An engrossing, thoughtful, and disturbing drama that caters to fans of constitutional debates.
The First Amendment remains front and center in this legal thriller.
Is a high school flagpole a public forum or an expression of the school’s philosophy of inclusivity with respect to its diverse student body? That is the legal question at the heart of the controversy stirred up when Montpelier High School in Vermont elects to fly the Black Lives Matter flag on its grounds. There are protests by local gun rights group True Patriots. And then the school receives a notice that it is being sued by “Second Amendment, Inc.,” a Virginia gun rights nonprofit funding the Patriots. Enter lawyer Tad Sorowski for the defense. Racist and antisemitic letters and emails are subsequently received by Tad and Sarah Jacobson, the story’s main protagonist, who works for the Green Mountain Black Lives Matter organization. This clash leads to an additional, more intense, First Amendment lawsuit that propels the captivating narrative, with Tad and Sarah filing as the plaintiffs under the “intent to commit” statute. The tale’s opening scene takes place in April 2019, near the story’s conclusion, with the kidnapping of Sarah from a Vermont gas station. She and her boyfriend, Ricky Stillwell, had moved back home to Montpelier from Rhode Island in 2018, when Sarah landed the job working for the Green Mountain Black Lives Matter group. Readers of Lambek’s first novel, Uncivil Liberties(2018), will remember Sarah and Ricky. She was the daughter of that book’s lead attorney, Sam Jacobson, and Ricky was the lawyer’s client. The author toggles between past and present, developing both characters, especially Sarah, and the events leading up to the abduction. These time jumps provide a sense of action in an otherwise more politics- and relationships-driven plotline. Armchair legal eagles will have plenty to chew on here—detailed case histories, precedents, and courtroom maneuvers. But there is also enough personal drama to keep less civically obsessed readers engaged. The cast is comprised of an eclectic group of complex characters with intriguing backstories. And Lambek, a Vermont attorney, is a meticulous writer who stages even relatively minor scenes with the same descriptive precision he uses in his legal arguments.
An engrossing, thoughtful, and disturbing drama that caters to fans of constitutional debates.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-57869-069-5
Page Count: 196
Publisher: Rootstock Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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