More of everything you read thrillers for—two unrelated stalkers, four unrelated killers (along with diverse non-homicidal...
Fired by the TV station that got sued for libel when she refused to reveal a source, a Boston reporter gets thrown into the even more dangerous shark tank of a U.S. Senate campaign.
Jane Ryland knew perfectly well that grocery magnate Arthur Vick was the client who’d reneged on all the high-flown promises he’d made call-girl Sellica Darden. But when Vick won a $1 million judgment from Channel 11 and Sellica vanished, her boss threw her under the train. Now that Jane’s old rival, Boston Register city editor Alex Wyatt, has snapped her up, the first thing he wants her to do is identify the source she wouldn’t identify in court. No deal. So Alex sends her into the jaws of ex-governor Owen Lassiter’s senatorial campaign to get an interview with Lassiter’s reclusive wife, Moira. At first Moira hides behind the likes of campaign mogul Trevor Kiernan and consultant Rory Maitland; then she puts Jane off. When she finally talks, though, what she says is explosive: She thinks the candidate is carrying on an affair. In fact, he’s in much deeper trouble than his wife realizes. Two different beauties, volunteer Kenna Wilkes and groupie Holly Neff, are plotting at cross-purposes to get close to him for their own nefarious ends. Someone sabotages one of his campaign rallies in far-off Springfield. Skeletons from the candidate’s past prepare to leap from their closets. Back in the present, Detective Jake Brogan, Jane’s friend and not-quite-lover, tangles with reporters convinced that the second young woman’s corpse found near a bridge means the city is harboring a serial killer.
More of everything you read thrillers for—two unrelated stalkers, four unrelated killers (along with diverse non-homicidal malefactors) and enough plot twists for a pretzel factory. Readers who love too much of a good thing will look forward to the promised series from Ryan (Drive Time, 2010, etc.).Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7653-3257-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
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
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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