Gothic memoirs and political thrillers: 'Stakes' and 'The Fourth Option'

Author: Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2026, 1:07pm

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The Fourth Option by Jack Carr

Disillusioned by the government and institutions he dedicated his life to serving, former Navy SEAL and CIA ground branch operative Chris Walker is about to end his life when he receives a call that saves it. The wife of a teammate he lost in Afghanistan has now lost her son to the opioid crisis and needs Walker’s help. Thrust into a conspiracy that goes deeper than he ever imagined, Walker must go up against the system and the very Constitution he once swore an oath to support and defend in order to find justice for his friend’s widow.

With ambitious FBI agent Jarrett Stanton on his tail, Walker—accompanied by his loyal Belgian Malinois and using his off-the-grid VW pop-up camper filled with a hidden cache of weapons—takes the law into his own hands, exposing corruption and issuing a long-forgotten brand of lethal outlaw justice.

Stakes by Noelle McCarthy

You have to invite him in. You have to want the vampire’s badness in the house with you.

Growing up in Catholic Ireland, Noelle McCarthy is captivated by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The vampire is a risk-free fantasy, a suave alternative to the fraught realities of desire.

Twenty years later, exhausted by her unruly appetites, Noelle returns to Dracula, reckoning with her own history and a changing world: generation-spanning shame and trauma given voice by #Metoo and the horrors emerging from Irish soil.

More than a century after readers were first mesmerised by Dracula, Stakes transposes its electric themes of transgression, intoxication and sexual danger onto Noelle’s own life, asking; what's the difference between an inheritance and a curse?

A funny, visceral follow-up to the acclaimed Grand, Stakes celebrates the power of a gothic horror to help you face the parts of life that scare you most.

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