A diverting thriller with thoughtful commentary on a timely issue.
A bank-fraud analyst’s life is upended when she takes on a human trafficking ring in Scott’s topical religious thriller.
The boldest thing about Jesse Jonsen, the principal fraud analyst for Minneapolis-based Uncle Sam Bank,isn’t the fact that she wears jeans in the boardroom, but rather the ingenuity of her pitch to use analysis of credit card purchases to locate human traffickers and apprehend them during the upcoming Super Bowl in Minneapolis. When her bureaucratic bosses turn her down, she retreats to her favorite coffee shop, where she first meets Leilani, a young sex worker with an abusive boyfriend. Jesse’s lingering guilt about her past as a prolific shoplifter and purveyor of fake IDs—the latter of which led to a friend’s death—makes her determined to pursue her plan to bring sex traffickers to justice on the nearby campus of North Prairie University. There, groomers force “work-study associates” into sex work at northern Minnesota resorts frequented by police, congressmen, and other powerful people; among those groomers is Jesse’s boss, the senior vice president of operations at Uncle Sam Bank, who frames her for fraud. Scott’s novel opens with the discovery of a dead body in the Mississippi River—a pitch-perfect beginning for any thriller—and keeps the intrigue coming in briskly paced, short chapters that reflect its protagonist’s no-nonsense style; they also highlight her tendency to attract dangerous elements, whether she’s actively looking for pimps or just working at Dairy Queen.Tense action scenes and courtroom intrigue are coupled with Christian messaging that ramps up near the book’s end, focused primarily on the Sermon on the Mount. However, even non-Christian readers will find the novel noteworthy for its realistic, though never graphic, depiction of the dark world of human trafficking; these scenes, the author notes, are largely drawn from his own interviews with a former gang leader, pimp, and drug dealer. Fans of Scott’s previous novels will be treated to a cameo by world-saving IT guy Jerry Barkley, which subtly suggests a fictional thriller-verse.
A diverting thriller with thoughtful commentary on a timely issue.Pub Date: March 4, 2024
ISBN: 9781962168656
Page Count: 423
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 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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