she’s sure she sees him lurking at her event in New York City. When he bursts into her apartment one night and assaults her, Arden’s calm life is shattered. Dustin gets a five-year sentence at a psychiatric facility; Arden spends most of that time rebuilding her sense of stability. Eventually, she moves to Oregon to start a new life where Dustin can never find her. But even though she has a beautiful home, a thriving career, a doting family, new friends, and even a potential love interest in a former cop named Gideon Riley, Arden can’t escape Dustin’s rage when his sentence is finally up. Roberts toggles between Arden’s point of view and Dustin’s, giving the reader occasional glimpses into his extremely twisted mindset. Although Arden’s attempts to escape Dustin are engrossing, the story stalls in the middle when far too many pages are dedicated to Arden purchasing and decorating a house. But the excitement picks back up when Dustin, a truly odious villain, re-enters the story. It’s also satisfying to see Arden grow into someone who refuses to be a victim, even as she deals with horrifying circumstances.
A particularly nasty villain heightens the stakes in this thriller about a woman learning how to be her own hero.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781250413581
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
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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