Familiar eco-angst and Covid dread inspire this well-wrought, melancholy survival tale.
A group fleeing post-apocalyptic chaos travels to a survival bunker on a private island in Bennett’s speculative thriller.
A series of devastating plagues and pandemics over six decades has destroyed most of the functioning society in North America (and, possibly, in the rest of the world). In Cascadia, Washington, a houseful of holdouts and refugees has coalesced around Grant, the son of a successful inventor whose ubiquitous, low-maintenance solar devices allow technology to function despite the loss of infrastructure. The household is not immune to attacks by unfriendly have-nots or from the onslaught of Pan4, the deadliest contagion yet, which is spreading across the land. Fleeing an advancing wildfire (climatological menaces like rising sea levels, superstorms, earthquakes, and tsunamis are omnipresent concerns), the group goes to sea in a small boat and makes for “Avalon,” a rocky private island where Grant had the foresight to maintain “Camelot,” a survival shelter. It proves to be a meager, isolated, and claustrophobic haven for the four characters who take turns narrating: There’s Miriam, whose shadowy background includes a prison stay; Grant’s sister, Pearl, an aging novelist whose ailments are increasing; and resourceful doctor Mike, who finds himself falling slowly into the irreversible “zombie” catatonic state that prefigures the end stage of Pan4. Rather than serving up suspense and survivalist prepper action, this bleak tale deals in the fatalistic drama of slow deprivation, entropy, and regret as supplies diminish and safeguards fail. Readers may be reminded of introspective, worst-case-scenario survival sagas like The Mosquito Coast. The narrative is littered with literary references (particularly to The Wind in the Willows, The Phantom Tollbooth, and the works of Tolkien) and distinguished by the author’s brand of future-speak slang (“Puerto de Luz was high civ enough to have service for Mike’s vid to work, at least ’til the hurricane hit”), which avoids lending a too-heavy SF gloss to the proceedings.
Familiar eco-angst and Covid dread inspire this well-wrought, melancholy survival tale.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 353
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
Another entertaining Aussie cozy for readers of Liane Moriarty—and fans of tough old ladies everywhere.
When her tabloid past comes back to haunt her, an 81-year-old Australian woman gets by with a little help from her friends.
When the neighbor child asks to interview her for a school project, Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick’s first line of defense is to shift little Persephone’s focus to another “old person” in their suburban Melbourne neighborhood, 93-year-old Ishaan Patel. Too late, says Persephone, he’s dead. This surprising information turns out to be true, as when she goes to check, Elsie finds the man sprawled lifeless on his kitchen floor. Her discovery of the body proves to be the first domino in a cascade of unwanted events, as her long-buried identity as Mad Mabel, the youngest convicted killer in Australian history, comes to light and creates a tidal wave of suspicion and media attention. Hepworth’s latest cozy domestic thriller uses the device of a YouTube documentary team determined to get Elsie/Mabel’s side of the story on the record for the first time, presented here in chapters alternating between Now and Then. In the present, cantankerous, sharp-tongued loner Elsie goes from having just one friend, the loyal Daphne Barton, to a web of close connections, including even a previously reviled dog she reluctantly inherits from the late Ishaan. In the past, a landslide of dead bodies and cruel twists of fate emerges to both justify and challenge the Mad Mabel moniker. If some aspects of the premise feel overfamiliar (cranky oldster’s frozen heart thawed by charming child), other elements are less well worn—a lovely pair of lesbians named Cess and Ness in the Then thread, for example. Those quirky suburban Australian neighborhoods just keep popping out the predators, bullies, shocking family secrets, and darkly charming surprises.
Another entertaining Aussie cozy for readers of Liane Moriarty—and fans of tough old ladies everywhere.Pub Date: April 21, 2026
ISBN: 9781250284549
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2026
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