A chilling and unsparing deep dive into the mindset of a forgotten killer.
In Kukla’s thriller, police scramble to stop a murder spree that claims multiple lives in early-1950s America.
This novel, based on true events, gives the reader a ringside seat to a cross-country rampage that snuffed out multiple lives in 1950 and ’51. A U.S. Army lieutenant reports his twin brother missing, after he fails to show up for a highly anticipated family visit, and a bullet-riddled car’s discovery in Oklahoma leads police to fear for Carl Mosser, his wife and three children. It quickly prompts the largest nationwide manhunt since the 1930s, when John Dillinger was on the run. A handgun receipt implicates Billy Cook, a parolee with an extensive record and utter contempt for authority (“I'm used to being thrown anywhere,” he taunted his jailers). Law enforcement officials frantically scour the West, with Cook always a step ahead, killing a salesman in Palo Verde, California, and taking a deputy sheriff hostage in Blythe. After he crosses the Mexican border, it’s up to local police to capture him and keep his hostages safe. Later, a prolonged debate about Cook’s mental state plays out: The same man who suggested seeing a movie to his hostages also shot animals to wield power over them (“Killing just to kill”). Parsing whether Cook was mentally ill isn’t simple, and some find it beside the point, as Kukla suggests; one of Cook's pursuers reminds himself that when pure evil surfaces, putting it down is the only option: “He had to be a driving force to bring it to an end.” The title is a clever allusion to the 1971 song of the same name by The Doors, whose second verse drew inspiration from Cook’s atrocities. Kukla’s crisp, no-nonsense storytelling will allow readers to debate the issues the case raised, particularly in how it highlights 1950s American society’s well-scrubbed exterior, and the embittered entitlement at the heart of Cook’s killing spree. The killer’s notoriety has long faded, yet this novel serves as an effective reminder that the questions surrounding his motivations are no less persistent—and no easier to answer.
A chilling and unsparing deep dive into the mindset of a forgotten killer.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2026
ISBN: 9798986567099
Page Count: 372
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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