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
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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