This may wind up on the big screen, but don’t wait for the movie. It’s a fun read.
Nothing is ever as it seems when deadly enemies clash in the latest entry in the long-running Ludlum series continued by Freeman.
As his many fans already know, Jason Bourne has neither memory nor past because of a gunshot that nearly killed him. His secretive employer, Treadstone, has him protecting Grigori Kotov, a Russian ex–double agent and former KGB killer who is plotting to overthrow Putin. Throughout Bourne’s adventures, he leaves a trail of beautiful women behind, casualties of his complicated, messy world. The latest is the heavily tattooed and unbelievably sexy spy Nova, thought to have been killed in an Estonian harbor explosion three years ago. Bourne’s frightful and worthy foe is Lennon, whom the CIA wants him to kill and who thinks his frequent Beatles references are amusing. There’s also the Gaia Crusade, a group of hyperenvironmentalists who believe that world leaders are raping Mother Earth and who will kill to protect her. “Praise Gaia,” their members say. The past, or lack thereof, is the recurring theme threading through the whole series and plaguing the hero. The past either didn’t exist or was never over, but the apparently contradictory thoughts come to the same thing. Anyway, Bourne had better deal with the present, which is filled with bloody violence and the prospect of great sex. All those tattoos, oh my. But as the title says, there’s treachery. And Lennon has surprises for Bourne and for the reader. This is a tightly plotted, complex yarn with the fast pace that will keep readers flipping the pages. Never mind that it’s formulaic; readers won’t care. Of course Bourne will never recall his past. Of course he’ll face mortal combat with an evil equal. And of course a beautiful, strong, intelligent woman will enter his life, but she won’t change it. The man’s a good guy, but he’s also a killer.
This may wind up on the big screen, but don’t wait for the movie. It’s a fun read.Pub Date: July 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-54265-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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