An absorbing thriller that will keep readers guessing.
A bad morning turns fatal when a car crash kills a congressional candidate’s wife in Bridges’ thriller.
Daniel Morrison is a man at rock bottom dealing with a terrible job, divorce, and drug addiction. He’s late for work after another fight with his soon to be ex-wife Judy when he gets a call from his bully of a boss. The pressure is too much—he takes a pill while speeding down the road and crashes into a car driven by Claudia Grant. She is also speeding, talking on the phone with her lover; her marriage to congressional candidate Hayden Grant has hit a dead end. When the car crash results in her death, Hayden offers a million-dollar bounty to anyone who can find the responsible party. Daniel first makes his way to his sister Jessica and brother-in-law Ron’s house, where Ron hears of the bounty and tries to turn Daniel in. A violent and chaotic turn of events sends Daniel on the move again. Tracking him down is Detective Roya Navarro, who lives in the shadow of a scandal in which she agreed to a televised interview that ended in her slapping the reporter after he asked about her abusive ex. Now that same reporter, Gary Grey, is also on the case, dedicated to getting the story on Daniel before anyone else. Bridges uses brevity in his prose to emphasize the exhilarating events: “The passenger door is ripped open. Daniel holds onto the frame and his foot drags in the road. Panic sticks in his throat. He blurts out one word. ‘Drive.’” Bridge’s thriller is a fast-paced, action-packed story with a cast of memorable characters. Daniel is a complex protagonist, not entirely likable but always relatable. Detective Navarro drives the narrative forward with her intelligent decisions and grounded character. Both characters pick up an additional person who helps them along their journeys, adding parallel narratives to the cat-and-mouse chase. The ending surprises while tying up all the threads of the story in a satisfying manner.
An absorbing thriller that will keep readers guessing.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9781509258444
Page Count: 262
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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
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