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AFTER

A profoundly moving read that will stay with thriller aficionados long after they finish the novel.

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

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  • Kirkus Reviews'
    Best Books Of 2024

Ashby’s latest is a page-turning supernatural thriller that explores humankind’s oldest question: “Is there life after death?”

Afflicted with terminal cancer, billionaire Mark Long has been told he has mere months to live. Fixated on what comes after (if anything), he anonymously offers a $5 billion prize to anyone who can prove to Long’s satisfaction that there is some kind of life after death. Requiring applicants to first deposit a $25,000 bond in a trust account, the contest is quickly whittled down to three finalists. Professor Megan Finlay, chair of the Holmes Parapsychology Institute at the University of Edinburgh, is close to a breakthrough. She specializes in near-death experiences—what she calls “transcendence of spatio-temporal boundaries”—and winning Long’s multibillion-dollar prize is a necessity. The funding for the financially troubled institute ends in a matter of months. If the institute closes, Finlay’s entire life’s work will be all but forgotten. Another finalist is Aidan McKnight, former Navy SEAL and head of Acheron Capital Partners, who is addicted to challenges. When he hears about Long’s contest, his assistants find Hundra Benteen, a Montana-based “sensitive” (don’t call her a medium) who—in an industry filled with scammers, frauds, and charlatans—just may be the real thing. When McKnight meets Benteen, she turns his world upside down by knowing intimate information about his father, a SEAL who disappeared and was believed to have been killed during a botched 1983 mission in Grenada. Can Benteen communicate with the spirit of McKnight’s father and pass along any critical information? The last finalist, the Swiss National Institute for Paranormal Studies, doesn’t exist and is a front for Maxim Azimov, the world’s most notorious cybercriminal and mastermind of AI Deepfake technology. As Long’s battle with cancer draws to its inevitable end, Azimov plots to permanently eliminate each of his competitors.

Many narrative elements are worthy of note here. The character dynamism is exceptional. Even secondary characters, like Finlay’s assistant, Dougal Brown, are meticulously portrayed, three-dimensional, and emotionally compelling. The multiple storylines—which largely follow the three competitors and their respective quests—are continually intertwining, which keeps the momentum brisk. Additionally, bombshell plot twists will rivet readers until the very last page. The supernatural element gives the novel its fitting dark atmospherics: “It sprang, a crushing weight that crumpled the chair under him, driving the remaining breath from his lungs. As he looked into the fiery eyes and the glinting canine fangs, he knew it was the end. He tried to recite a prayer but volition had been sucked out of him. Strangely, as he plunged into unconsciousness, it seemed as if the creature was somehow melding with him, body to body, soul to soul.” But it’s the deep, esoteric examination of life after death from multiple perspectives—reincarnation, karmic retribution, tormented spirits seeking peace, reconnecting with loved ones who have passed, etc.—that make this such a memorable thriller.

A profoundly moving read that will stay with thriller aficionados long after they finish the novel.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2024

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WARD D

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

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THE CRASH

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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