Another fast-paced, pleasing thriller from a master of romantic suspense.
An FBI agent is on the hunt for a serial killer who leaves Valentine candy hearts at the scene of each crime.
Laurel Snow is the youngest FBI profiler in the agency’s history. After she quickly solves two difficult, high-profile cases, the FBI allows her to set up her Pacific Northwest field office in the small Genesis Valley area rather than nearby Seattle. Laurel and her colleagues are still managing the prosecution of a previous murder suspect when a shocking new crime scene is discovered: Her office manager’s ex-husband is found in a purple tent with multiple stab wounds and a mouthful of candy hearts. As more dead bodies appear in the same gruesome state, Laurel realizes another common factor is that all of the bodies were discovered near local churches. Complicating her investigation is her menacing and likely psychotic half sister, Abigail, who might be using her background in psychology to meddle with Laurel’s witnesses and influence the outcome of the investigation. When rumors start to circulate that Laurel and Abigail’s father, an evil ex-pastor named Zeke Caine, is returning to town, Laurel braces herself to meet him for the first time. Instead, Laurel’s investigation turns personal when he becomes the next victim of the “Broken Heart Killer.” Zanetti’s third book in the Laurel Snow series is a continuation of previous books and is chock-full of returning characters, including Laurel’s love interest, Capt. Huck Rivers, an agent with the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife. Although technically a stand-alone novel, the continuation of plotlines from previous books combined with juicy hints about future cases will leave readers clamoring for more. Laurel’s search for the killer is the major driver of the book, while her mellow, easy romance with Huck is firmly relegated to subplot status.
Another fast-paced, pleasing thriller from a master of romantic suspense.Pub Date: July 25, 2023
ISBN: 9781420154368
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Zebra/Kensington
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
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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