Ambitious, absorbing, and deeply satisfying.
Boady Sanden, former director of the Innocence Project, is persuaded to reopen a case that was closed four years ago. And the clock is ticking.
Ruth Matthews is convinced both that her brother, Elijah, is a prophet who talks with God and that he didn’t kill Jalen Bale, the pastor bashed to death while Elijah was a janitor at the Church of the New Hope, even though he's been locked in a mental hospital since having been found not guilty by reason of insanity. The evidence against Elijah was overwhelming, but the real reason Boady doesn’t want the job is that Elijah’s attorney was Ben Pruitt, Boady’s law partner and best friend, who killed his wife, nearly got away with it, and then, when Boady confronted him with proof of his guilt, committed suicide by cop in Boady’s study as his partner looked on. The good news is that Boady almost immediately starts to find holes in the case against Elijah, who’s more interested in oracular prophecies than answering simple questions. The bad news is that Emma Pruitt, the daughter Boady and his wife, Dee, took in as a ward four years ago without telling her how her father died, has been turned against them by her wealthy, rapacious aunt, Anna Adler, who’s filed papers to replace their guardianship of Emma with her own. Now Boady has two impossible tasks—vindicating Elijah before the hearing that will permit his doctor to scramble his brain with electroconvulsive therapy and persuading Emma to return to his family—and that second one cuts agonizingly close to the bone. Somehow he manages to collect more and more information that exonerates Elijah and throws suspicion elsewhere. But will he be able to rise above his own bias for seeing every conflict in legal terms and convince Emma that he loves her like a father?
Ambitious, absorbing, and deeply satisfying.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780316566353
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.
A woman fears she made a fatal mistake by taking in a blood-soaked tween during a storm.
High winds and torrential rain are forecast for “The Middle of Nowhere, New Hampshire,” making Casey question the structural integrity of her ramshackle rental cabin. Still, she’s loath to seek shelter with her lecherous landlord or her paternalistic neighbor, so instead she just crosses her fingers, gathers some candles, and hopes for the best. Casey is cooking dinner when she notices a light in her shed. She grabs her gun and investigates, only to find a rail-thin girl hiding in the corner under a blanket. She’s clutching a knife with “Eleanor” written on the handle in black marker, and though her clothes are bloody, she appears uninjured. The weather is rapidly worsening, so before she can second-guess herself, former Boston-area teacher Casey invites the girl—whom she judges to be 12 or 13—inside to eat and get warm. A wary but starving Eleanor accepts in exchange for Casey promising not to call the police—a deal Casey comes to regret after the phones go down, the power goes out, and her hostile, sullen guest drops something that’s a big surprise. Meanwhile, in interspersed chapters labeled “Before,” middle-schooler Ella befriends fellow outcast Anton, who helps her endure life in Medford, Massachusetts, with her abusive, neglectful hoarder of a mother. As per her usual, McFadden lulls readers using a seemingly straightforward thriller setup before launching headlong into a series of progressively seismic (and increasingly bonkers) plot twists. The visceral first-person, present-tense narrative alternates perspectives, fostering tension and immediacy while establishing character and engendering empathy. Ella and Anton’s relationship particularly shines, its heartrending authenticity counterbalancing some of the story’s soapier turns.
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781464260919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Fast-moving and disturbingly plausible.
Robots may be the future of warfare in this final father-son DeMille collaboration.
In Camp Hayden, Army Maj. Roger Ames is found dead, his skull crushed. Chief Warrant Officers Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor, special agents of the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division, are sent to the Mojave Desert, “a.k.a. in the middle of nowhere,” to investigate. In this fictional military installation, Army Rangers conduct field training exercises with lethal autonomous weapons. These “dangerous new toys,” nicknamed “tin men,” may become the future of warfare if they can be programmed to distinguish between friend and foe. Anyway, the Rangers’ job is to train the tin men, not the other way around. They are AI-driven robotic prototypes called D-17s, but even prototypes can kill. Did a bot kill the major? And was there criminal liability or intent, or was it a tragic accident? Brodie and Taylor discover that not everyone loves these beasts, and they must find out if humans are programming them for mischief or even trying to set up the program for failure. Meanwhile, the bots have nicknames. Bot number 20 is Bucky, seen on a video as a “seven-foot-tall titanium machine with hands covered in blood and brain matter” that has “a face but no eyes, with hands but no skin, with a body but no soul.” As scary as these beasties are, Brodie and Taylor must also look at the humans at Camp Hayden, because they learn that the “machines don’t have motives….They have inputs and outputs,” which naturally come from human programmers. They have neither brains nor courage nor honor; they do have brute force, speed, and agility. Obviously, plenty goes haywire in this enjoyable yarn. It feels a bit too believable for comfort, and that’s to the DeMilles’ credit as storytellers. Nelson DeMille had begun this project with his son Alex, who had to finish it alone after his father’s death.
Fast-moving and disturbingly plausible.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781501101878
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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