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
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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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