An unfocused story that’s hampered, in part, by its portrayals of female characters.
A dentist invents a device that revolutionizes espionage, which leads to the discovery of a plot to destabilize America’s economy.
Reggie Nelson is a man of many talents. He has a history of athletic prowess, got his pilot’s license at age 16, plays piano, attended Dartmouth College, and has a track record of incredible popularity with women. Now in his mid-50s, he’s a successful dentist in a loving 20-year marriage to Becky Wright, a vice president of a major insurance brokerage house. When Reggie decides to take up karate (again), he becomes close friends with instructor Ashonte’, who used to be a CIA Black Ops agent. Reggie tells Ashonte’ about his high-tech idea that could change spycraft: a micro transmitter secretly placed in a target’s dental filling. Ash brings the idea to his CIA contact, Lance Wood, and soon Project Loudmouth is underway. In his new Dubai clinic, Reggie implants transmitters into the teeth of Saudi Arabian oil moguls whom the CIA suspect of terrorism. Soon, the bugs pick up a plot to destroy the American economy. Author Nelson, who shares a name with his main character, presents a novel about patriotic men eager to serve their country. However, much of the book feels more like a list of actions and activities than a novel with immersive scenes. Frequent tangents about hotels, geography, oil, and characters' backstories make the pace drag. Also, narrator Reggie goes on vitriolic rants about his ex-wife, whom he characterizes as a sexually withholding pathological liar, and a female divorce-court judge: “The courts are not places for men when they are up against women in a dispute!” he says. Other women in the story, including Becky, seem to exist only to validate their spouses and serve as objects of male lust, and a major Arab character has a connection to terrorism. Readers may be amused at the various pop culture references, including a reenactment of a combat scene from the film Raiders of the Lost Ark. However, this doesn’t make up for the book’s problematic elements.
An unfocused story that’s hampered, in part, by its portrayals of female characters.Pub Date: June 30, 2021
ISBN: 9781647538521
Page Count: 302
Publisher: Urlink Print & Media, LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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