This shrewd exploration of a killer’s mindset will unnerve and enthrall readers.
A serial killer cozies up to another murderer who’s been making headlines in this psychological thriller.
Former combat medic Max Mason now works as a nurse at the Carlson Brain Injury & Rehabilitation Center in New Hampshire. He’s also a serial killer, or so he confides to comatose patient Lincoln Douglas Raider. Lincoln’s injury was a simple fall while cleaning the gutters at his house. But his identity is a lot more complicated, as many people now believe he’s the media-dubbed “Huntsman” who has killed several women. Aside from the first victim, each woman has vanished, with her heart and an apple later turning up at her front door. Max becomes obsessed with talking to Lincoln about the psychopathic inclinations they presumably share. He likewise befriends Lincoln’s wife, Jolene, who asks Max for help with her recovering husband when he finally awakens. This gives Max the chance to learn all he can about Lincoln and his twisted mentality at the couple’s farm. But notwithstanding his recurrent nightmares of hurting someone, Lincoln doesn’t apparently remember certain events before his coma. Moreover, his love for Jolene and their newborn daughter looks genuine—hardly the behavior of a killer lacking empathy. As the evidence against Lincoln is circumstantial (he has a vague tie to each victim), Max can’t help but entertain the idea that this man isn’t a murderer. Getting closer to Lincoln could get him answers, but it’s sure to be precarious, as this supposed serial killer’s mind may be unraveling.
Sanders shrouds this mystery in ambiguity, a haziness that clears up as the story progresses. Max, for example, who says little about what he’s done as a serial killer, has a specific agenda in getting next to Lincoln. In addition, “The Captive,” an unnamed woman who’s the Huntsman’s seventh and latest victim, provides an intermittent narrative perspective. It’s not easy to sympathize with the cast members, including Max, until their personalities take shape much later in the novel. But the few supporting characters shine—the Martins, Lincoln’s neighbors who believe in the man’s innocence, and Det. Darby Albright, Max’s sister, whose first murder case as a rookie cop was one of the Huntsman’s unfortunate victims. Despite allusions to serial murders and even Max’s efforts to jog Lincoln’s memory of the brutal deaths, Sanders’ novel is only moderately graphic and instead is heavy on suspense. Uncertainty over what Lincoln may or may not have done makes him all the more frightening; readers are either getting a close-up of a psychopath or no clues to who or where the real killer is. The author churns out unforgettable, sometimes scary moments, such as Max literally getting stuck in a muddy cornfield: “I attempt to stand, and my feet sink deeper. Cold spring water pools and trickles down my legs, filling my shoes and adding to my weight. I’m up to my waist in mud and freezing.” The inevitable twists in the latter half, even if largely predictable, deliver a memorable and convincing final act, with an especially strong last scene.
This shrewd exploration of a killer’s mindset will unnerve and enthrall readers.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 321
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.
Following the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a struggling London novelist journeys to a remote Scottish island to try to get his mojo back—but all, of course, is not what it seems.
Grady Green hits the pinnacle of his publishing career on the same night that his life goes off the rails—first his book lands on the New York Times bestseller list, and then his wife, Abby, goes missing on her way home. A year later, Grady is a mere shadow of his former self: out of money and out of ideas. So, when his agent, Abby’s godmother, suggests that he spend some time on the Isle of Amberly, in a log cabin left to her by one of her writers, it seems as good a plan as any. With free housing for himself and his dog and a beautiful, distraction-free environment, maybe he can finally complete the next novel. But from the very beginning, Grady’s experiences with Amberly seem weird, if not downright ominous: As a visitor, he’s not allowed to bring his car onto the island; the local businesses are only open for a few hours at a time; and there are no birds. At all. Not to mention the skeletal hand he finds buried under the floorboards of the cabin, the creepy harmonica music in the woods, and the occasional sighting of a woman in a red coat who’s a dead ringer for Abby. As Grady falls deeper and deeper into insomnia and alcoholism, he begins to realize his being on the island is no accident—and that should make him very afraid. Through occasional chapters from before Abby’s disappearance, told from her point of view, we learn that Grady is not necessarily a reliable narrator, and the book’s slow unfolding of dread, mystery, and then truth is both creative and well-paced. Every chapter heading is an oxymoron, like the title, reminding us of the contradictions at the heart of every story.
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781250337788
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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