A fast-paced thriller with a protagonist worth rooting for.
In Thompson’s novel, set in Silicon Valley, a young man chases a life-changing payout that just might cost him everything.
It’s 2014, and 25-year-old Mario Kennedy just wants to put his past behind him and build a new life for himself—preferably as a rich tech company executive. For now, he runs a pizza shop called Prospector’s. When a restaurant-focused tech startup called MenuAi declares that they’ll soon be having an initial public offering, he remembers giving the founders advice a few years before—and that, as payment, they offered him a chance to buy 2% of the company at a discounted price. He consults a lawyer, who tells him that all he has to do is make it past the 90-day “lockup period” after the IPO, and then he can sell his stock for millions—and all his dreams might come true. (“I feel like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I’ve got the Golden Ticket.”) During this period, Mario runs into a diverse cast of characters, all with their own agendas: Noah Stern, the CEO of MenuAi, is a reclusive, slightly unhinged genius; his partner, Ravi Singh, is a venture capitalist who’s willing to do whatever it takes to get his money. There’s also Jamie Villanueva, a young tech reporter who’s determined to take the new company down—but she finds it hard to follow through when she starts to fall for Mario. As he navigates the tech world, and the exorbitant wealth within it, he’s suddenly faced with an unthinkable task, which will force him to decide between his dream future and the values that drive him. Over the course of this novel, Thompson crafts a smart, satirical take on the world of technology and Silicon Valley. The characters are well developed, with distinct personalities and motivations, and the cast feels cohesive rather than chaotic. The prose is engaging throughout, enlivened by dialogue that feels authentic. Readers who enjoy a quick-paced tale with complex characters and unexpected twists will find this novel appealing, whether they have an interest in the tech world or not.
A fast-paced thriller with a protagonist worth rooting for.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9798995320111
Page Count: 422
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.
What should be a rare horror—a woman gone missing—becomes a pattern in Kubica's latest thriller.
One night, a young mother goes for a run. She never comes home. A few weeks later, the body of Meredith, another missing woman, is found with a self-inflicted knife wound; the only clue about the fate of her still-missing 6-year-old daughter, Delilah, is a note that reads, "You’ll never find her. Don’t even try." Eleven years later, a girl escapes from a basement where she’s been held captive and severely abused; she reports that she is Delilah. Kubica alternates between chapters in the present narrated by Delilah’s younger brother, Leo, now 15 and resentful of the hold Delilah’s disappearance and Meredith’s death have had on his father, and chapters from 11 years earlier, narrated by Meredith and her neighbor Kate. Meredith begins receiving texts that threaten to expose her and tear her life apart; she struggles to keep them, and her anxiety, from her family as she goes through the motions of teaching yoga and working as a doula. One client in particular worries her; Meredith fears her husband might be abusing her, and she's also unhappy with the way the woman’s obstetrician treats her. So this novel is both a mystery about what led to Meredith’s death and Delilah’s imprisonment and the story of what Delilah's return might mean to her family and all their well-meaning neighbors. Someone is not who they seem; someone has been keeping secrets for 11 long years. The chapters complement one another like a patchwork quilt, slowly revealing the rotten heart of a murderer amid a number of misdirections. The main problem: As it becomes clear whodunit, there’s no true groundwork laid for us to believe that this person would behave at all the way they do.
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-778-38944-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Park Row Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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