An absorbing, tech-smart tale that unfolds in a tense prison setting.
An imprisoned hacker helps a rookie inmate while another new arrival proves a menace in this debut techno-thriller.
It’s 2010, and Tanto has been an unwilling resident of Hackers’ Haven for eight years. The government has dumped this hackers-exclusive prison somewhere in Texas. The inmates, who all go by their online handles, spend each day scouring for illegal acts on the internet; anyone scoring 500 “kills,” or captures, is up for parole. Double-H boasts countless rules that Tanto relays to Quidlee, the “rook” he mentors, who learns that even this prison has perks, like a healthy diet and medical attention. But another new inmate, Barca, complicates Tanto’s life. Barca is a legend among hackers (“The word hacking implies risk. Barca wants all the benefits of the hack, and none of the risk. He does virtually none of the work, but he has money to hire the best. With money comes power”). Inside Double-H, muscle-bound Barca threatens to upend Tanto’s relationship with Quidlee and knows way too much about the facility and its inner workings. But if Barca breaks rules, he’ll wind up in Guantánamo Bay, which Tanto can make sure happens. The only other option for getting rid of this bully is the most dangerous one—an escape plan. Pepper deftly amps up his engaging prison tale with perpetual threats. The sinister Warden Cyfib, for example, electrically shocks “hackvicts” via their implanted disciplinary chips. At the same time, Tanto delays completing his Cyfib-demanded software “monster”—its intent is to entice online users into illicit endeavors and then trap them. The author’s crisp writing smoothly clarifies technical jargon with no sign of condescension; this creates a protagonist/narrator who comes across as an endearing, sympathetic journeyman more than a highly skilled hacker. Nevertheless, Tanto’s adherence to the Japanese Bushido code isn’t entirely convincing, as he’s White and the origin of his “training” is unclear. But a sequel, which Pepper seems to be aiming for, may shed light on the hero’s largely mysterious background.
An absorbing, tech-smart tale that unfolds in a tense prison setting.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-958011-02-7
Page Count: 369
Publisher: Hustle Valley Press
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
High-concept and highly entertaining.
Fiction writers compete to finish a famous author’s abandoned novel.
Seven writers, all but one published, have received invitations to spend the weekend with crime novelist Arthur Fletch, the world’s most successful author, on his private island off the coast of Scotland. When they arrive at his cliffside castle, they expect to take part in one of the literary salons for which Fletch is famous; instead, they’re greeted by his agent, who informs them that Fletch is dead. Why has there been nothing about this in the press? Because “there are some…loose ends that must be tied up first.” Fletch has left his eagerly anticipated final novel unfinished, so the agent has summoned the writers to the island for a competition: One of them will get to complete Fletch’s book. As premises go, this one’s a humdinger, courtesy of fantasy writer V.E. Schwab and YA author Cat Clarke, here joining forces as Clarke. The story contains an amusing throughline about the indignity of being an uncelebrated novelist; as the agent tells the assembled writers, the contest winner will receive both cash and something equally valuable: “a way out of the midlist.” The novel’s wandering perspective allows each writer to vent their private frustrations, especially with the publishing industry and with the book world’s genre hierarchy (the YA writer among the competitors understands that she and the romance writer are “supposed to support each other against the general snobbishness of the other genres”). Readers who have come for the crimes and the twists, both of which are plentiful, might grow impatient with all the characters’ backstories, but these readers will likely warm to the shop talk, which at its funniest plays like a kvetchy midlist-writers’ support group.
High-concept and highly entertaining.Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9780063444614
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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