Secrets and lies collide in this sinisterly effective thriller.
A young woman gets more than she bargained for as she strives to unravel her father’s past in Adams’ novel.
The implosion of lives built around carefully kept secrets is one of popular fiction’s most enduring story arcs; that’s the psychological terrain Sofia Ryan finds herself occupying after her father, Aidan Ryan, suddenly vanishes, leaving wads of cash and a stern missive (“I have a new life now and must never see you again”) that sheds no further light on his rationale for making such a move. Fearing that her father has met with foul play, Sofia discovers otherwise after combing through a box of his personal items. She soon realizes that nothing about her father’s backstory as she knows it is genuine, prompting an international trek from Boston to Northern Ireland and Rome in search of answers. At the core of the riddle of Aidan’s past is the Brotherhood, a shadowy religious order (“The stories of their heroic deeds characterize them as a kind of Irish Knights Templar”) with whom Sofia’s father is intimately intertwined for reasons that are murky, at first. If the unexamined life is not worth living, Sofia—finding herself at a harrowing crossroads—comes to realize that an overly interrogated one can be downright murderous. The narrative is founded upon a conceit that built the brands of artists like Dashiell Hammett and Alfred Hitchcock, one that could easily go awry in less adept hands. Happily, that’s an outcome that Adams’ novel deftly avoids by virtue of its no-nonsense pacing and tight plotting—a particularly impressive feat, considering the story skips decades and is liberally sprinkled with flashback fairy dust. Getting the details right, as the author has done, goes a long way toward ensuring an enthralling read. This hair-raising roller-coaster thrill ride may leave readers questioning their own personal narratives.
Secrets and lies collide in this sinisterly effective thriller.Pub Date: April 4, 2025
ISBN: 9798885281256
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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