This auspicious tale’s intriguing hero has the potential to shake up the techno-thriller genre.
In this novel, the daughter of a super-spy joins the Outfit, an elite clandestine organization, but it may not be a perfect fit.
Three months after leaving Princeton before completing her master’s degree in neuroscience, Alicia Yoder is immersed in training to be an agent in the Outfit, following in the footsteps of her adoptive father, Levi. He had rescued Alicia and her sisters from the streets and placed them with Grandma Yoder in a Philadelphia Amish farming community. She is at once plagued by self-doubts about her performance and haunted by a violent incident of which she has no memory. She is shocked to learn that she killed one of two intruders one night, an incident that the Outfit covered up: “If what she had seen of the Outfit was any indication, they were capable of far more than she had ever imagined.” She will find out just how much more when she is sent on a training mission with a senior agent to Taiwan. The assignment is to find out what is hidden at a secretive facility called New Arcadia and why the Chinese would risk destabilizing relations with America and starting World War III to obtain it. From The Manchurian Candidate–style memory implantation and cool mission names like Dragon’s Breath Protocol to self-destructing briefcases, this story skillfully evokes 007 and the Mission: Impossible franchise. Alicia makes a memorable first impression (she bests her fellow agents in a challenge involving a WALL-E–type robot), and between her abilities and self-doubts, she engenders a strong rooting interest. Her memory lapse is something of a nonstarter in the context of this tale (The protagonist was introduced in Rothman's 2022 book, Multiverse, which is excerpted at the end of this work, along with a preview of the next Alicia Yoder novel, Operation Thrall). And the writing could be sharper (the phrase “the world grew dark” is used twice to diminishing effect). But this Crichton-esque techno-thriller efficiently blends international intrigue and spy action with science elements.
This auspicious tale’s intriguing hero has the potential to shake up the techno-thriller genre.Pub Date: June 20, 2023
ISBN: 978-1960244161
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Primordial Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2023
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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