An immersive and timely industrial-accident thriller.
A government inspector faces down a corporate coverup in Wallace’s debut thriller.
Former mechanical engineer Jon Barrett is still reeling from a deadly accident that cost him his job—an accident that his bosses pinned on him. Luckily, he’s found work with a new industrial safety program for the Department of the Interior, investigating the same sorts of accidents as the one that still haunts his memory. When an explosion occurs at the Chemtrifuge Chemicals plant in Charleston, West Virginia, Jon is dispatched to figure out what went wrong. His mission is narrowly constrained: He must show that he’s doing his job in order to keep the program funded, but he can’t do anything that will rile any power players. He arrives at the plant just as the employees are attempting to squash all information about the source of the explosion—and they are not at all pleased to have someone from Washington poking around. Workers are dead, however, and one man—a senator’s son—is missing, meaning this isn’t the kind of case that can be swept under the rug. As the media and environmentalists swarm, Jon finds himself in a bind: Allowing the problem to go unaddressed could lead to danger at other plants, increasing the risk of more accidents like the one he can’t stop thinking about. But exposing the truth could cost him his job…and maybe even his life. Wallace offers rich details about the inner workings of a chemical plant and the many personalities that exist within its orbit, which keeps even the more technical material from feeling dry. Here he describes Cain Quinn, a senior adviser at Chemtrifuge and one of Jon’s primary antagonists: “It was not about the money, he had plenty of that. And it was not just about winning—it was about destroying. He did not want Chemtrifuge to simply exist alongside other competitors…He wanted to destroy all the company’s competitors, and everyone who had anything to do with them.” Readers will not want to put this one down.
An immersive and timely industrial-accident thriller.Pub Date: March 22, 2024
ISBN: 9781632997937
Page Count: 384
Publisher: River Grove Books
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Although it lacks the surgical precision of Slaughter’s very best nightmares, this one richly earns its title.
More than a decade after a Georgia man is convicted of a monstrous double murder, an uncomfortably similar crime frees him and resets the search for the guilty party.
In Clifton County, home to the Rich Cliftons and the other Cliftons, the disappearance of teens Madison Dalrymple and Cheyenne Baker during the Halloween festivities hits everyone in North Falls hard. Working with her father, Sheriff Gerald Clifton, Deputy Emmy Lou Clifton hears the clock ticking down as she races frantically to get leads on the two friends, who’d been secretly plotting to take off for Atlanta after some undisclosed big score. As a longtime friend of Madison’s mother, Hannah, Emmy hopes against hope to find the missing teens before they’re both dead. By the time Emmy’s hopes are dashed, two unpleasantly likely suspects with strong attachments to underage sex partners have emerged, and one of them ends up in prison. In a bold move, Slaughter jumps over the next 12 years to the case of Paisley Walker, a 14-year-old whose disappearance catches the eye of retiring FBI criminal psychologist Jude Archer, who promptly crosses the country to come to Clifton County and take charge—um, that is, consult—on this heartrending new investigation. Emmy, suddenly and shockingly deprived of counsel from the parents who’ve supported her all her life, doesn’t get along any better with Jude than with the larger circle of Cliftons and the Clifton-Cliftons. But together they identify one new suspect, then another, before a shootout that arrives so early you just know there are still more surprises to come.
Although it lacks the surgical precision of Slaughter’s very best nightmares, this one richly earns its title.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9780063336773
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
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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