A propulsive plot and engaging characters help make up for some awkward writing.
Buchanan’s third Sean McPherson novel again pits Sean “Mick” McPherson and the forces of good against the archvillain Georgio “The Bull” Gambino and his lethal henchmen.
This thriller begins when a hired valet is killed by a car bomb at Mick and Emma Benton’s wedding at the Pines & Quill retreat in the picturesque village of Fairhaven, not far from Bellingham Bay in Washington state. The backstory for the murder involves many killings—all orchestrated by the vengeful Gambino—including more than one attempt to kill Mick and Emma. The star of this particular show is Gambino’s protégé, Toni Bianco, a stone cold killer passing as a Bellingham police officer—not the only Gambino mole in the BPD. (Gambino’s soldiers are everywhere and can be identified by the “Family First” tattoo on their lower backs.) More violence ensues, in Bellingham, San Francisco, and New Orleans. After much violence and death and a bang-up conclusion, the good guys come out on top, but barely. The kicker, though, is that Georgio is still out there, untouched and plotting (of course, there is yet another sequel, Iniquity, in the works). All the backstory this requires isn’t always gracefully interwoven. What’s more distracting, however, is that as the plot unfolds, characters recount details that they—and readers—already know well from earlier parts of the book (“including Kevin Pearce, the valet who died in the explosion when he moved Mick and Emma’s Jeep at the wedding”). This kind of needless repetition happens more than once, and it feels not just odd, but oddly scripted. The characters’ speech can also seem unnatural: They speak not of “Gambino” but of “Georgio ‘The Bull’ Gambino,” as if respecting trademark law. That said, there are many engaging characters. Mick’s brother-in-law is a superb chef who prepares tantalizing dishes. Except for the occasional murder, the Pines & Quill seems a real Eden, lovingly described as such. And if Gambino is a ruthless antagonist, Buchanan lightens the plot with appealing palate cleansers such as a canine romance.
A propulsive plot and engaging characters help make up for some awkward writing.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-68463-194-0
Page Count: 312
Publisher: SparkPress
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2022
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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