Entertaining escapism with old school military heroics.
A Delta Force team leader gets unexpected help on an off-the-books mission from a feral dog.
Wilson’s ambitious debut novel blends two popular genres that would seem to be at odds: the last mission adventure and the man and his dog story. Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris might kick themselves that Jackson Wade hadn’t been created for them in their 1980s action movie heyday. A “living legend” as a college wrestler who later hardened his skills in Bangkok mixed martial arts cage matches, Wade forged a new patriotic path by enlisting in the Army following the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan. As a Delta Force golden boy, he became “the king of getting results” while developing a badass reputation (when a psychiatrist asks how he sleeps after killing a man, Wade responds, “On my right side”). Is he a rule bender? “Sometimes…if it means accomplishing our mission,” he proclaims. Rule-breaking is what it will take when he and his Team Echo colleagues are recruited for a mission to take out a Taliban cell along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. By the time he is told confidentially, “You won’t like this operation, but the brass wants it done,” readers will be all in, especially when he develops a seemingly psychic bond and life-changing friendship with a de Kochyano spay, which translates to “dog of the nomads.” Wilson, a retired Air Force brigadier general, deftly brings his military knowledge and experience to bear in this series opener. He has a vivid sense of place, from a Bangkok backwater warehouse where fight crowds “smoked Marlboro cigarettes, guzzled Singha beer, and popped yaa baa, a mixture of methamphetamine and caffeine,” to a Taliban village complex in Pakistan. He writes great action set pieces and has a good ear for military banter. A glossary of military acronyms would have been helpful, but that’s what Google is for.
Entertaining escapism with old school military heroics.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2020
ISBN: 979-8-6052-0414-5
Page Count: 438
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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