A compact, harrowing story of a vengeful curse unleashed.
In Bills’ novella, a small town’s racist past demands a reckoning.
Billy Dunphee, sheriff of the county that contains the tiny town of Harkin, Texas, is called to investigate a mysterious event: Edna Jenkins, calling from Troup, an even smaller town, is alarmed because something bizarre has happened to her grandfather, Tieg Bertram, who has only recently returned to the Harkin area. When Sheriff Dunphee arrives, he finds a pile of ashes on a bed (“I don’t mean to be indelicate, but I have to ask,” Dunphee says to Edna. “You didn’t do this, did you?”). Strange as it seems, Bertram appears to be the victim of spontaneous combustion. Sheriff Dunphee is still reeling when he mentions it to local diner owner Nat, who gives him another surprise: Bertram had been part of a horrible crime a generation ago, when seven young Harkin men lynched a Black man named Pettigrew Smith—on the damning accusation of Dunphee’s own grandmother. “Harkin wasn’t big enough for secrets,” Dunphee believed, but now, “he suddenly felt like he had no idea where he was from or who the people he grew up with were.” A seemingly impossible threat is stalking the surviving participants in that long-ago crime, with Sheriff Dunphee caught in the middle. From this fraught premise, Bills crafts a very effective thriller that adroitly doubles as a meditation on the region’s blood-drenched racial history. (“The game went on and on,” Nat tells Dunphee. “White folks just kept going, running up the score – and black folks just kept on dyin.’”) In quick, deft strokes, Bills crafts a believable cast, ratchets up the tension, and provides a thoroughly satisfying twist at the end of the tale. This short, powerful story is first-rate, thinking person’s horror writing.
A compact, harrowing story of a vengeful curse unleashed.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9798218252229
Page Count: 86
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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