A fun read, loony in spots.
Sheepdogs boost a jet in the service of America’s off-the-books armies.
What’s in a name? asked Shakespeare. Quite a bit, apparently. Take sheepdogs, for example. As a man named Cheese explains to his wife, there are three types of people in the world: sheep, who don’t believe in evil; wolves, who prey upon them, and sheepdogs, who “understand violence, except they use that understanding to protect others.” He’s a sheepdog: an Afghan and a skilled pilot who works for a shadowy organization known as the Office and hopes to settle with his pregnant wife in America. He partners with Skwerl, an ex-Marine whose name would be Squirrel except that “Marines can’t spell for shit.” Nicknames are all assigned to them, and their real names don’t much matter anyway. The capital S Sheepdog hires them to go to Uganda and repossess—or steal, depending on one’s viewpoint—a Challenger 600 luxury jet and fly it to Marseille in exchange for a $1 million commission. Strangely, the main characters don’t know Sheepdog’s identity. Plenty of action ensues, of course, but the story is more caper than thriller, and protecting innocent lambs hardly seems the main thrust here. Don’t expect lots of gore or high body counts, even though the Russia-Ukraine war lurks in the background. A grizzly bear, a dominatrix named Mistress S, and a set of plates commissioned by Marie Antoinette keep the tone relatively light. Those fancy plates might be worth more than the plane even after they’ve broken a few, but not everyone is motivated by money. All Cheese really wants is not to have to work at the Esso station anymore. All that Ali Safi wants is to find the man responsible for his brother’s death. There are vivid images: “Just Shane” comes out of a shower wearing just a towel and a ski mask; Mistress S has tattoos on her wrist that record—ahem—how far she’s gone with clients. Author Ackerman is a skilled storyteller, weaving an unlikely set of details and making them look like they belong together. Compare this to the deadly serious 2034, which he co-authored with Admiral James Stavridis in 2021.
A fun read, loony in spots.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9780593803851
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
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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