Passion, art, assassins… Mahdavi’s tale has something for everyone.
Two teens meet in a Viennese museum, reconnect years later, and share a secret on-again, off-again love affair in Mahdavi’s intercontinental thriller.
The novel opens with a bullet fired from a sniper’s gun, then flashes back several decades: In 1960s Austria, precocious 13-year-old Rachel leaves her school group at the Vienna Kunsthistorisches museum to talk to 18-year-old Cyrus about a painting. Cyrus, a surrealistic painter, is a student of the world. Although his parents are American, he was born in Mexico, raised in Spain, and schooled in Austria. Rachel and Cyrus run into each other years later in New York. They become secret lovers, parted by her arranged marriage in Vienna. Later still, after Cyrus moves to Paris, she comes into the bar where he works when not painting. They resume their relationship, but Cyrus questions things she says, as she can “weave the real and the lies into a choking yet smooth reality.” But there are questions about Cyrus, too. His boss calls him a nowhere man, saying, “Like quicksilver, you can’t be pinned down. How many passports you got anyway?” In a world of international intrigue, expert assassins, and moving targets, better questions might be: Who is the killer, and who is the victim? Rachel’s secrets come home to roost in a haunting, violent ending that provides the answers. The author’s prose can be lyrical, as when Cyrus says of the time he spent with Rachel in New York, “All my other times of sadness after that year were measured against the happiness of that year.” Descriptions of paintings, a signature perfume, and the like are sensual. The narrative’s pacing works well at the start and end of the book but tends to drag in the second half, as conversation overtakes the action. Mahdavi’s experience as an artist living in Europe who holds several passports adds authenticity to the characters and settings.
Passion, art, assassins… Mahdavi’s tale has something for everyone.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 303
Publisher: Kindle Direct Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2023
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
© 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.
