An interesting plot and compelling characters are dragged down by unwieldy dialogue and a climax in which the action is not...
Coates’ debut novel scores from a reader’s point of view, despite the author’s repetitiveness and clunky writing style.
Hallie Michaels has returned from the war in Afghanistan, but her arrival at the rural South Dakota ranch of her childhood isn’t cause for celebration: She has returned to help bury her older sister, Dell, who died in a fiery crash in what local law enforcement infers was a case of suicide. But Hallie knows that Dell didn’t kill herself, and even though she only has 10 days in which to prove her sister was murdered before returning to her Army post, the sergeant is determined to prove her theory. Of course, Hallie has a little supernatural help in the form of her sister’s ghost, a cold, silent presence that only she can see. While most would be put off when trailed by a ghost, Hallie takes it in stride because she’s also hauling around another ghost named Eddie, a friend killed in Afghanistan. Soon other ghosts join Hallie in her search for her sister’s killer, whose death she is certain is tied to a company owned by Martin Weber. And the ghosts aren’t her only allies because Hallie also finds herself working with a deputy named Boyd, who has secrets of his own. Unsure as to whether Boyd is friend or foe, Hallie circles him with care, while the stakes grow higher and the danger mounts. Eventually, though, Hallie must rely on her own sense of survival, especially when forces she can’t explain try to take her down. Peopled with taciturn characters that pull emotional punches, Coates' book introduces a close-knit community that takes care of its own. However, the characters’ quirky shared propensities for uttering the same four-letter word no matter what the situation handicaps the dialogue.
An interesting plot and compelling characters are dragged down by unwieldy dialogue and a climax in which the action is not adequately explained, suggesting there will be a sequel.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2898-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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