An impressive, wonderfully detailed legal thriller showing the best and worst of humanity.
An administrative law judge finds himself both in love and in mortal danger in this debut mystery.
Judge Jason Erickson loves his work enforcing Environmental Protection Agency laws even if it is often a strenuous, uphill battle. Big money has tremendous influence in Wisconsin, and the political power structure is stacked against him. And he is slowly falling in love with Tara Highsmith, a science reporter who often attends his hearings. Tara tries to save her marriage, but her cheating husband wants out, clearing the way for her and Jason to plan a future. Meanwhile, there is a crucial case involving lakefront condominiums (“slipominiums”) backed by the sketchy Tommy Calandro. The attorney pleading the case for a permit is a hotshot lawyer named Earl Franks whose reckless lifestyle has made him beholden to Calandro. Bribes are dangled; threats are made. Jason records some of these exchanges. In the pivotal point in the book, Jason—about to take his findings to the police—is shot down in the street, as is Tara. The rest of the story focuses on a courtroom drama leading up to a startling conclusion. Boldt is a retired administrative law judge and passionate about justice and the environment, and this shows on every page of this remarkable novel. It’s no surprise that the courtroom scenes are so well handled. Jason is a finely drawn and thoughtful character, as is Tara. Their falling in love is delightfully paced. These are idealistic and wary people who make their own slow magic. The author even manages to make Earl a borderline sympathetic, or at least understandable, character. There is humor even in the worst of times, as when Earl tries to kill himself but finally realizes that his hybrid Lexus will not consistently spew enough carbon monoxide to do the deed. At some points, Boldt displays a wry wit: Jason “felt righteously indignant that he couldn’t even feel righteously indignant.” And the author’s vivid descriptions of the Wisconsin countryside will make readers put the Dairy State on their bucket lists.
An impressive, wonderfully detailed legal thriller showing the best and worst of humanity.Pub Date: March 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63299-516-2
Page Count: 312
Publisher: River Grove Books
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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