A riveting story with compelling characters—catnip for thriller fans.
A stolen religious relic drives the action in Kelly’s globe-trotting thriller.
Biblical archaeologist Maggie Shepherd leads a team in Bari, Italy, to extract a religious icon depicting St. Nicholas that the pope hopes to give to the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Moscow. But the relic is purloined after its extraction by a man named Malachi Popov for the Russian mob, and soon after that, it’s stolen again. This leads to the unlikely pairing of Shepherd and Popov, who, after some soul-searching and observing what he believes to be the power of the relic, is determined to set things right. The story takes them to Moscow, the Vatican, and elsewhere around Italy as they work to unravel the secrets of the relic itself, determine who took it (and why), and whether it will be found in time for the pope’s visit to Moscow. Along the way, Shepherd and Popov must contend with the highest echelons of the Catholic Church and Russian mob to recover the relic while coming to terms with their own personal and religious issues. (Shepherd believes their partnership is preordained, as readers learn when Popov disappears and she searches for him: “She believed God had brought the two of them together to find answers, and they needed one another to finish their work.”) The text extends to more than 400 pages, but the narrative moves swiftly, a testament to Kelly’s storytelling abilities. The author excels at creating compelling personalities, not only for the main characters such as Shepherd and Popov, but also for the colorful supporting characters—no one seems superfluous. The standout is Shepherd, who is flawed, fascinating, and ultimately heroic; she is certainly worthy of further literary adventures. Reminiscent of Dan Brown’s work but with a tone and momentum all its own, Kelly’s yarn will delight thriller fans looking for an exciting read.
A riveting story with compelling characters—catnip for thriller fans.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781637632550
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Forefront Books
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.
Hung out to dry by the elders who betrayed them, a squad of pregnant teens fights back with old magic.
Hendrix has a flair for applying inventive hooks to horror, and this book has a good one, chock-full with shades of V.C. Andrews, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Foxfire, to name a few. Our narrator, Neva Craven, is 15 and pregnant, a fate worse than death in the American South circa 1970. She’s taken by force to Wellwood House in Florida, a secretive home for unwed mothers where she’s given the name Fern. She’ll have the baby secretly and give it up for adoption, whether she likes it or not. Under the thumb of the house’s cruel mistress, Miss Wellwood, and complicit Dr. Vincent, Neva forges cautious alliance with her fellow captives—a new friend, Zinnia; budding revolutionary Rose; and young Holly, raped and impregnated by the very family minister slated to adopt her child. All seems lost until the arrival of a mysterious bookmobile and its librarian, Miss Parcae, who gives the girls an actual book of spells titled How To Be a Groovy Witch. There’s glee in seeing the powerless granted some well-deserved payback, but Hendrix never forgets his sweet spot, lacing the story with body horror and unspeakable cruelties that threaten to overwhelm every little victory. In truth, it’s not the paranormal elements that make this blast from the past so terrifying—although one character evolves into a suitably scary antagonist near the end—but the unspeakable, everyday atrocities leveled at children like these. As the girls lose their babies one by one, they soon devote themselves to secreting away Holly and her child. They get some help late in the game but for the most part they’re on their own, trapped between forces of darkness and society’s merciless judgement.
A pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780593548981
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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