How refreshing: a thriller with a narrator who’s almost too reliable.
A widowed Pennsylvania dad hears from his estranged daughter on the occasion of her marriage into the 1 percent.
Frank Szatowski, 52, has achievements he’s proud of: “I started driving young, straight out of the army, and I was recently inducted into the Circle of Honor, an elite group of UPS drivers who’ve worked twenty-five years without an accident.” What Frank doesn’t feel so good about is his relationship with his daughter, Maggie, who cut him off a few years ago when he failed her in some as-yet-unrevealed way. But now the "Unknown Caller" on his phone is her, inviting him to Boston to meet her fiance, Aidan Gardner, and to walk her down the aisle at their wedding. From the moment he steps from the elevator into the penthouse Maggie and Aidan share, Frank feels like a fish out of water, and things only get more uncomfortable when Aidan shows no interest in connecting with his future father-in-law. The wedding is held at a private camp in New Hampshire, exquisitely imagined from the waterfront cottages to the brunch buffets to the 10-foot-high security fence. Even before he’s given a 56-page “privacy doc” to sign and ordered to turn his watch ahead 15 minutes to “Gardner Standard Time,” Frank knows there’s something deeply wrong—for one thing, he’s received a flyer in the mail linking Aidan to a local missing person. But his sister, Tammy, is having the time of her life, as is her 10-year-old foster kid, Abigail, and he’s finally mending fences with Maggie; can’t he just kick back and enjoy? Actually…no. In addition to creating a fun, propulsive plot, Rekulak does a great job on all the status details and supporting characters, from the sleazy family lawyer with his barely legal wife to the younger crowd at the wedding. At the welcome dinner, a woman with “a starfish tattoo and long blond hair braided into ropes” offers Frank an Altoids tin of gummy bears. “These are THC with a little extra wild card,” she tells him encouragingly. Hoo boy. There are some wild cards, all right.
How refreshing: a thriller with a narrator who’s almost too reliable.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781250895783
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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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