Kirkus Star
THE KIRKUS STAR
Awarded to Books of Exceptional Merit

BROWSE BOOK REVIEWS




2012 Fall Preview: Fiction (page 2)


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Cover art for A WANTED MAN
FICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012

"In this latest attempt to show Reacher enjoying every possible variety of conflict with his nation's government short of outright secession, Child (The Affair, 2011, etc.) has produced two-thirds of a masterpiece."
Will Jack Reacher ever make it to that woman in Virginia he was trying to reach in Worth Dying For (2010)? Not if all hell continues to break loose in Nebraska. Read full book review >
Cover art for THOSE WE LOVE MOST
FICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012

"Earnest and life-affirming, but a bit too tame. "
A year in the life of a family that suffers a tragic loss. Read full book review >
Cover art for TELEGRAPH AVENUE
FICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012

"The evocation of "Useless, by James Joyce" attests to the humor and ambition of the novel, as if this were a Joyce-an remix with a hipper rhythm track."
An end-of-an-era epic celebrating the bygone glories of vinyl records, comic-book heroes and blaxploitation flicks in a world gone digital. Read full book review >
Cover art for WILDERNESS
FICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012

"A familiar war story, but told with verve and sturdy, biblical intonations."
A wounded Civil War veteran reckons with thieves, racism and the torments of his past. Read full book review >
Cover art for NW
FICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012
NW

"Smith takes big risks here, but some might need to read this twice before all the pieces fit together, and more conventionally minded readers might abandon it in frustration."
A wildly ambitious jigsaw puzzle of a novel, one that shuffles pieces of chronology, identity, ethnicity and tone, undermining cohesion and narrative momentum as it attempts to encompass a London neighborhood that is both fixed and fluid. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE BEAUTIFUL MYSTERY
FICTION
Released: Aug. 28, 2012

"Elliptical and often oracular, but also remarkably penetrating and humane. The most illuminating analogies are not to other contemporary detective fiction but to The Name of the Rose and Murder in the Cathedral."
A prior's murder takes Quebec's Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his sidekick, Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir, inside the walls of the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loupes. Read full book review >
Cover art for CLOSE ENOUGH TO TOUCH
FICTION
Released: Aug. 28, 2012

"Rising romance star Dahl delivers with this sizzling contemporary romance. (Warning: Steamy situations and straightforward sexual descriptions are well-done and integral to the plot, but some scenes are pretty graphic for a mainstream romance.) "
Hot, contemporary "opposites attract" romance hits the emotional high notes as two struggling people find themselves and each other. Read full book review >
Cover art for HOSTAGE
FICTION
Released: Aug. 24, 2012
by Elie Wiesel, translated by Catherine Temerson

"Nobel Peace Prize winner Wiesel continues to remind us of the brilliant possibilities of the philosophical and political novel. "
Wiesel takes us on a journey through dream, memory and especially storytelling in his latest novel, which concerns Shaltiel Feigenberg, who in 1975, is captured and imprisoned for 80 hours in a basement by two captors. Read full book review >
Cover art for A KILLING IN THE HILLS
FICTION
Released: Aug. 21, 2012

"A fictional debut for a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, born and raised in West Virginia, whose love for the state, filled with natural beauty and deep poverty, pervades a mystery that has plenty of twists and turns and a shocking conclusion."
A tough prosecutor who's trying to make a difference in the lives of West Virginians suddenly finds her own life in shambles. Read full book review >
Cover art for AND WHEN SHE WAS GOOD
FICTION
Released: Aug. 14, 2012

"Like Mary Cassatt, Lippman studies families with a different eye than her male contemporaries, showing the heartbreaking complexity of life with those you love."
Lippman (The Most Dangerous Thing, 2011, etc.), who specializes in tales of feckless parents and their luckless kids, puts a madam at the center of her latest dysfunctional family. Read full book review >