A sleek and remarkably thoughtful thriller that keeps the action humming right along.
An FBI agent goes deep undercover with a White supremacist group in this fourth installment of Andre’s Damaged Heroes series.
FBI Special Agent Associate Jace Quinn is about to take down the suspect in a terrorist act known as the Mosque Mohammed bombings, which killed 245 Muslims. But when he and his partners arrive at the scene, they appear to be too late: The suspect, Thomas Bradley, is dead—an apparent suicide. With the investigation now stalled, the department brings in Senior Special Agent Heidi Hall with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.She’s tasked with finding not only the suspected White supremacist group responsible for the mosque bombings, but also the mole responsible for leaking information to Bradley. In a move designed partly to separate herself from Jace—and their undeniable romantic chemistry—Heidi suggests he go undercover as a White supremacist to ferret out the information they need. As Jace dives into his assignment, he must brace himself for a final sting that could make or break the entire operation. On the surface, this novel can certainly be read as a straightforward erotic thriller, but it manages to go a step further than many others in the genre. Andre expertly weaves important topical discussions about racial prejudice, sexual assault, and gender bias into her plot and characterization. For example, at one point Heidi sums up Jace’s qualifications for infiltrating a White supremacist group with a shrewdness that irks him: “You’re a white, educated male with ex-military experience and a deeply held belief that you’re at the top of the race and gender heap.” Jace is forced to confront his own buried biases throughout the course of his assignment, which proves to be a welcome surprise to both him and the reader. Those who are interested in romantic thrillers that dig a little deeper into social issues will certainly welcome this series entry.
A sleek and remarkably thoughtful thriller that keeps the action humming right along.Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 9781946310057
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Beach Reads
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.
Dexter meets Killing Eve in Wallace’s dark comic thriller debut.
While accepting condolences following her father’s funeral, 30-something narrator Claire receives an email saying that one of her paintings is a finalist for a prize. But her joy is short-circuited the next morning when she learns in a second apologetic note that the initial email had been sent to the wrong Claire. The sender, Lucas Kane, is “terribly, terribly sorry” for his mistake. Claire, torn between her anger and suicidal thoughts, has doubts about his sincerity and stalks him to a London pub, where his fate is sealed: “I stare at Lucas Kane in real life, and within moments I know. He doesn’t look sorry.” She dispatches and buries Lucas in her back garden, but this crime does not go unnoticed. Proud of her meticulous standards as a serial killer, Claire wonders if her grief for her father is making her reckless as she seeks to identify the blackmailer among the members of her weekly bereavement support group. The female serial killer as antihero is a growing subgenre (see Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, 2018), and Wallace’s sociopathic protagonist is a mordantly amusing addition; the tool she uses to interact with ordinary people while hiding her homicidal nature is especially sardonic: “Whenever I’m unsure of how I’m expected to respond, I use a cliché. Even if I’m not sure what it means, even if I use it incorrectly, no one ever seems to mind.” The well-written storyline tackles some tough subjects—dementia, elder abuse, and parental cruelty—but the convoluted plot starts to drag at the halfway point. Given the lack of empathy in Claire’s narration, most of the characters come across as not very likable, and the reader tires of her sneering contempt.
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780143136170
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.
The loss of her police officer father and the discovery of an abandoned car in a local lake raise chilling questions regarding a young woman’s family history.
When Hazel Sharp returns to her hometown of Mirror Lake, North Carolina, for her father’s memorial, she and the other townspeople are confronted by a challenging double whammy: As they’re grieving the loss of beloved longtime police officer Detective Perry Holt, a disturbing sight appears in the lake, whose waterline is receding because of an ongoing drought—an old, unidentifiable car, which has likely been lurking there for years. Hazel temporarily leaves her Charlotte-based building-renovation business in the capable hands of her partners and reconnects with her brothers, Caden and Gage; her Uncle Roy; her old fling and neighbor, Nico; and her schoolfriend, Jamie, now a mother and married to Caden. Tiny, relentless suspicions rise to the metaphorical surface along with that waterlogged vehicle: There have been a slew of minor break-ins; two people go missing; and then, a second abandoned car is discovered. The novel digs deeper into Hazel’s family history—her father was a widow when he married Hazel’s mother, who later left the family, absconding with money and jewels—and Miranda, a consummate professional when it comes to exposing the small community tensions that naturally arise when people live in close proximity for generations, exposes revelation after twisty revelation: “Everything mattered disproportionately in a small town. Your success, but also your failure. Everyone knows might as well have been our town motto.”
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781668010440
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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