Unevenly paced, stomach-churning psychological horror not for the faint of heart.
After an accident, a young man starts to have violent and twisted thoughts.
Melvin Frink is a neuropsych student at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore with an obsessive interest in the science of lobotomy, hoping to research the procedure and bring it back to the forefront of psychological treatment. With a seemingly meek and nerdy disposition, Melvin has an abusive, controlling, rich mother who keeps him on a short leash, but he wants to get away one day. His hopes are dashed when after a freak accident, he spends three years in a coma and wakes up to find himself trapped and still under his mother’s control. As his mind struggles to adapt, Clark’s protagonist begins to have violent urges toward women and especially his mother. As he regains control of his body and mind, he concocts a plan that will ensure that his mother and other women will never again humiliate or control him. The plan involves an operating table and cages in the basement of his family’s mansion, a place that used to hold a crematory and that will be where he keeps the girls he intends to kidnap quiet and subservient. But Melvin didn’t count on a campus police force willing to go the extra mile to track down girls who have recently gone missing or that he would find the perfect, willing victim in the most unexpected place. An omniscient narrator follows these and other characters in a twisted, dark psychological terror story. Full of graphic sexual and physical violence that at times crosses the line into gratuitous imagery, the story focuses primarily on Melvin, his tormented life, and the violence he inflicts on others. Both victim and perpetrator, he embodies a cycle of psychopathic abuse at the intersection of nurture and nature. The uneven pacing—slow at first, especially when describing the torture of the female victims, but rushed toward the end—further limits the appeal of a grisly tale.
Unevenly paced, stomach-churning psychological horror not for the faint of heart.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2021
ISBN: 979-8779134583
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.
Second of the Walter Nash thrillers—following Nash Falls (2025)—in which the remade hero seeks vengeance.
Due to urgent circumstances, Nash has bulked himself up to become the “muscled and tatted fighting machine” now known as Dillon Hope. His antagonist is Victoria Steers, a global drug dealer who wants him dead. Not realizing his new identity, she enlists Hope to free her mother, Masuyo, from a prison in Myanmar. As an incentive, she shoots one of her associates and threatens to frame Hope for the murder unless he complies. She also wants him to find Nash. He in turn wants to kill Victoria to avenge the death of his innocent daughter, Maggie. “If I go down,” he muses, “I’m taking others with me. Starting with Victoria Steers.” He learns that Victoria had killed all her siblings to eliminate business competition. But as heartless as Victoria is, her mother, Masuyo, is even worse. In league with the Chinese government in a perverse plan to kill as many Americans as possible through fentanyl overdose, she shows contempt for Victoria for her perceived weaknesses. Readers won’t find many happy family relationships here: mother-daughter, father-son, husband-wife—all fraught. Hope’s employer, who accompanies him to Myanmar, is a billionaire chief executive with a dodgy past (i.e., probably killed his father). And there’s a mega-billionaire with an astronomical IQ and ditch-deep morals who, putting it mildly, does not have America’s best interests at heart. As a teenager, he’d defeated two world chess champions; as an adult, he regards his dealings with the world in terms of master chess moves. Only one character seems truly decent and credible—Hiroko, Victoria’s former nanny and lifelong companion, who provides Hope with valuable insights into the Steers’ background, which is partly Chinese. Searing grudges, simple evil, and not-so-simple misunderstandings carry the cast through this complex, action-packed plot. This sequel ties out the loose ends dangling in Nash Falls, which would be helpful to read first. To get to the requisite ending, though, Baldacci takes pains to surprise the reader. It works but often feels forced.
Filled with action, violence, and more twists than a bag of pretzels.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781538758021
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 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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