Publisher: Bantam Australia (Trade Paperback – 26 March 2024)

Series: Standalone/Book One

Length: 480 pages

My Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars

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One of Australia’s very best thriller authors continues her hellacious 2024 with the outstanding and epic read, Devil’s Kitchen.

Candice Fox is a very impressive author who has been doing an amazing job representing Australian authors on the international stage with her epic thrillers.  Starting off with some intriguing outback thrillers, including her Archer and Bennett series and Crimson Lake books (the latter of which have been adapted into the Australian television series Troppo), it didn’t take long for Fox to gain worldwide appeal, especially once she started collaborating with James Patterson.  Fox with Patterson has written several amazing reads, including the Detective Harriet Blue series, The Inn, 2 Sisters Detective Agency, and Fox’s other 2024 read, The Murder Inn.  Fox has also been writing some amazing standalone thrillers in recent years, including Gathering Dark, The Chase and Fire with Fire.  I have had an amazing time with these outstanding books, and they usually end up being some of the top books by an Australian author each year.  However, Fox’s latest novel, Devil’s Kitchen, might be her best thriller yet.

Everyone knows firefighters are heroes, and in the FDNY, no team is more daring or brave than the members of Engine 99.  For years this tightknit band of firefighters has stood against the worst blazes New York has to offer, working together to save lives and keep the city safe.  However, beneath this heroic façade, the four members of Engine 99 harbour a dark secret: they are ruthless and successful thieves.

Utilising their knowledge of fire to create opportunities and destroy evidence, the Engine 99 crew have pulled off several impressive heists and stolen millions of dollars.  With their loyalty, skills and ability to work within the system, the team seems unbeatable.  However, that changes when the family of one member of the team, Ben, goes missing.  Convinced that someone else on the Engine 99 crew had something to do with their disappearance, Ben attempts to make a deal with the law to save them.  However, Ben is unprepared for the carnage his actions will bring down.

Andrea ‘Andy’ Nearland is a professional undercover operative with a dangerous past.  She has spent years learning to get close to people to learn their darkest secrets and will do anything to bring her targets to justice.  Joining the team after obtaining intensive firefighting training, Andy begins the arduous task of gaining the rest of the team’s trust with Ben’s reluctant help.  However, getting through the web of secrecy surrounding the rest of Engine 99 and finding out what happened to Ben’s family will be difficult, especially as the team plots their most ambitious heist yet.  With tensions running higher than ever and her obsessive employer trying to drag her out, can Andy find out all of Engine 99’s dark secrets before it’s too late, or will her tangled web of lies and emotional connections bring her down?

This was a particularly epic book from Fox that I couldn’t put down.  Featuring an ambitious and powerful narrative that pushes the boundaries of relationships, loyalty and doing the right thing, Devil’s Kitchen had me hooked the entire way through, and this was truly an outstanding read.

I really cannot emphasise enough what a great story Devil’s Kitchen had, and this ended up being a dark and compelling thriller.  Featuring a gripping prelude that ensures you get drawn into the story, Devil’s Kitchen is quickly split between the perspectives of main characters Andy and Ben, as Andy begins her infiltration of the Engine 99 crew after Ben contacts the authorities about his crew’s criminal actions.  Joining as a new member with a romantic connection to Ben, Andy attempts to gain their trust, while the crew begins planning a new heist with destructive potential.  What follows is an intriguing game of cat and mouse as Andy uses her skills at infiltration to try and find out all their secrets, even the ones that Ben doesn’t want her to know, all while the rest of the crew battle their suspicions about her motivations.

The plot goes in some intriguing directions as Devil’s Kitchen continues, as all the team’s dark secrets and Andy’s troubled past come to light.  Andy proves to be a very smooth operator as she gets closer to finding out the truth, while Ben is a complex and haunted figure, desperate to save those he cares about, while also hoping to keep his worst secrets to himself.  I loved the many layers of deception, personal struggle and compelling personalities contained within the story, as the protagonists attempt to discover what happened to Ben’s missing family and how it ties into his heist work.  At the same time, Andy and Ben get closer, and Andy is forced to deal with her overprotective employer and former lover, whose jealousy and concern about the situation causes more trouble for her.  The last third of the story is particularly epic, as the truth in all its forms gets out, and everyone is thrown into some desperate directions.  Fox pulls together some excellent twists and turns here, and all the big reveals were suitably shocking and intense.  This was probably one of Fox’s best conclusions, and all the elaborate story threads come together perfectly, ensuring that the reader comes away satisfied with the various solutions to the book’s big mysteries.  At the same time, there are some dark and shocking moments, and I honestly did not expect how tragic Fox would make her conclusion.

I have a lot of love for how Fox brought her story together, and this proved to be a very well-written book.  The intense back and forth between the two perspective protagonists presents the reader with a dramatic and complex read, especially as both have hidden motivations and desires.  In many ways this is almost a psychological thriller, especially as Fox does an outstanding job diving into why Andy desires connections in every identity she takes on, while Ben is caught between his intense loyalty to the crew and his desires to save his loved ones.  This balance of thriller storyline and character arcs really works, and I ended up invested in both Andy and Ben’s unique storylines, even if that threatened to lead to tragedy.  Fox keeps up a fantastic and fast pace for this novel, and I honestly couldn’t put Devil’s Kitchen down at times, I was so engrossed in seeing the next dark turn or compelling character moment.

I have mentioned Andy and Ben a few times, and they really were the tortured heart and soul of the team.  Fox portrayed Ben as an outstandingly complex figure, and you really get invested in his motivations for both staying quiet and trying to end his crew’s heist careers.  Ben is forced to experience some major moral dilemmas in Devil’s Kitchen, and despite his criminal focus, you can’t help but feel bad for him.  While I enjoyed Ben’s chapters and story arc, I found Andy to be the more compelling character and I loved the idea of a master infiltrator who can go undercover and get close to people.  Fox does an excellent job of expanding out her motivations and insights while ensuring that the reader will be interested in finding out more about her past.  These gradually reveal some intriguing details into why she is so good at taking up new identities and her dangerous habit of getting too close to her targets becomes a recurring theme.  I found Andy’s clever perspective to be some of the best parts of Devil’s Kitchen, and her various techniques for getting closer to her targets were extremely clever.  I think there is a lot of potential in an extended series focused on Andy (or whatever her name will be in the future), especially as there are some open doors when it comes to her past.

Aside from Andy and Ben, I have to highlight the three antagonists of the story, the other members of Engine 99.  Made up of a damaged veteran firefighter, an unhinged fixer, and a young trainee with a gambling problem, they, along with Ben, have become a tightknit group, loyal only to each other and dedicated to earning a sufficient retirement.  Due to the story requiring Andy to get closer to them and learn their secrets, you get drawn into their tangled relationships and connections, especially as the secret to what happen to Ben’s family, as well as their latest plot, lies in uncovering that.  I really enjoyed getting to know these three additional figures, especially as you get drawn into their dark motivations and outlooks on life.  They prove to be suitably complex and intriguing antagonists for the story, and it was fascinating to see how Andy and Ben navigate their interactions with them.

Overall, I felt that Devil’s Kitchen was a pretty amazing novel from Candice Fox, and it was one of her most impressive thrillers so far.  Featuring a particularly intense, character-driven storyline focused on lies, deception and misdirection, Devil’s Kitchen had me hooked from the very beginning and I could not rest until I uncovered every single clever twist and outrageous reveal.  An exceptional read from one of Australia’s best authors, I cannot wait to see more from Fox, especially as she has yet another book coming out later this year.

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