Light, quirky, and funny.
Alchemy stages a comeback in this fast-moving modern-day thriller.
In Philadelphia, a construction supervisor inspects a large underground space beneath a worksite and finds a mid-18th-century laboratory filled with beakers, oil lamps, hand cranks—and his two dead co-workers sitting in chairs. Then he’s attacked and killed by a man looking for an engraving of a kite and a key. Thus begins this oddball thriller whose characters seek a philosopher’s stone that will turn lead into gold. Mezrich loads the text with historical references to the likes of Paul Revere, Ben Franklin, Mozart, and Catharine Ray, one of Ben’s actual lady friends. He also offers new twists on the stories of the Liberty Bell and Franklin's famous experiment with a kite and a key. Present-day protagonists Nick Patterson and Hailey Gordon are in Boston on the run from the law, suspects in a string of art thefts including the big 1990 heist at the Gardner Museum. Nick is a nonviolent ex-con who gets his gunshot wound stitched up in the basement of a seedy dentist and later survives an encounter with the humongous Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton in the Boston Museum of Science. Hailey faked her high-school records to gain admission to MIT and excelled there as a grad student in applied math while she paid her bills by counting cards. In the opposite corner is the evil La Nadie—Spanish for The Nobody—who looks so ordinary that no one notices her until it’s too late. She works for the Family, which has ambitions both dastardly and grandiose. The frequent twists in this zany and well-researched story will keep the reader entertained and informed. If you’ve ever lain awake wondering about the Statue of Liberty’s innards, or how many rivets Gustave Eiffel used in the construction of his eponymous iron tower in Paris, or how a particular Mozart composition looks on an oscilloscope, Mezrich puts those and many more questions to rest. The ending hints at a sequel, which would be most welcome.
Light, quirky, and funny.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781538754672
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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