An engrossing novel filled with political and psychological insight.
In Wilson’s thriller, an American photographer travels to Central America and is drawn into the region’s violent internal conflicts.
Robert Ellis is only 28 years old but already exhausted by the pressures of life—he’s haunted by the death of his mother from cancer and dogged by the gruesome memories of the war he covered in Afghanistan. Moreover, he’s depleted from leading a nomadic life; his peripatetic wandering has taken its toll on the relationship with his girlfriend, Kara. The author sensitively captures Robert’s premature weltschmerz: “It dawned on him that he never actually knew what he wanted, other than to keep shooting, and to keep traveling, and to have his photos published. Maybe something had changed in Afghanistan, he thought.” He is presented with an unusual offer—someone impressed with his photography wishes to purchase some photos for a considerable sum of money. To close the transaction, he must fly to Nicoya, a war-torn city in Costa Rica. It is hard to understand why it is necessary for Robert to make such a journey in order to sell digital photographs; he makes the trip anyway, and meets the buyer, Janvion Garcia, a powerful jefe who presides over an army of rebels, apparently backed by the United States. Garcia intends to use Robert to demonstrate his brutality—he plans to murder him—but Robert escapes, doggedly pursued by Garcia’s henchmen, including an elite American agent, Hull. There are some minor narrative missteps on Wilson’s part—Robert takes a stray puppy he befriended with him as he goes on the run, a ridiculous decision that feels like a cloyingly manipulative authorial device. However, the plot is thrilling, and Robert’s improbable struggle to survive is artfully made to seem quite plausible. Also, Wilson constructs a fascinatingly complex portrait of the protagonist, disillusioned by life so early on and compellingly juxtaposes that discontent with the sordidness of political life.
An engrossing novel filled with political and psychological insight.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 979-8986946252
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Kelp Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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