A taut thriller that’s peppered with acerbic humor.
An actor reluctantly joins the Irish mob in Carry’s crime novel.
When struggling actor Scott Russo and his dealer, Freddie, arrive at Tobias Milton’s SoHo apartment to start Scott in a new job as a marijuana delivery runner, they show up in time to witness Irish mob boss Aidan Murphy’s takeover of Milton’s marijuana business. On his train ride home that night, Scott reflects on his “own shortcomings as an actor and the futility of my stagnant career.” When Aidan summons Scott to Hell’s Kitchen for a meeting, Carry keeps readers in a state of anxiety and uncertainty about Scott’s future. The criminal tells Scott that the young man has a gift—an observational detachment that allows him to “function when you’re about to shit your pants”—which comes in handy when witnessing violent murder. Throughout the novel, the protagonist’s first-person commentary about the world around him gives this satirical work its heft. When describing how he lost a job as a waiter for eating part of a customer’s appetizer, for instance, Scott describes his supervisor’s face in vivid, cinematic slow motion: “her right eye twitched and her jaw muscles vibrated with tension.” In addition to mocking the restaurant world, Scott effectively ridicules aspects of his artistic calling; other actors are “a stupid, narcissistic bunch” with “self-absorbed, deluded brains,” and his acting coach, Allison Rucker, is portrayed as an alcoholic crackpot. Throughout, Carry adheres to Chekhov’s famous rule—if a gun is present in a scene, it must eventually go off—and every scene in this novel moves the story along in a meaningful way. The author’s ability to control the novel’s pacing and keep it uncluttered will appeal to fans of classic noir.
A taut thriller that’s peppered with acerbic humor.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-66290-597-1
Page Count: 231
Publisher: Bad Alley Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
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