The aggressively disturbing conclusion places this one far beyond the pale of standard procedurals.
An investigation into two dead babies leads the ex-wife of a serial killer and her police officer best friend into serious danger.
As much as Gwen Proctor wishes she could sleep through the night, she’s already awake when she gets an early morning call from her best friend, Kezia Claremont. Gwen’s history of having killed her husband, serial murderer Melvin Royal, means that her senses are always a hairbreadth from panic. Like Gwen’s romantic partner, Sam Cade, and her kids, Lanny and Connor, Kez is used to Gwen’s constant vigilance. She and Gwen have put their shared eyes for trouble into their work, Gwen as an investigator and Kez as a police officer. This time Kez needs Gwen’s emotional support more than her professional expertise. The two meet at a small pond where a car is submerged with twin baby girls still strapped into their car seats. It’s a rough scene made even more difficult for Kez, who’s just learned that she’s pregnant and is processing the good news alone because her partner, Javier, is away on duty with the Marines. Kez and Gwen’s investigations lead them to the girls’ likely mother, Sheryl Lansdowne, who might well have drowned her babies and run off if she was onto a quick buck. But Gwen’s certain there’s something bigger at play, particularly when her family is targeted for harassment by someone convinced that Gwen’s history as Gina Royal makes her just as culpable as Melvin. The slow-burning investigation goes to some dark places. Fans of Caine's Stillhouse Lake series may be prepared for the grim climax; the uninitiated should brace themselves for a quick turn into some deeply troubling stuff.
The aggressively disturbing conclusion places this one far beyond the pale of standard procedurals.Pub Date: March 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5420-9367-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
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