A vivid but messy modern Western that examines the ups and downs of a cowboy.
A modern cowboy tries to save a kidnapped boy in this fourth installment of a Western series.
Summer 2005. Guy Thornton has been a godsend at the J Bar Ranch, south of Winslow, Arizona. Since arriving six years ago, he’s converted the failing ranch from raising cattle to bison, making it a profitable enterprise in the process. He also discovered some centuries-old rock art on the property, which has increased tourist traffic. Even so, Guy has been drinking more of late and fighting with Jane—formerly Rose—the runaway teen he once worked so hard to locate. Excitement arrives at the ranch in the form of Bane, an introverted Native American whom Kate Crawford, Guy’s boss, stabs after he sneaks up on her. The novelty of Bane’s appearance turns into a nightmare when the man kidnaps Kate’s son, Jack. Guy is tasked with bringing the boy home safely, but is he up for the challenge in his current state? The story alternates between 2005 and the mid-1990s, when a younger Guy has just completed his spiritual training with an O’odham woman in the desert. His career as a horse trainer is over, but he’s finding new purpose on the rodeo circuit while pining for a waitress named Sally Delchay and wondering what became of the missing Rose. Kelly’s prose is simple but infused with the atmosphere and logic of the setting: “The first thing Guy did when Lily finally paid him was buy a hat; back in Prescott, he’d helped one of the neighboring ranchers during round-ups, and the old geezer had told him that before starting a new enterprise a man should always invest in good hat.” The lucid narration is shared by several characters—Jane, Kate, Kate’s daughter, Grace—as well as by a more distant narrator. The author has made use of dueling chronologies previously in the series, but these two storylines—the 1990s and 2005—do not coalesce perfectly into a single narrative. Despite this flaw, there are enough of the familiar Western tropes—brooding cowboys, unspoken feelings, old regrets, and desert landscapes—to please fans of the genre.
A vivid but messy modern Western that examines the ups and downs of a cowboy.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 305
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.
A middle-aged woman channels her best Miss Marple when she finds herself facing a nightmare from her past as she seeks to make sense of her present.
Jane Trevally is at a crossroads of sorts. After a traumatic childhood, she sought safety and solace in marriages with wealthy men. Now twice divorced and living with her four dogs in the crumbling English country mansion that is her birthright, she’s feeling the need to do something, to take a job, when one day a runaway dog turns up on her doorstep. The dog is chipped, and with the help of a local vet and her loyal stepson, Dexter Lombardi, Jane traces the dog’s home to the edge of Hampstead Heath, in London—a place that brings back the memory of a terrifying night from her youth, when a handsome man picked her up and took her back to this very house. Everything there felt wrong; she just managed to escape, certain that if she had stayed, she would have died that night. Now, soon after knocking on the door and returning the dog, she discovers that he had run away from an Airbnb near her house, where he had been staying with a young woman who seems to have disappeared. With the help of Dexter; his father, Tony, her second ex-husband; Tony’s former security enforcer, Tobias Wilson; and her own gift for connecting with people, Jane sets out to find the woman, taking her first steps on the path to becoming a private investigator. While Jane serves as the heart of the novel, Jewell also narrates chapters from several other characters’ points of view, all of which chip away at the horror that is the house on the Heath. By slowly revealing past and present simultaneously, Jewell keeps the mystery fresh as she plays with Gothic tropes and the timeless imagery of “a house of horrors” embodying human sin. She doesn’t flinch from exploring the depths of depravity in this house—and its humans.
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.Pub Date: June 23, 2026
ISBN: 9781668033906
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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