A satisfying offering for fans of this romantic series.
A lawyer and her FBI handler struggle to evade a serial killer in this installment of Anderson’s Cold Justice romantic thriller series.
Assistant District Attorney Hope Harper was not always a prosecutor. Earlier in her career, she was a Boston defense attorney on the rise, already on the verge of making partner at a prestigious law firm before the age of 30—then her world came apart. After she successfully defended accused serial killer Julius Leech, the man repaid her by murdering her husband and daughter. In the seven years since, Hope has dedicated herself to making sure violent men go to jail for as long as the law allows. When Julius manages to escape from prison during a winter storm, exacting revenge on Hope—whom he blames for his incarceration—is the first thing on his mind. Aaron Nash of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team is tasked with keeping Hope safe until Julius is apprehended, a job that Hope makes infinitely more difficult by refusing to go into hiding. She’d rather help catch Julius: “Putting him back in prison for the rest of his miserable life would be my absolute pleasure,” she tells Aaron upon meeting him, “but it doesn’t mean I need protection.” With Aaron bunking in Hope’s apartment, the two spend a lot of time together, and their initial bickering soon leads to grudging respect and eventually something more. For the first time in seven years, Hope is finally making some good memories. But will the monomaniacal Julius, already adding substantially to his body count, find a way to cut them short? Anderson has a talent for capturing the way people move around one another, as during this early dance between Hope and Aaron: “Their gazes collided as their fingertips brushed. Her pupils widened and his breath locked in his chest. He stepped away. Moved to the window to ease the blind aside and check the street outside.” The suspense elements are as taut as the sexual tension, with many welcome twists along the way.
A satisfying offering for fans of this romantic series.Pub Date: May 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781990721663
Page Count: 436
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
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