A fast-paced, tangled mystery with an eerie sci-fi twist.
Crime drama meets sci-fi mayhem in Chloe’s (No Last Tattoo, 2013, etc.) haunting alien thriller.
Natt Whitehall is no stranger to alien life forms—he’s conducted extensive scientific research on the subject—but he finds himself helplessly looking on as his innocent sandwich run turns into an otherworldly nightmare at just after 9:30 on a dark night in Los Angeles. As Natt walks down the street, a mysterious teenage boy plunges pointy objects into the necks of two dark, hooded creatures before departing from the scene. Natt’s frantic 911 call summons the unflappable Gina O’Neill, an FBI agent and former lover with a formidable talent for solving crimes. Together, Natt and O’Neill embark on an investigation into a strange series of attacks that have resulted in skinned human bodies washing up on the shores of Malibu. The investigation leads them to Ziarre, the strange, deeply troubled owner of a car seen at the crime scene, and her grandfather Christian Donaldson. As Ziarre’s story unfolds, so does the dark history of the U.S. government’s involvement with a synthetically engineered breed of aliens known as bio-soldiers. Complicated by the presence of Ziarre’s sinister boss, Joe Evans, the plot unfolds in a heart-stopping web of drugs, sex, violence—and one young woman’s painful trail of self-discovery. Chloe’s writing is alive with detail—brand-name pizza receives just as much attention as alien attacks, and the result is a rare sense of verisimilitude that makes the presence of aliens in modern-day California feel all the more real and chilling. The action unfolds quickly, but Chloe’s tendency to give blow-by-blow descriptions of minor movements can make even sex scenes and alien onslaughts feel belabored and somewhat slow. The rapid shifts in time and point of view can feel haphazard and abrupt, too, and it takes a careful reader to follow the twists and turns of the complex yet compelling plot.
A fast-paced, tangled mystery with an eerie sci-fi twist.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1452578743
Page Count: 112
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
