A profoundly moving read that will stay with thriller aficionados long after they finish the novel.
Ashby’s latest is a page-turning supernatural thriller that explores humankind’s oldest question: “Is there life after death?”
Afflicted with terminal cancer, billionaire Mark Long has been told he has mere months to live. Fixated on what comes after (if anything), he anonymously offers a $5 billion prize to anyone who can prove to Long’s satisfaction that there is some kind of life after death. Requiring applicants to first deposit a $25,000 bond in a trust account, the contest is quickly whittled down to three finalists. Professor Megan Finlay, chair of the Holmes Parapsychology Institute at the University of Edinburgh, is close to a breakthrough. She specializes in near-death experiences—what she calls “transcendence of spatio-temporal boundaries”—and winning Long’s multibillion-dollar prize is a necessity. The funding for the financially troubled institute ends in a matter of months. If the institute closes, Finlay’s entire life’s work will be all but forgotten. Another finalist is Aidan McKnight, former Navy SEAL and head of Acheron Capital Partners, who is addicted to challenges. When he hears about Long’s contest, his assistants find Hundra Benteen, a Montana-based “sensitive” (don’t call her a medium) who—in an industry filled with scammers, frauds, and charlatans—just may be the real thing. When McKnight meets Benteen, she turns his world upside down by knowing intimate information about his father, a SEAL who disappeared and was believed to have been killed during a botched 1983 mission in Grenada. Can Benteen communicate with the spirit of McKnight’s father and pass along any critical information? The last finalist, the Swiss National Institute for Paranormal Studies, doesn’t exist and is a front for Maxim Azimov, the world’s most notorious cybercriminal and mastermind of AI Deepfake technology. As Long’s battle with cancer draws to its inevitable end, Azimov plots to permanently eliminate each of his competitors.
Many narrative elements are worthy of note here. The character dynamism is exceptional. Even secondary characters, like Finlay’s assistant, Dougal Brown, are meticulously portrayed, three-dimensional, and emotionally compelling. The multiple storylines—which largely follow the three competitors and their respective quests—are continually intertwining, which keeps the momentum brisk. Additionally, bombshell plot twists will rivet readers until the very last page. The supernatural element gives the novel its fitting dark atmospherics: “It sprang, a crushing weight that crumpled the chair under him, driving the remaining breath from his lungs. As he looked into the fiery eyes and the glinting canine fangs, he knew it was the end. He tried to recite a prayer but volition had been sucked out of him. Strangely, as he plunged into unconsciousness, it seemed as if the creature was somehow melding with him, body to body, soul to soul.” But it’s the deep, esoteric examination of life after death from multiple perspectives—reincarnation, karmic retribution, tormented spirits seeking peace, reconnecting with loved ones who have passed, etc.—that make this such a memorable thriller.
A profoundly moving read that will stay with thriller aficionados long after they finish the novel.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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