A psychological thriller that’s full of surprises and confronts the dangers of artificial happiness.
In King’s suspense novel, a newly wealthy woman buys a condo at an exclusive overseas development only to find that her new home is hiding troubling secrets.
Aloe Malone had a challenging early life, including abandonment by her mother, time in foster homes, and work at her aunt’s dingy diner. Things changed when she won the lottery and bought a place in Blue Haven, the world’s most exclusive beachside housing development. The experience of moving, however, was rather odd: She was rendered unconscious while traveling there, to keep its location secret, and upon arrival, she finds only five other residents. Although Blue Haven boasts the world’s tallest skyscraper, it’s a ghost town. Her concierge, Amir, is welcoming, though, and the other residents are also happy to see her; they include an eccentric retired couple, a muscled 25-year-old named Westley, and a former opera singer named Bibs. They have amazing dinners on the beach: “Aloe loved the ambiance, cast somewhere between Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and an episode of Survivor.” But when she tries phoning her grandmother and others, no one picks up. A diary she finds under her bed, written by a former resident, tells a chilling story that suggests something at Blue Haven is terribly amiss. King’s smart thriller starts as an enticing trouble-in-paradise drama, but it soon blossoms into something more complex—an unexpectedly engaging psychological quagmire with SF elements. As Aloe’s mental state deteriorates, more is revealed about her identity and about Blue Haven, leading to a twist that the author handles with dexterity and which makes the story’s scientific aspects hard to resist. King also excels at portraying how innovation, when taken to an extreme, can take a heavy toll on human relationships. Along the way, the work also touches on intriguing ethical issues.
A psychological thriller that’s full of surprises and confronts the dangers of artificial happiness.Pub Date: May 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-61188-320-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: The Story Plant
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.
A series of mounting complications leads to yet another fight to the death between the discarded intelligence agents of Slough House and the morally bankrupt head of MI5.
As Jackson Lamb’s motley crew on Aldersgate Street struggles to cope with the deaths of River Cartwright’s grandfather and mentor, intelligence veteran David Cartwright, and their dim, beloved colleague Min Harper, new troubles are brewing. Diana Taverner, who runs the British Intelligence Service from Regent’s Park, is being blackmailed by former MP Peter Judd to do his bidding. Nothing untoward about that, of course, but this time, Judd’s demands, backed by a compromising tape recording, are more pressing than usual. So Diana reconvenes the Brains Trust—Al Hawke, Avril Potts, Daisy Wessex, and their ex-boss Charles Cornell Stamoran—whose last assignment was to serve as the contact for psychopathic IRA informant Dougie Malone while turning a blind eye to his multiple rapes and murders, which were really none of the Crown’s business. Taverner’s new assignment for the Brains Trust is the assassination of Judd. Since all these developments are filtered through the riotously cynical lens of Herron’s imagination, nothing goes as planned, and when the smoke clears, the fatalities don’t include Judd. Now that Judd knows he has as much reason to fear Taverner as she does to fear him, Lamb offers to broker a peace meeting between them which Slough House computer geek Roddy Ho will keep secret by knocking out 37 security cameras around Taverner’s dwelling. What could possibly go wrong?
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781641297264
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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