Strong stuff for animal lovers prepared to be shocked by abusive behavior whose targets extend to humans.
The Reactive Criminal Investigations Department in Odense, Denmark, takes on a set of disturbingly mirrored mysteries.
First comes the murder of Jørgen Andersen, a retiree who had a restraining order keeping him from approaching taxidermist Monika le Fevre that was rendered moot by whomever asphyxiated him. Good riddance—except for the scratchy, stitched-up wounds dotting his body, which eerily echo similar wounds in the unsolved murder of financial manager Jan Hansen. Next comes the vanishing of animal-rights activist Zenia Dybbøl, the 17-year-old daughter of Chief Constable Margrethe Dybbøl—a disappearance hard on the heels of the case of Amalie Vedel, another teenager gone AWOL from her parents’ home. Since Margrethe is so upset that she can barely bring herself to acknowledge Zenia’s absence, she’s not the best person to head the investigation. So under the supervision of DCI Liam Stark, Inspector Dea Torp reaches out to Inspector Lene Erikson, the rival who’s already heading the inquiry concerning Amalie, in hopes of figuring out what the two young women might have in common. The deeper they dig, the more likely it seems that “everything had started with [Monika’s] exhibition” of domestic pets treated like laboratory animals, which aroused more than one kind of outrage, triggering disagreements about animal rights and abuses that overflowed the debate stage and generated a series of violent and vengeful crimes. Unlike in the authors’ last collaboration (Dissolved, 2023), the perpetrator is so well-hidden that fans will probably forgive some laborious exposition and a truly epic wind-down after the mask comes loose.
Strong stuff for animal lovers prepared to be shocked by abusive behavior whose targets extend to humans.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9798892421676
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crooked Lane
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
