An imaginative and offbeat blend of psychological intrigue, murder, and romance.
A detective with extra sensory perception teams up with a psychic to solve a gruesome murder in this genre-bending thriller.
In County’s (Plastic Soldiers, 2020, etc.) suspenseful supernatural crime story, Nathan Ember finds out there are pros and cons to being hit by lightning: For one, he has the ability to see clearly into the recent past. His “gift” doesn’t give him “X-ray vision or super hearing. It’s more like two movies of the same place, superimposed and twenty-four hours apart.” This kind of “double” vision cost him his job as an air traffic controller, but it allows him to eke out a living as a budding detective. When he hears that a body was pitched into a dumpster and set on fire the night before, he revisits the past scene and sees a headless, handless body being discarded and torched by a man with a maniacal laugh. He also sees the number of the man’s license plate, which he gives to a friend, Detective Sgt. Daniel Ballinger. But Nathan learns that psychic Galena Torres, who has hypnotic brown eyes and “grab-me curves,” had already given Ballinger the same intel. Initially, Nathan has a hard time believing Galena’s powers are real; but once he’s convinced they’re genuine, the two team up to find out who the dead man is and who murdered him. The novel’s crime-solving is engaging, and the progression of Nathan and Galena’s relationship is engaging, but the real treat is the author’s clever blending of past and present. Nathan must try to avoid being in the same place at the same time two days in a row so he won’t be confused when his two selves overlap and his senses become overwhelmed. Overall, the pacing is rapid-fire and the narrative jam-packed with surprises. Other bonuses include a rich mix of ethnicities and ages, plus a really creepy killer. Dialogue is sharp, and even biting when Galena meets Nathan’s tall, blond, bejeweled former wife Anita, who “has a thing about money. It’s called greed.”
An imaginative and offbeat blend of psychological intrigue, murder, and romance.Pub Date: June 5, 2025
ISBN: 9798284790700
Page Count: 270
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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