A page-turning thriller set on a beautiful Florida island.
In Hanafee’s novel, kidnapped brothers face a terrible fate—unless a determined team of amateurs can save them.
In this latest installment of the Leslie Elliott mystery series, the tranquility of Anibonie Island (just off Florida’s Gulf Coast) is shattered by a cannily orchestrated and violent kidnapping plot. Well-heeled brothers Victor and Hugo Clerk are the targets of the criminals; a note demanding $200 million in ransom informs the police that the men will be buried alive until the money is paid. The kidnappers, who include an ex-soldier once convicted of murdering his commanding officer in Afghanistan, destroy the island’s communication network and disable the bridge linking Anibonie to the mainland. Unable to bring in reinforcements, a small and unlikely team of intrepid investigators find themselves in a race against time to rescue the kidnapped brothers from a horrible fate. Among them are public relations expert Leslie Elliott, who recently moved to the island to start a new career as a mystery writer, and her boyfriend, Wes Avery, a newspaper reporter from Chicago who gave up his big-city job to follow Leslie and who now writes for the island’s paper. They are assisted by Alex Pendry, a young, inexperienced sheriff’s deputy; Ray Santiago, a fireman; and the fearless Gene Muller, whose day job is to reduce the island’s increasingly destructive iguana population. The story moves quickly, and the lead characters, Leslie and Wes, are very likable. Their interactions become increasingly desperate as their search for the kidnapped (and possibly buried) brothers reaches a critical and doubtful stage: “Those poor men. I feel like we aren’t doing enough for them,” Leslie tells Wes as the search hits yet another dead end. “Let’s face it, Wes: This little search party of ours is pretty laughable.” But are the kidnappers as clever and determined as their pursuers? Readers will be carried along, fully engaged as the twists and turns of the plot produce unexpected revelations.
A page-turning thriller set on a beautiful Florida island.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781732489479
Page Count: 234
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.
A phone call from her past disrupts the tenuously reconstructed life of a concert pianist turned farmer’s wife.
We know from the beginning that Livia Cable is the battered survivor of her brother Cyrus’ death by suicide, a devastating romance, and a career-ending injury. Only 11 when Cyrus stepped in front of a train, she was already marked out as different in her rural Tennessee hometown by her extraordinary musical ability. The siblings had huddled together against their angry mother’s frequent beatings, and Livia still feels abandoned by Cyrus years later, when she picks up the phone to hear the voice of Sigurd, the fiery labor organizer she loved and lost to “the revolution” while on scholarship at the Indiana University School of Music. Now married to kind, steady childhood friend Charlie, Livia looks back on her affair with Sigurd as she struggles to deal with the recent death of her mother, a compulsive hoarder who left a house stuffed with junk to be disposed of and bitter memories that haven’t faded over time. Kingsolver skillfully juggles the two time frames to unravel Livia’s complicated feelings about the life she lost when her right hand was crushed and the life she has now as a country piano teacher. A partita, she explains to Sigurd early on, “is a composition made of a lot of parts with a lot of different moods…the artist’s work is to make them all add up to something that feels whole.” That’s precisely what Kingsolver does in this beautifully paced and judged narrative, which builds to revelations uncovered amid the piles of trash in Livia’s childhood home about the reasons for Cyrus’ suicide (clearly foreshadowed) and their mother’s rage (startling and heartbreaking). A fierce belief that great art is for everyone joins Kingsolver’s familiar preoccupations with class distinctions, social injustice, and the complex bonds of family and community in a tender denouement.
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9780063577541
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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