If only the clever ending were worth the trouble it takes to get there.
On his deathbed, a famous mystery novelist invites a knowledgeable fan to come write his life story.
After a long career of bestsellers, Sebastian Trapp hasn't produced a book in decades, since his wife and son disappeared under mysterious circumstance following a New Year's Eve party. Twenty years later, with three months to live, he has one tale left to tell: the story of his life, which may or may not include answers to the questions surrounding the disappearances—for which many believe he is responsible. Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction and a longtime correspondent of Trapp's, is his appointed amanuensis; she takes on the task with relish only slightly diluted by concern for her own longevity. Trapp's current San Francisco household consists of his erstwhile assistant and now second wife, Diana; his adult daughter, Madeleine (a failure-to-launch whose point of view alternates with Nicky's); and the latest edition of a French bulldog named Watson, whose many taxidermic predecessors are lined up in Nicky's assigned bedroom. There's also Sebastian's brutish nephew, his British buddy, his widowed mother (his brother also died mysteriously around the same time as the other two), a couple of colorful cops, and a corpse in the koi pond that is revealed on page 1 but not found until halfway through, clearly intended to goose the page-turning. If you enjoyed Woman in the Window (2018), be warned that this novel is its opposite. While the debut had truly breathtaking forward momentum but a somewhat ludicrous solution, this time we have an unbelievably leisurely build during which we pursue patent red herrings, read a lot about the weather and geography of San Francisco, and are hopefully impressed by quotes and references to Christie, Chandler, Hammett, etc. "The past isn't gone: It's just waiting," a catchphrase of Trapp's, is certainly the case. Unfortunately it waits too long.
If only the clever ending were worth the trouble it takes to get there.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780062678454
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2024
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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