An earnest but formulaic story of religious radicalization and its effects.
Five lives are profoundly transformed by a terrorist attack on a Brussels airport in Hamilton’s novel.
Ibrahim’s family departs Morocco for Brussels in 1998 in search of a better life, but full integration into Belgian life proves elusive. His family settles into Mollenbeek, a hardscrabble neighborhood. Ibrahim is indifferent to his Muslim heritage and, like many teens, is infatuated with girls, money, and football; he also engages in casual drug use. After a botched armed robbery attempt, Ibrahim is sentenced to 10 years in prison, and during the first year he undergoes a radical transformation into a devout Muslim under the tutelage of Mohamed, an Algerian fellow prisoner. Eventually, he enthusiastically joins the Islamic State group and becomes their foot soldier in Syria and Iraq, finally returning to Europe. Hamilton powerfully captures his protagonist’s anger: “Dark revenge was in Ibrahim’s heart. Revenge against the West that bombed and gassed his brothers and Arab children, while their own children slept safely in ignorance of the daily terror inflicted against the Caliphate.” After participating in successful attacks on Paris, he plans a major assault on an airport, while staying a step ahead of intelligence services. The author explores the ramifications of terrorism by chronicling the overlapping lives of five people whose lives are waylaid by it: Nena, a DJ from Antwerp; Philippe, a philandering restauranteur; Mark, an elite British soldier; Roxy, a diving instructor engaged to a Turkish oligarch; and Tom and Meena, both IT professionals and colleagues—the former meek and incompetent, the latter ruthlessly ambitious. However, the resulting scope of the narrative is simply too grand, and the proliferation of subplots becomes a distraction; readers may wish that that author had devoted more time to more deeply developing a pared-down cast of characters. Moreover, this is an overly familiar tale at its core, and one that’s been told so many times that it feels like the rehearsal of a formula. For all its undeniable intelligence, this novel may fail to sustain readers’ attention to the end.
An earnest but formulaic story of religious radicalization and its effects.Pub Date: April 30, 2023
ISBN: 978-0957489462
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Cambria Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.
A violent attack hijacks a woman’s memory in this novel of domestic suspense.
McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from men who have betrayed them. That formula perfectly fits Dr. Charlotte McKenna, a 37-year-old dermatologist who isn’t looking for love until the most handsome man she’s ever seen begins to woo her. There are warning signs about Clark Douglas and Charlotte overlooks them to her detriment—but is he a killer? The novel has dual timelines split between events leading up to the day Charlotte barely survives a head wound meant to kill her and the months afterward, when she struggles to reclaim her memory and her mobility. In real life, McFadden is a physician trained to treat brain injuries. Her expertise gives Charlotte’s rehabilitation authenticity, and her writing talent makes it interesting and engaging. As good as that timeline is, readers will yearn to get back to the alternate timeline about who wants Charlotte dead. It’s only a matter of time before Charlotte starts to remember who tried to kill her, and the clock is ticking toward their next attempt. McFadden dishes up plenty of suspects: Charlotte’s secretive husband, Clark; a former patient turned stalker who confronts Charlotte on her honeymoon; and the angry husband of a patient who blames Charlotte for his wife leaving him. Though the story is delicious and dark, McFadden brightens things up with a possible love interest for Charlotte and a surprise ending sure to please the author’s many fans.
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249617
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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