by John Smolens ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 2009
A character-driven historical novel that transcends genre and provides a fascinating perspective on the current spate of...
Smolens (Fire Point, 2004, etc.) takes us inside the mind of the man who shot President McKinley.
Buffalo police captain Lloyd Savin recruits Pinkerton detective Jake Norris in August 1901 to investigate the murder of a young prostitute named Clementine, whose body was found floating in the Erie Canal. Norris has come from Washington to look into anarchist threats against McKinley, scheduled to appear in Buffalo next month. Specifically, Norris is tracking the movements of a young firebrand named Leon Czolgosz, who has been speaking in public about workers’ rights and changing history; reportedly, Czolgosz has said it’s a citizen’s duty to kill the president. Norris correctly deduces that Big Maud’s house, where Clementine worked, is connected to Czolgosz. When the focus shifts to the assassin-to-be, the reader gets a far more human portrait than history has commonly provided. Born in Cleveland, where his parents owned a small grocery store, Czolgosz is part of a vibrant populist movement seen by some as a threat to the nation. He is also obsessed with meeting his idol, Emma Goldman. A third major narrative strand concerns Moses Hyde, Czolgosz’s confidant and Norris’ informant. A restless soul brimming with vague empathy for the common man, Hyde has understandably complex feelings about his situation, staying in Buffalo mostly because of his crush on a majestic Russian prostitute at Big Maud’s. The assassination occurs before the novel’s midpoint, with the narrative moving slowly through its aftermath. The McKinleys, Theodore Roosevelt and other characters both real and imagined all hold center stage for a time; readers are drawn into their various stories by carefully crafted prose whose quiet authority is bolstered by a firm grasp of period detail.
A character-driven historical novel that transcends genre and provides a fascinating perspective on the current spate of populist discontent with Washington.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-307-35189-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Three Rivers/Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2009
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by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
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
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018
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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