An unpredictable, rowdy thriller that sometimes shines.
A former FBI agent sees it all—conniving lawyers, mistaken identities, police shootouts, car chases, and Hollywood celebrities—in Talib’s second installment of his thriller series.
After rescuing, falling in love with, and marrying movie star Goldie Saint Helen, Iraq veteran and former FBI agent Blake Deco has the perfect life: He spends his days screenwriting and managing his popular restaurant along the beach, and Goldie is up for an exciting part in Far Out, a movie about a 1960s private eye named Gypsy Star. But their Shangri-La implodes when Goldie bonks her head in a bad car accident and develops dissociative amnesia. “Her reality and fantasy have overlapped, and she thinks she’s someone else.” Not just anyone else, in fact, but Gypsy Star. Gypsy is witty and relentless, searching for a missing young woman who might be wrapped up in a CIA plot involving mind-controlling drugs. Blake has his hands full as he attempts to play along with his wife’s feisty new persona as she makes enemies and friends and earns more than a few odd looks. If that wasn’t enough, Goldie’s lawyers are scheming to get the confused star put away for good—and steal her millions while they’re at it. Much of the novel is a clever, quirky drama filled with silly misunderstandings and situational comedy (and a whole lot of ’60s slang). The last quarter is a generic thriller in which the reader sees much less of Goldie (and Gypsy) and much more of Blake and his veteran pals getting into all sorts of action-packed shenanigans. It’s easy to see that author Talib enjoys writing action; the car chases, shootouts, and other thriller staples move seamlessly from page to page. However, it is Goldie—or rather Gypsy—who is the heart of the story, bringing hilarity and light through a creative premise. The smart, quick-paced plot works well, but much of the cast is unlikable. Also, Mexican characters often appear as racist stereotypes. Overall, Talib’s second Blake Deco outing is fun and inventive, but many of the players need makeovers.
An unpredictable, rowdy thriller that sometimes shines.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2024
ISBN: 978-1955062923
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Running Wild Press
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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