Electrifying characters elevate this well-crafted detective tale.
This thriller finds a Brooklyn private investigator facing a vicious gangster and a dubious Russian boxer.
It hasn’t been easy for Det. Gina Marie Cototi to keep up with her hefty caseload, primarily consisting of insurance fraud. But her troubles only surge when someone steals her 1963 Corvette Stingray, a mint-condition classic that’s been in her family for 60 years. In trying to get her car back, she mingles with criminals and unavoidably incites the wrath of mobster Luca Mura. Meanwhile, an insurance case leads her to boxer Vlad Rzhevsky. The Russian seems to take a liking to Gina, and while he may prove an ally in dealing with Mura, he has his hands in such criminal endeavors as illegal steroid distribution. Gina’s encounters with Mura unsurprisingly turn dire. Luckily, she has others on her side who are much more reliable than Rzhevsky, from her older sister/roommate, Theresa, to former parole officer and potential romantic interest Rocco Benelli. Kelter delivers some terrific set pieces, including one of Rzhevsky’s boxing matches and a “hoity-toity” Japanese restaurant where something illicit is going down. An often vibrant cast complements these backdrops—the entertainingly unpredictable boxer, Gina’s not-so-legitimate businessman cousin, and her unabashedly promiscuous sister (“She projected the kind of heat that made guys walk face-first into walls. Father John at the local parish once offered to leave the church for her”). Gina herself is a well-drawn protagonist, a gumshoe who endures men’s groping hands and condescending terms of endearment (including sweetie). But in this series opener, readers see very little of the sleuth’s investigative skills, as there’s no real mystery or much evidence to dig into. She’s nevertheless capable and holds her own in confrontations, with the novel’s latter half yielding some perilous situations. The book likewise has a few shocks, especially regarding one character, who provides an effective teaser for the sequel.
Electrifying characters elevate this well-crafted detective tale.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2024
ISBN: 9781685133528
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
