4.5-STAR REVIEW: WHAT GOES AROUND by Michael Wendroff

About The Book

Publication Date: October 10, 2024

EVIL HAS MANY FACES
Chilling murders terrorize a town and bring together two detectives to face the hardest task of their lives.

Jack Ludlum, who relies on his brawn to get things done, is now paired with Jill Jarred,a brilliant investigator with keen intuition. As they delve into the secret world of incels and white supremacists, and conflict between local authorities and the FBI rages, a media frenzy further complicates the mission.

Is there a serial killer on the loose? Or something entirely different? Will their clashing personalities be their undoing, or can they unite to stop the killer before they kill each other?

What Goes Around is a dynamic thriller that examines the intricacies of love, loss, and the unbreakable bonds that transcend time. With its pulse-pounding pace, captivating characters, and a revelatory twist that challenges the boundaries of life and death, this novel will keep you hooked from the first page to the last, and thinking long afterwards.

Excerpt

The Review

Two competitive detectives get paired up to solve a series of murders in a small community.

Author Michael Wendroff serves up a debut novel rich with suspense in What Goes Around. He gets special props for selecting the names for his main characters—Jack Ludlum and Jill Jarred.

Together, Jack and Jill evoke none of the friendship depicted in the nursery rhyme. Instead, they both indulge in behaviors that try to out-perform each other. However, when they are paired up to determine whether a serial killer is on the loose, they must put aside their differences.

Meanwhile, an unknown first-person narrator delivers a shooter’s perspective. As the story evolves, readers will ponder whether the killings are being carried out as part of a vigilante effort or whether the person behind the trigger is truly a cold-blooded killer.

While the shifting perspectives may be jarring for some readers, the fast pace makes sense based on the author’s approach. And just when you think you have everything figured out, a surprise twist takes things in a different direction.

What Goes Around features witty banter between two characters forced to work together on a case pitting them against an ambiguous opponent. Buy Links

About The Author

Michael Wendroff has an MBA in marketing from NYU, and was inducted into their Hall of Fame. His MBA thesis was on “Marketing in the publishing industry,” and it was excerpted in the industry trade journal, “Publisher’s Weekly,” so he actually got paid to write his thesis. While interviewing publishing executives for the thesis, he met Truman Capote.

He has spent many years since as a global marketing consultant. It was the Covid pandemic that finally got his to write his novel, as he was cooped up at home. The impetus for the novel was something his mother said the moment he was born: “Oh! So nice to see you, Again.”

He grew up in a publishing/author milieu, as his mother was an editor at NYC publishing houses (watching his mother scribbling in red ink on manuscript pages at home on weekends prepared him for his own editor’s comments!). Plus she remarried a literary agent, Henry Morrison, so Michael was friendly with many authors (Dean Koontz, Lawrence Block, Joseph Finder, Eric Van Lustbader, etc), and even spent a vacation with Robert Ludlum. Watching Ludlum hand-write his 450 page novels on yellow legal pads didn’t dissuade Michael from trying to write a novel (though he’s thankful for his PC).

Michael‘s debut thriller novel, What Goes Around, was launched in the USA, UK, and Australia, and foreign language rights have thus far been sold in Italian, Japanese, and Hungarian.

Fun fact: Michael‘s great-grandfather was brought over by Thomas Edison from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark) to work with him in his New Jersey labs. He holds a number of patents, including for plastic buttons (he became known, and rich, around town as “The Button King”). Michael proudly wears button-down shirts whenever he can.