The benefits of this briskly entertaining, if sometimes-familiar, debut outweigh the risks.
In Essay’s courtroom drama, an attorney whose career is on the rise faces off against a powerful pharmaceutical company.
Claire Hewitt is a new partner at the Philadelphia law firm of Blackman & Bradford, and she’s been made first chair in a case that could make or break her career. Wealthy Clifford and Margo Satori are accusing Novo Analgesic Systems, one of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical companies, of medical negligence in the opioid death of their teenage daughter, Emma. The case is personal for Claire, who’s still haunted by the opioid death of her beloved younger sister. The Satoris want vengeance, and so does Claire: “A new revenge,” she declares. “A revenge called justice.” She’s paired with Alec Marshall, “the firm’s prodigy,” and harbors insecurities that any setbacks in the case will be blamed on “a female partner who’s not quite ready to run with the big boys.” However, she impressively takes on a formidable array of courtroom combatants, including the company’s in-house counsel, its slippery CEO, and a team of doctors with varying degrees of fidelity to the Hippocratic oath—as well as an obstinate judge. Readers won’t find very much that’s new in this thriller’s depiction of the devastation wrought by opioids and Big Pharma, which, in recent years, has become a ubiquitous villain in fiction. As such, revelations of corruption, conspiracy, and murder are unsurprising developments, although there’s no denying that the prescription drug industry remains a potent adversary. Fans of the courtroom-drama genre will even recognize an exchange from A Few Good Men (“Are we clear?” “Crystal”). However, Essay knows her way around this material and has clearly done her research on aspects of the opioid epidemic. Also, Claire and Alec make a good team, and readers will likely want to see them take on more cases.
The benefits of this briskly entertaining, if sometimes-familiar, debut outweigh the risks.Pub Date: July 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781647427047
Page Count: 352
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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