An Ambush of Widows by Jeff Abbott begins with a suspenseful premise: Kirsten North, based in New Orleans, receives a mysterious phone call informing her that her husband Henry has been murdered in Austin. Simultaneously, Flora Zhang learns that her husband Adam has also been killed. Both women, now widows, find themselves thrown together in a quest to uncover the truth behind their husbands' deaths. As they delve deeper, they discover dangerous secrets about their spouses and form an uneasy alliance to protect their own lives while seeking justice.

The novel explores themes of trust, betrayal, and the lengths individuals will go to protect their loved ones. It also delves into the idea of ordinary people being caught up in extraordinary danger and their struggle to return to normalcy. The title itself, "An Ambush of Widows," reflects the unexpected and violent upheaval in the lives of the protagonists.

An Ambush of Widows stands out for its engaging plot and well-crafted characters. Abbott's writing style effectively maintains suspense and keeps readers on the edge of their seats. The novel's strengths lie in its character development and thematic depth, though some elements of the plot may stretch believability for certain readers. Overall, it is a strong addition to the genre of psychological thrillers and is recommended for those who enjoy fast-paced, suspenseful narratives.

I read one book by this author and knew I had to read more when he wrote more. I was so excited to read this book, and I am so happy to say it did not disappoint. This book starts a little slow, but once it gets going, you won’t be able to put it down! If you’re a fan of books that read like a puzzle, you will be sure to love this one.

I really enjoyed this book. The author did a fantastic job of giving each character enough shade that you didn't know who to believe or trust. Each character had motives and I couldn't wait to find out who did it and why.

I am a member of the American Library Association Reading List Award Committee. This title was suggested for the 2022 list. It was not nominated for the award. The complete list of winners and shortlisted titles is at <a href="https://rusaupdate.org/2022/01/readers-advisory-announce-2022-reading-list-years-best-in-genre-fiction-for-adult-readers/">

Very entertaining read about two women who lose their husbands violently and come together to investigate. Secrets are revealed throughout like the peeling of an onion. Plot and pacing are very good. Characters, though, could have used more work. The two widows, especially weren't as sympathetic as they should have been. Would recommend for fans of the author, and of mysteries.

This was my first read by Jeff Abbott and it did not disappoint ! I can’t wait to dig into his backlist. And lucky for me it is extensive.

When Henry North doesn’t return home from a business trip to NY, his wife, Kirsten, is stressed. But when she receives an anonymous call saying “Your husband is dead in Austin,” the panic sets in. Over in Austin, Flora Zhang knows her husband is up to something. But when he is murdered, her world explodes.

I like Abbott’s writing style. It’s easy to engage with and he focuses on character and relationship development- especially with Kirsten and Flora. The Austin setting also added to ambiance of the book.

The plot is a bit like a puzzle- a little slow at first with lots of pieces that you need to figure out how to fit together and a building momentum as the pieces come together for an enjoyable conclusion.

Thank you to my friends @grandcentralpub @hbgcanada and Netgalley for the gifted copy to read and review. This book is available now.

AN AMBUSH OF WIDOWS BY JEFF ABBOTT | BOOK REVIEW
OCTOBER 18, 2021 LEAVE A COMMENT
I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

An Ambush Of Widows by Jeff Abbott | Book ReviewAn Ambush of Widows by Jeff Abbott
Published by Grand Central Publishing on October 17, 2021
Genres: Fiction / Thrillers / Crime, Fiction / Thrillers / Domestic, Fiction / Thrillers / Psychological
Pages: 352
Format: eARC, Hardcover
Source: Publisher
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Libro.FM
ISBN: 9781538719145
Goodreads
three-half-stars
"An uneasy alliance forms as two widows delve into their husbands' deadly and dangerous secrets--as they try to protect their own ... Together, these two widows will face a powerful foe determined to write a false narrative about the murders. In doing so, neither Flora nor Kirsten will remain the women the world thought they were"--

An Ambush Of Widows by Jeff Abbott is slightly outside of my comfort zone, but then I was also convinced to check this one out from attending a virtual event held by Forever and Grand Central Publishing. As far as thrillers which are not always my thing go, this was really good. I was immediately hooked. However, I did eventually lose some steam while reading and by the end was not quite as hooked.

Jeff Abbott’s An Ambush Of Widows opens with Kirsten North enjoying some time alone while her husband, Henry, is on a business trip. That is, until she gets a phone call from an unknown number saying that her husband has been murdered. So, Kirsten travels from New Orleans to Austin where her husband was murdered. Turns out he was in the company of a business man named Adam Zhang. Kirsten has no idea what the connection to Adam is as she has never met him before. Joining forces with Adam’s widow, Flora, the two work together to find out what exactly happened to their husbands. The clock is ticking though as the widows might just be the next target.

The action is so well done in this book. I felt like the way the mystery unravels was so well paced. The main characters were both likable and interesting. I related to Flora in that she was a mother to a little one. Actually, I was really stressed out with regards to the baby and hoping he wasn’t in danger (to those who also worry about that — the baby is fine and comes out of the book okay). Also, I thought that Kirsten’s history was very well done and enjoyed the different pieces we got and how they all added up.

Unfortunately, I did lose some steam. I think it was due to an outside factor. You see, while I was reading this book we left our dog loose when we went to family dinner. We came home and it turns out my dog decided to actually eat this book. So, I lost some steam immediately. I am betting that maybe if I wasn’t so pissed off, I likely would not have lost my mojo while reading. For a genre that isn’t completely in my wheelhouse, I sure did enjoy my time trying something new. I actually do think I am apt to pick up another book by Abbott in the future.

I have no idea why I waited so long to read this book after I was approved for a DRC. I sped through this book in a matter of two days and was always kept intrigued by the who-dun-it and the different aspects of these strangers lives. I do wish we would learn why to one question but I won't post any spoilers. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review. I will definately be recommending this at my library.

It’s the most common plot in a domestic thriller: The husband disappears or dies, and the wife discovers that he isn’t the man she thought he was. So how about this plot, times two? That’s what author Jeff Abbott decides to do in his latest psychological thriller, An Ambush of Widows. The result, while sometimes uneven, is a good ride.

To read the complete review, click on the link below.

Sometimes, we discover that a person we thought we knew has been hiding something important. In author Jeff Abbott’s An Ambush of Widows, two new widows discover that they didn’t know everything about the men they loved—and those secrets could put their lives in danger, too...

Full review published on NightsAndWeekends.com and aired on Shelf Discovery

An Ambush of Widows by Jeff Abbott is a fascinating psychological thriller and murder mystery about a deep family history and curious friendship between two "fresh widows". It shows how deep seeded hate causes people to show two faces: one a kind helper, and the other murderer seeking revenge. And, of course, money is cause of this evil.

Kirsten's husband Henry doesn't return from a business trip. Flora's husband Adam doesn't make it home either. Both men, who don't appear to have any connection, were gunned down in an abandoned warehouse in Austin. Kirsten's husband wasn't supposed to be in Austin, so she decides to go there and find out what her husband was doing. Flora also wants to know what her husband was up to. Together, the widows uncover their husband's secrets.

An Ambush of Widows starts slow, but picks up about half way through the novel. Multiple points of view and storylines makes for an intriguing novel. The women each have their own stories, but there is also the mysterious connection of why their husbands were killed together. A twisty and suspenseful thriller.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Maybe I’ve just been reading too many books about husbands who are not to be trusted?? Wives that are completely taken off guard when her husband’s activities are finally brought to light ????

I’m an outlier on this one. As you know from the blurb; Kirsten North receives a phone call from her husband’s cell phone. A strange voice tells her “Your husband has been killed. In Austin, Texas . . .he was shot”. Kirsten is shocked, her husband Henry was supposed to be in New York for his job. Henry North is a reasonably respected cybersecurity guard from New Orleans.

Flora Zhang’s husband, Adam’s body was found next to Henry North. She is reeling from the shock. Adam was a successful venture capitalist from Austin.

Kirsten North travels to Austin to try to discern why these two men were killed in a warehouse where neither one of them was supposed to be. Her foster brother Zach is along for support.

As far as the wives knew, these two men had never met. But what did they have in common? Why were they murdered together? WHAT DO THEIR DEATHS MEAN FOR THEIR WIDOWS?

Flora and Kirsten meet, decide to work together to try to understand what the husbands were doing, what secrets were being kept and who killed their husbands. Especially when they realize that they, also, may be targets. There are a host of characters that are possible killers.

At the start this novel pulled me in, but I started to get bored by the middle. It was great to see Flora and Kirsten evolve to the point of working together to try to figure out what went on.

This novel didn’t really seem as though it had anything really new or fresh in it. Just when I was settling into the end, it began to feel very over the top and once again I was back to a 3* rating.

This was an entertaining read but not a memorable one. A 3* means it was a good book and entertaining. I struggled to write this review because it just wasn’t a stand out for me. After reading so many thrillers it’s hard to find something completely original.

I am surprised that this author is so prolific and yet I have never read any other of his books.

I received an ARC directly from the publisher and an EARC from the publisher through NetGalley.

Jeff Abbott is a wonderful author. Once Kristen is at the airport totally freaking out inside, but needing to take action, to find out how and if her husband is really dead, and the story lets you know there is a hitman on her tail, I was hooked! Great read, with strong women, suspense, and a little bit of snarkiness.

Two woo man, newly widowed are thrown together, after both their husbands have been murdered. Henry North, is in financial trouble and hasn’t told his wife.. Adam Zhang is a wealthy entrepreneur, who seems to have it all.. Both men end up, killed in the same warehouse. A homeless man finds him and seems to be the first suspect.. But things aren’t always the way they seem. Kristin gets a call that her husband is dead, in Austin and shows up at nearly the same time as the police.. Who called her? Is she involved?
She won’t rest until she finds her husband’s killer..-and becomes quite a menace to investigators. Flora Zhang, is the widow of Adam.. She seems to have it all.. a new baby.. a beautiful home.. money isn’t a problem.. and yet did she have a happy marriage? Adam’s cousin, business partner and Kristin’s brother, all throw a wrench into the investigation.. this was a good old fashion who done it? I found myself reading late into the night to see how this would end.. The author did a great job, with this story and the writing was excellent..

Published by Grand Central Publishing on July 6, 2021

The plot of An Ambush of Widows is about 70% believable. That’s probably average for modern crime novels. In one scene, the driver of a moving car tries to shoot a character who is standing inside a restaurant. The shooter just isn’t the kind of person who would be stupid enough to think that (a) the shooting will be successful or (b) the driver of a vehicle in urban traffic is likely to avoid the police after attempting an assassination. More than a few relationships between characters, some of which are kept secret, are difficult to believe. Some of those are too coincidental to be credible. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the story and that’s what counts.

The premise seems simple. A woman in New Orleans gets a call from her husband’s cellphone. The caller advises the woman that her husband has been killed in Austin. Who called her and why? Who killed her husband and why? The woman, Kirsten North, suspects the call is a prank because her husband Henry is in New York. When she can’t reach Henry, she looks at the news in Austin and discovers that there were, in fact, two recent murders in the same Austin warehouse. One of the victims is unidentified. Kirsten immediately flies to Austin to investigate. Most rational wives would call the police before booking the flight on the theory that the police should know about the call immediately. Kirsten’s failure to do so creates the yet another credibility issue.

Henry is, if fact, one of the murder victims. Henry owns a small computer security business. The other victim is Adam Zhang, a wealthy partner in an investment group that develops high tech businesses. Kirsten knows of no connection between the two men. Neither does Flora Zhang, Adam’s wife. Kirsten decides to ferret out that connection with the help of her former foster brother, Zach Couvillon.

The seemingly simple plot will eventually invite the reader to make charts and diagrams as it becomes more complex. Keeping track of the various ways in which characters are connected to each other, often unknowingly, is something of a chore, but that’s not unusual in novels of this nature.

Kirsten’s backstory as a foster child occupies a good chunk of the novel and adds to its complexity. Suffice it to say that her foster dad was not the nice guy Kirsten believed him to be. Kirsten’s teen years include a dramatic episode involving Zach, her foster parents, and Henry (who was her neighbor at that point). The drama eventually shapes the events that follow, although Kirsten doesn’t understand all of the ways in which that will be true.

All of those characters and others — from Adam’s live-in cousin to the incredibly polite homeless man who finds the bodies — play a role and could be murder suspects. Planted evidence adds to the threat that an innocent person will be blamed. The police suspect Kirsten or Flora because the spouse is always guilty, but the reader knows that Kirsten was in New Orleans and couldn’t have killed Henry. Everyone else is fair game. The reveal again tested my willingness to suspend disbelief, but Jeff Abbott doesn’t cross the line between implausibility and impossibility.

As Kirsten plays sleuth, she sneaks around and unearths clues with unlikely success. Those scenes create a bit of tension, but the action only creates a true sense of danger near the novel’s end. Also near the end, a character steals a computer from a house filled with security guards with no explanation of how he accomplished that feat. I felt a bit cheated by that.

While Kirsten benefits from the greatest degree of character development, a contract killer who becomes a key character spends much of his time worrying about getting home in time to be with his wife as she gives birth. I enjoyed the incongruity of an apparent sociopath’s concern about being a good husband. Zach, on the other hand, could have used a bit more character development, given his importance to the story.

The plot is unnecessarily convoluted and depends too much on coincidental or secret relationships. Still, the story held my interest until the action ended. The last several pages are devoted to an expository explanation of how all the loose ends tie together. Some of that seemed a bit contrived. Fortunately, the fun of trying to puzzle out the story’s various mysteries outweighs the novel’s flaws. And the very last chapter, a short one, contains an out of the blue surprise that overcame any reservations I had about the story’s weaknesses.

RECOMMENDED

An Ambush of Widows bears some resemblance in a very small way to the very general premise of the film The Widows, an excellent thriller film from a few years ago that subverted the idea of the passive widow, who just fades into obscurity upon the passing of their somehow more significant husband. They retreat as if just an afterthought, and the grief becomes just a projection of the audience to show just how much that male character was adored when they were still alive. That’s why widows in older media have been purposely depicted as succombing to their grief irrevocably and resigning whatever semblance of active roles they had in their lives when their loved ones were still alive. The question posed though, unintentionally for the creators of this older media, is whether these bereft women ever really had a life while their husbands were still living.

Similar to The Widows, An Ambush of Widows is structured around the perspectives of two different wives, from polar opposite social classes, who doubtlessly have clashing perspectives based on their separate life experiences, but somehow are forced through circumstance to find some common ground, no matter how tenuous that common ground is as the mystery behind the cause of their respective husband’s deaths becomes unwound. Both characters, aside from contrasting personalities, also have very different skill sets, something they employ to help solve the mystery. All the while both are also dealing with their own emotional turmoil, re-examining relationships with people in their lives they are now confronting uncomfortable truths about for the first time. Rather than these elements becoming digressions, Jeff Abbott use each strand of something that could easily be incongruous as an opportunity to build on the complex, though cohesive plot.

I’ve never read Jeff Abbott previously, but this was a very well written, engaging read for the most part; Abbott skill seems to shine in taking tropes of the genre, part and parcel of his tool kit as a thriller writer, and successively subverting each and everyone, which he wields also as a way of ramping up the suspense. All of the interfolding elements of the story come together very well, and the book never gets drowned out in any tedious exposition nor hackneyed characters, or formulaic genre elements. My only little nitpick about this book would be that oftentimes the backstory chapters don’t really juxtapose too well with some of the ending scenes of the prior chapters set in the present, making these scenes detract just a bit from full immersion into the book. And the ending seemed a bit rushed, especially in comparison to the otherwise good pacing for the actual build-up to the revelation behind the novel’s mystery.

Aside from these few criticisms, this is definitely a very good thriller read, and the cover, in particular, has a great color scheme with enough light/dark contrast embodying the novel’s greatest appeal, working as such a strong asset to the book, which is the developing synnergy of the two very interesting, well-sketched widows who really set this book apart from some of the other thrillers I’ve read this summer. It might be a bit premature for this, but I think this might be my favorite thriller read of the year thus far. Given the sheer number of thrillers I tend to read as of recently, especially as someone who is sometimes mentally depleted from work, this is definitely a very strong statement to make, at least for me. Of course, this novel’s rank as my favorite of the year thus far is subject to change as I still have about six months left in the year. Nevertheless, if you loved the film The Widows as much as I did (if you haven’t seen it, be sure to check it out!), or looking for a thriller novel that juggles numerous plots and character intrigue masterfully and has very interesting, endearing characters; I highly recommend you check out this latest offering from Jeff Abbott, an author to add to my list for my next trip to my local library.

Two men. One is a cybersecurity expert from New Orleans and the other is a wealthy venture capitalist living in Austin. They have never met each other, but now they are both dead after being shot in a warehouse in Austin. And their wives, who have nothing in common, want to know why.

An Ambush of Widows is definitely a slower paced book at first. But, this gives the reader time to meet and understand the various characters. As the plot unravels the pace picks up, the mystery deepens and the suspense builds. This book is well-written with enough twists and revelations to keep most readers engaged.

I know I enjoyed Jeff Abbott’s latest book and look forward to more from this talented author.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

An Ambush of Widows tells the story about two widows connected by murder. Their husbands are both killed and found together but they never knew each other. Now these two women are forever linked as they work to solve this mystery.

An intricately plotted story that intensifies in pace creating a suspenseful thriller. A perfect read for fans of B.A. Paris’s Bring Me Back or Fiona Barton’s The Widow.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the advanced readers copy.

Jeff Abbott’s new novel, the devilishly titled AN AMBUSH OF WIDOWS, is about two women with nothing in common except a tragedy.

An “ambush” is the collective noun for a group of widows, and Abbott finds it interesting it’s the same noun for tigers and widows.

“Make of that what you will,” he says. “I like to think both could be dangerous if provoked. I didn’t know about the noun until I was wondering what you called a group of widows and as soon as I saw ‘ambush’ I wanted it to be the title. Of course some people think it’s about an ambush committed against widows, when these widows are more likely to do the actual ambushing.”

Full review available in the August edition of The Big Thrill