A smashing sequel. More please.
In the follow-up to Save Me From Dangerous Men (2019), bookseller/private detective Nikki Griffin lands in hot water when she takes on a wealthy new client.
Business is booming at Brimstone Magpie, Nikki’s Berkeley bookstore, and she’s found contentment with her English professor boyfriend, Ethan, who wants her to move in with him. Contentment doesn’t quite suit Nikki, however, so she’s raring to go when she scores new client Martin Johannessen, who happens to come from one of San Francisco’s wealthiest families. Martin says his octogenarian mother has been blackmailed by the charming and much younger Geoffrey Coombs, a suspected con man. Coombs' trail leads Nikki to a ritzy Monterey hotel, and despite herself, Nikki finds herself attracted to the handsome, smooth-mannered psychologist, who seems to see her for who she really is: a woman who loves being on the edge of danger. Nikki’s scenes with Coombs, chock full of snappy dialogue, are right out of a black-and-white noir, but, unfortunately, their time together culminates in his abduction by some very bad men who threaten to fit him with concrete shoes. Coombs may have been up to something nefarious, but allowing him to be killed by these guys is not in Nikki’s playbook, and after Martin terminates her contract, she’s hired by his mother, Marie, who is most definitely not helpless or a victim. Marie wants Nikki to save Coombs, and it will undoubtedly be dangerous, but Nikki has friends in high and low places who are always eager to help. She even gets a boost from Mason, an inquisitive 12-year-old she meets by chance. Nikki has a moral imperative to mete out justice that is fueled by childhood tragedy. Those who dare to underestimate her are in for a nasty surprise, and she’s not afraid to use a little violence to help those who can’t help themselves. The nearly fearless and deeply empathetic Nikki is ridiculously easy to root for, and the pace is fast and furious all the way to a deeply satisfying finale.
A smashing sequel. More please.Pub Date: April 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-17027-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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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