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 Mezrich loads the text with historical references to the likes of Paul Revere, Ben Franklin, Mozart, and Catharine Ray, one of Ben’s actual lady friends.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
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
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