by Brian Ray Brewer ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2021
An often engaging novel that’s undermined by its turn toward grandiose political machinations.
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An American gemologist searches for a legendary emerald mine in the wetlands of Brazil and gets drawn into a vast political conspiracy in Brewer’s thriller set in the early 1990s.
Jake Tate spent years selling contraband diamonds in Angola, a dangerous but lucrative trade, but then disaster struck—the country erupted into civil war, and he was forced to flee over the border into Zaire. There, he was arrested and imprisoned and lost most of the diamonds he was transporting. He’s free now, but he can’t afford to ignore the possibility of a big score. While trying to buy emeralds in Brazil from old friend and jeweler Itzhak Blum, Jake learns that Itzhak’s impressive emerald collection comes from the Borba mine, nestled deep in the Brazilian jungle in the remote locale of Pantanal. Itzhak’s source of information, professor Joaquim Fontes, has vanished, but he offers Jake the man’s address in exchange for a piece of the action if Jake tracks down the mine. However, when Jake arrives at the professor’s home, he finds the man’s wife, Isabella, in despair—she’s convinced her husband has been murdered, and his map to the mine has been stolen. Jake believes it was likely pilfered by Heiner Klimt, a German rival who’s bested Jake for years. However, Brewer has an adventurous inclination toward the implausible, so he makes sure that Jake has a chance encounter with Marisa Fontes, Joaquim’s daughter. She’s not only sure her father is alive, but also just happens to have memorized the stolen map. There remains one major problem—the land where the mine is located is owned by Sen. Alfonso Fonseca, a candidate for the Brazilian presidency.
The first half of this relatively short novel—barely more than 200 pages—is a gripping tale of underworld crime and desperate aspiration; Jake is effectively shown to be willing to risk everything for his big shot at real wealth. His dream is a shallow, materialistic one, but its conflict with Marisa’s emotional longing to find her father seems to open him up to the possibility of new and redemptive depth, which Brewer artfully and sensitively depicts in these pages. Also, the author vividly describes the formidable wetlands of the Brazilian interior, getting across its compelling combination of lush beauty and peril. Indeed, for the most part, this is a torridly paced thriller overflowing with sharply described action. However, the more the plot pivots to a political conspiracy involving Sen. Fonseca and the world of illicit drug trafficking, the more fantastical and unbelievable it becomes. Moreover, the picture of Brazil’s corrupt political scene lacks nuance and reduces it to a bland version of oligarchic corruption: “Only an idiot would vote for the bastard or anybody else in his coalition if they bothered to follow their legislative voting record, but nobody does. Politics don’t work that way here….Elections are won with free T-shirts, free beer, dances, and lots and lots of money.”
An often engaging novel that’s undermined by its turn toward grandiose political machinations.Pub Date: April 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-95-534711-2
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Goldtouch Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Freida McFadden ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 28, 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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by Freida McFadden ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 4, 2025
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
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