A satisfying read with a complicated, engaging plotline.
The stock market crash of 1929 upends the life of Chicago’s biggest trader in wheat futures.
At 32, Frank Cork, a poor Irish/Polish kid from Chicago’s South Side, has made it to the top of the wheat futures heap, reaping a lavish home, beautiful wife, two lovable children, and a brand new, eye-catching “Hudson Super Six Cabriolet in jade and moss green.” But wheat prices have been falling for the past two days, and Frank senses trouble is brewing. On Monday, October 28, 1929, he’s driving to the Chicago Board of Trade building after a breakfast meeting during which he secures a significantly large trade investment. Suddenly, he finds himself caught in the middle of a mob hit. He escapes from the scene, but not before his flashy Hudson is noticed and Frank and the shooter make brief eye contact. And his day is about to get even worse. He learns from his best friend, Robert “Bobby” MacNamara, president of the Board of Trade, that he and his company are being accused of market manipulation by Canada’s Yuri Dyachenko, head of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. The next morning, the stock market crashes, and Frank’s fortune crashes with it. Distraught, he catches the first train out of town, not yet realizing he’s heading to Canada, where he will secretly remain for many months. Kirk’s intriguing tale of a man rediscovering himself in the wheat basket of the Canadian Prairie is part tender personal drama and part a vivid depiction of the bad days during Chicago’s history of political corruption and mob rule, when Al Capone and Bugs Moran fought for control of the illegal liquor business during Prohibition. The novel abounds with historical tidbits about cross-border bootlegging. And although the narrative is not quite a thriller, once Frank temporarily joins up with the Canadian liquor exporters, which involves contact with the mob, the pace and excitement build considerably. Kirk’s prose is crisp, plus she offers an accessible primer on the ins, outs, and perils of day trading and playing the market on agricultural futures.
A satisfying read with a complicated, engaging plotline.Pub Date: June 20, 2025
ISBN: 9781998779703
Page Count: 350
Publisher: At Bay Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An addictive psychological thriller.
When a mysterious novel appears on her bedside table, a successful documentary filmmaker finds herself face to face with a secret that threatens to unravel life as she knows it.
Catherine Ravenscroft has built a dream life, or close to it: the devoted husband, the house in London, the award-winning career as a documentary filmmaker. And though she’s never quite bonded with her 25-year-old son the way she’d hoped, he’s doing fine—there are worse things than being an electronics salesman. But when she stumbles across a sinister novel called The Perfect Stranger—no one’s quite sure how it came into the house—Catherine sees herself in its pages, living out scenes from her past she’d hoped to forget. It’s a threat—but from whom? And why now, 20 years after the fact? Meanwhile, Stephen Brigstocke, a retired teacher, widowed and in pain, is desperate to exact revenge on Catherine and make her pay for what happened all those years ago. The story is told in alternating chapters, Catherine's in the third-person and Stephen's in the first, as the two orbit each other, predator and prey, and the novel moves between the past and the present to paint a portrait of two troubled families with trauma bubbling under the surface. As their lives become increasingly entangled, Stephen’s obsession grows, Catherine’s world crumbles, and it becomes clear that—in true thriller form—everything may not be as it seems. But how much destruction must be wrought before the truth comes out? And when it does, will there be anything left to salvage? While the long buildup to the big reveal begins to drag, Knight’s elegant plot and compelling (if not unexpected) characters keep the heart of the novel beating even when the pacing falters. Atmospheric and twisting and ripe for TV adaptation, this debut novel never strays far from convention, but that doesn’t make it any less of a page-turner.
An addictive psychological thriller.Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236225-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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