DEAD MONEY
JAKOB KERR
Bantam Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$12.99 ebook, available now
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: Don’t call me a fixer. This isn’t HBO.
In her job as unofficial “problem solver” for Silicon Valley’s most ruthless venture capitalist, Mackenzie Clyde’s gotten used to playing for high stakes. Even if none of those tech-bro millions she’s so good at wrangling ever make it into her pockets.
But this time, she’s in way over her head—or so it seems.
The lightning-rod CEO of tech’s hottest startup has just been murdered, leaving behind billions in “dead money” frozen in his will. As the company’s chief investor, Mackenzie’s boss has a fortune on the line—and with the police treading water, it’s up to Mackenzie to step up and resolve things, fast.
Mackenzie’s a lawyer, not a detective. Cracking this fiendishly clever killing, with its list of suspects that reads like a who’s-who of Valley power players, should be way out of her league.
Except that Mackenzie’s used to being underestimated. In fact, she’s counting on it.
Because the way she sees it, this isn’t an investigation. It’s an opportunity. And she’ll do anything it takes to seize it.
Anything at all.
Featuring jaw-dropping twists and a wily, outsider heroine you can’t help rooting for, Dead Money is a brilliant sleight-of-hand mystery. Written by a longtime insider, it is also a dead-on snapshot of the Valley’s rich and famous—and a glimpse at the darkness lurking behind the tech world’s cheery facade.
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My Review: It's a great way to start 2026, this book. Don't buy into the ever-so-cheery façade that the AI-promoting shills very badly want you not to question! There is always a darker side to every shiny surface.
This twisty, really twisted thriller is not realistic, though, because it's a thriller. They're OTT by design. In this case I really liked Mackenzie's utter ruthlessness because it's all too seldom one sees that role fulfilled by a female character. Author Kerr made her legal-eagle skills more believably deployed than I expected in the novel's framework...private-practice lawyers don't get "attached" to FBI investigations, or there'd be no honest investigation ever performed...but again, it's a thriller. Told in several timeframes, with action-slowing jumps, the story still unfolds in a logical way. I'm not eager to hop around quite as much as Author Kerr takes me, but it did all hang together, and none of the hops were unnecessary.
The concept of "dead money"—funds not accessible until some legal process is complete—is very useful indeed. It added a great deal of urgency to this story, and provided a seriously powerful goad for Mackenzie to use every lever she can reach to get the murder of a man who, frankly, just needed killin', resolved. Only in a certain way...which is why she's morally ambiguous and happy to use methods, umm, unorthodox shall we say to accomplish her goal.
That this is Author Kerr's debut novel was really impressive to me. He's clearly an habitual observer. All his characters felt distinct, if not distinctive; but it is a novel set in the tech world, so there the buffet is already laid. It's not a knock, the characters are well used; but it does make me eager to see what more he decides to do beyond this framework. The plot twists are never exactly perfectly convenient for Mackenzie so he's not intellectually lazy. It wasn't entirely his fault that I figured out who committed the murder, nor that I wanted to smack the shit out of some of the entitled goofs he peoples the world with. He's an insider, I think he'd know if these were unfair stereotypes; I'll go with "not" as the answer to that.
The ending was very satisfying, and I particularly liked some of the moralizing speeches in advance of it. Others will feel differently. A very solid debut thriller introducing a new voice in thrillerdom. May he decide to keep developing his good-quality storytelling chops.
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SALTWATER
KATY HAYS
Ballantine Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$11.99 ebook, available now
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: In 1992, Sarah Lingate is found dead below the cliffs of Capri, Italy, leaving behind her three-year-old daughter, Helen. Despite suspicions that the old-money Lingates are involved, Sarah’s death is ruled an accident. And every year, the family returns to prove it’s true. But on the thirtieth anniversary of her death, the Lingates arrive at the villa to find a surprise waiting for them—the necklace Sarah was wearing the night she died.
Haunted by the specter of that night, the paranoid, insular Lingate family begins to crack, and Helen seizes the opportunity with the help of Lorna Moreno, the family assistant. But then Lorna disappears, and the investigation into Sarah’s death is reopened. Everyone who was on Capri thirty years ago remains a suspect—Helen’s controlling father, Richard; her rarely lucid aunt, Naomi; her distant uncle, Marcus; and their circle of friends, visitors, and staff. Even Lorna, her closest ally, may not be who she seems. As long-hidden secrets about that night boil to surface, one thing becomes clear: Not everyone will leave the island alive.
Combining a glittering, dark atmosphere, morally-gray characters, and mind-bending twists, Saltwater is an exploration of the corrupting effects of generational privilege and the lengths people go to protect a legacy—and how no one can hold a grudge like family.
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My Review: Poor Helen Lingate...poor little rich girl...it must really feel awful to suffer inside a gilded cage.
Actually, it does. Money does not make people happier, does not insulate them against the awfulness that life chucks into the pits we dig for ourselves. That lots of it is self-inflicted is true of everyone on Earth. It also does not obviate the role of luck in the lottery we call family. Helen got some lousy luck, some decent luck, and genetic gifts out of her family heritage.
What she didn't get was a decent family. Uncle Marcus and dad Richard (!) have her locked into an ugly conservatorship à la Britney Spears. Is his control justified? Is he her concerned papa or a bog-standard greedy parent? Why is the sudden reappearance of the necklace worn by the late Sarah Lingate the night of her death such a jolt?
A gothic story of grudges nursed, retribution plotted, and cruelty from unexpected quarters, all set on the storied isle of Capri...there's a reason Tiberius used this locale as his hideaway, it's so lush...and soapishly ornate. I had a good time indeed. The big twist that family stories must always have amused me greatly. Using multiple narrative voices was a clever way to avoid giving the game away. Jumping around in time is just the way things seem to be in thrillers in 2025. I'm not the biggest fan, but it does allow us to keep a real sense of suspense here. A good way to hide clues is to put them in a different frame from the main story's narrative.
A second novel from an author whose first, The Cloisters, I have not read. I won't accuse her of sophomore slump!
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CAT'S PEOPLE
TANYA GUERRERO
Delacorte Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$12.99 ebook, available now
Rating: 3.5* of five
The Publisher Says: Núria, a single-by-choice barista with a little resentment for the “crazy cat lady” label, is a member of The Meow-Yorkers, a group in Brooklyn who takes care of the neighborhood’s stray cats. On her volunteering days, she starts finding Post-it notes left by a secret admirer in an area where her feeds her favorite stray—a black cat named Cat. Like most felines, he is both curious and observant, so of course he knows who the notes are from. Núria, however, is clueless.
Are the notes from Collin, a bestselling author and self-professed hermit with a weakness for good coffee? Are they from Lily, a fresh-out-of-high school Georgia native searching for her long-lost half sister? Are they from Omar, the beloved neighborhood mailman going through an early midlife crisis? Or are they from Bong, the grieving widower who owns Núria’s favorite bodega?
When Cat suddenly falls ill, these five strangers find themselves bonding together in their desire to care for him, and discover that chance encounters can lead to the meaningful connections they’ve all been searching for.
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My Review: I said yes to this story from the publisher because I need to keep challenging my prejudices. One of those is a strong dislike of Felis catus in all its colorways and personality types. Cat people don't tend to be sane in reference to their cult objects, which worries me for the future of humanity.
Romantic plots and sentimental results are just not my favorites. Remarkably Bright Creatures got my highest-ever rating for this kind of fiction, at four full stars; that was down to Marcellus the cephalopod not being, oh let's just say for example, a cat.
I liked Marcellus' narrative voice more than the human narrators' voices. I liked Cat's voice among these narrators more than the human ones. I was particularly amused by Cat's names for the humans. The struck me as very likely the real way that cats see their cultists. Would I have bought this book for myself? Surely you jest! (Leslie Nielsen...what do you call an earworm when it's a meme, not a song lyric?...reference only more pointed, intentional.) It's a damn sight better than those unbearable cutesy-poopsie Japanese bookshop-cat things y'all're lappin' up like they're cream.
I don't have to like something to know when it's well-made. This is a well-made polyphonic sentimental novel that's good at smoothing your emotional fur while scratching that itchy place, that "I need a happy" place, you can't reach on your own.
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PARTY OF LIARS
KELSEY COX
Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: A lavish, Texas-sized Sweet Sixteen turns deadly in this twisty, pulse-pounding new novel — serving up a fresh take on a classic locked-room whodunnit. Let the festivities begin…
Today is Sophie Matthews’s sixteenth birthday party, an exclusive black-tie bash in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, where secrets are as deep-rooted as the sprawling live oaks. Sophie’s dad has spared no expense, and his renovated cliffside mansion—once thought haunted—is now hosting the event of the season. Then, just before the candles on the three-tiered red velvet cake are blown out, a body falls from the balcony onto the starlit dance floor below.
It’s a killer guest list . . .
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My Review: I like the classic drama technique of setting a story during the course of one day. Of course, in line with modern trends, the story's told in multiple timelines and PoVs. It's the action taking place that's all the story's Today. It works reasonably well in Author Kelsey's hands.
I think the enduring appeal of rich-people shenanigans is the scope for soap (opera) they provide. Setting a novel at a Sweet-Sixteen party is fiendishly clever because adolescence, that time of adult-strength emotions without adult perspective to help manage them, is quite the drama-driving force. The adults in this story appear not to have resolved their own angry adolescent issues, then add the new generation's...!
Exploring these varying levels of rage, envy, and desire is the meat of this story. It makes the read absorbing...if you're reading for character. As a thriller, Author Kelsey's debut novel shows her learning curve. I would've asked her to give us real action more frequently than all at the end of the read. It's not dull before then, it is very interior. A thriller with that kind of reflectiveness is not bad, only a tad slower than many genre readers would prefer.
Getting to know these folks was enough satisfaction for me, so I recommend it to y'all who like character novels even if the "thriller" label turns you off; and y'all thriller lovers ought to give these flawed, damaged women some room to expand your repertoire.
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That Devil, Ambition
Linsey Miller
Storytide (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$1.99 ebook, available now
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: here is only one school worth graduating from, and it creates as many magicians as it does graves…
First in his class and last in his noble line, Fabian Galloway’s only hope of a good future is passing his elite school's honors class. It’s only offered to the best thirteen students, and those students have a single assignment: kill their professor.
If they succeed, their student debt is forgiven. However, if an assassination attempt fails or the professor is alive at the end of the year, the students’ lives are forfeit.
And dealing with the professor, a devil summoned solely to kill or be killed, is no easy task.
Fabian isn't worried, though. He trusts his best friends—softhearted math genius Credence and absent-minded but insightful Euphemia—to help. After all, that’s why he befriended them.
As the months pass and their professor remains impossibly alive, the trio must use every asset they have to survive. Or else failure will be on their academic records—and their tombstones—forever.
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My Review: Dark academia YA with murderous schools prioritizing the killer instincts of the students...shades of that ghastly Yarros series y'all're gobbling up. I really detested that farrago on multiple axes. One big one is how idiotic a parent would have to be to consent to their child being admitted under these circs.
...and then...how different is it, really, from the titanic greed mill that is the student loan racket? How different is it from this administration resuming the revolting practice of garnishing paychecks of student-loan debtors as long as those debtors are left with $217.50 from the paycheck? Debt peonage is a real threat to people's ability to live.
So, while I was sniffy at first, I had to admit the horror, the evil personified, was more than dramatically fun...it was really quite on point. The concept of "severance" in this magic system made me think very strongly of the TV show. It's a bigger take on the idea but similarly evil in its intent. I was deeply impressed throughout by the clear, unambiguous tenor of matter-of-factness...it enabled the moral stakes to stand stark in contrast to the worldbuilding. I approve of such a contrast as a didactic storytelling choice because once one sees the contrast as the commentary it is, it can't be unseen.
The same matter-of-factness points up the controversial inclusiveness of the queer people in this story...literally all of them in relationships, and all the same at risk of betrayal-for-advancement as cishet couples. In other words, no single hair's breadth of difference between them. That this is a comment on the narrative being pushed by external forces is entirely invisible, until you see it.
I'm sure you're getting my drift by now. This is a story of a scoobygroup with a life-or-death motivation to resist the narrative they're being sold. Their actions will make the world...so they need to choose how they're going to do that in the face of a death-dealing Devil who has absolute power over them.
I think over-forty readers might sigh and roll their eyes at the beginning 25%, thinking they were in for a very specific kind of read. To them I say, put it down for a week, read some porn...oops, romantasy...or something, then come back to get your surprise. Author Linsey's talking to people who don't have our frame of reference. Clear your cookies then come refreshed as she shifts registers to one more suited to the "A" bit of YA.
It isn't perfect but damn! It heartened and elevated me in my mood and affect. That is saying a lot in 2025.
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