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
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.
On the isle of Capri, Helen Lingate seeks revenge on the people responsible for her mother’s death 30 years earlier—her own family.
When Sarah Lingate fell to her death on Capri in 1992, she left behind a 3-year-old daughter, Helen, and a legacy as a gifted playwright; her favorite necklace of golden snakes was lost to the sea. Thirty years later, Helen, chafing at the restrictions she’s grown up under as a member of the old-money Lingate family, hatches a plan with her uncle Marcus’ assistant, Lorna Moreno, to blackmail her uncle and her father with that same necklace, which mysteriously entered her possession a few months before. The novel begins on Capri just after Lorna disappears, and then traces her steps from 36 hours earlier. Interweaving chapters from the points of view of Helen, Lorna, and Sarah—as well as, later, a few others—we learn how Sarah gradually became stifled by the constant pressure of keeping up appearances until she became inspired to write a play, Saltwater, that was a not-so-thinly veiled tell-all revealing dark Lingate family secrets. It was shortly after this that she fell to her death. The loss of her mother has come to define Helen’s life, and if she can use the necklace as leverage to escape her family, and maybe learn the truth along the way, she’ll take the risk. Lorna’s motives are both murkier and more straightforward—she’s never had money, and she’s got a chip on her shoulder about it, so splitting 10 million euros with Helen sounds like a way to discard her past and start fresh. These strong, conniving women drive the drama and the narrative, and they are captivating enough that as twist after twist begins to unfurl, the novel still feels character-driven. The end—well, the end shocks. And it’s well earned. By the time the sun sets on the gorgeous excess and rugged coast of Capri, lives will have been destroyed.
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593875551
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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