A conflicted investigator successfully follows his conscience in this well-constructed mystery.
In Hadden’s second series thriller, a private investigator risks his new family to help a desperate woman find answers.
P.I. Ike Rossi’s new client is Amelia Garcia, a retired U.S. Air Force drone pilot who now runs a remotely operated deep-water vehicle for Falzone Energy, owned by Ike’s friend Shannon Falzone. Amelia’s hobby is collecting artifacts from the ocean floor, but her latest find, a strongbox emblazoned with a Nazi eagle, quickly puts her in danger. She mentioned it to her Uncle Billy, and soon afterward, he and his wife, Bessie, were found dead. Billy’s contact at the U.S. Department of Justice was killed in a car wreck around the same time. The deaths get the FBI interested in the case, and Ike gets involved as well after a panicked Shannon asks for his help. As it turns out, one of the FBI agents is Mia Russo—Ike’s old flame, whom he considers to be the one who got away. Shannon convinces Ike to fly with her to Kiawah Island, South Carolina, to meet with Amelia. Ike is still seeking answers to his own parents’ murders 23 years ago, but he agrees to help. It soon becomes clear that someone powerful is after whatever’s in the strongbox. With the help of retiree Frank McNally, an ex–World War II codebreaker with his own secrets, Ike and Amelia must solve the mystery before it’s too late. Hadden begins with a novel concept: a dogged and skilled detective who’s unable to solve the biggest mystery of his life. Although Ike makes significant headway on that front this time out, he still ends up with more questions than answers. Most of the colorful characters from Hadden’s first series installment, The Victim of the System (2018), return, but he also develops engaging new characters, including Amelia and tech whiz Dominic Massaro. Ike and Amelia often clash over the direction of their investigation, wasting precious time; their delays also allow those chasing them to close in, making for an effectively suspenseful narrative that proceeds at a brisk pace.
A conflicted investigator successfully follows his conscience in this well-constructed mystery.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Mahogany Row Press
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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