Beneath the down-home Southern trappings, fans will find Atkins’ customary mixture of political corruption, true-blue...
Reluctantly back in the saddle as the sheriff of Tibbehah County, Mississippi, Quinn Colson goes up against a trio of bank robbers as cunning as they are clueless.
Rick Wilcox, Jonas Cord (who’s borrowed his name from that of a notorious Harold Robbins hero), and their buddy Opie have robbery down to a science. They know exactly the best time to move on even modest institutions like the Jericho First National Bank, and they perform each job with military precision. While Cord waits in a disposable stolen truck, the other two enter each target armed with a stopwatch, a pair of assault rifles, two Donald Trump masks, and an unforgettable tagline: “Anyone moves and I’ll grab ‘em by the pussy.” No one generally moves, and the former Marines and their junior partner drive off, ditch their ride and set it afire, and then take off to plot their next caper. Now that they’ve fouled his nest, Quinn would love to catch them, but he and his deputies have their hands full with the disappearance of teenagers Tamika Odum and Ana Maria Mata, county supervisor Skinner’s endless complaints against Vienna’s Place, the strip club Fannie Hathcock runs just outside the city limits, and the trashing of Maggie Powers’ house by somebody, presumably her estranged husband, who didn’t even bother to steal anything. This last crime would barely register on Quinn’s radar if Maggie weren’t a well-nigh forgotten friend he spent summers playing with as a child, an old acquaintance with whom his friendship might well blossom into something else. In between shared meals of catfish and whiskey, though, Quinn keeps being drawn back to Vienna’s Place—and so, it turns out, do the robbers he’s pursuing.
Beneath the down-home Southern trappings, fans will find Atkins’ customary mixture of political corruption, true-blue policing, intimate betrayals, and wholesale violence. The satisfyingly inconclusive ending of this sequel to the equally dark The Innocents (2016) puts a whole new spin on catharsis.Pub Date: July 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-57671-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A suspenseful story that examines how families haunt each other in life and death; possibly too creepy for late-night...
A college professor returns to his hometown and confronts figurative and literal demons from his childhood in this modern-day ghost story.
The novel opens as Will Conner attends a faculty-student mixer in Manhattan and talks with his teaching assistant, Beth, about the return of some disturbing dreams he’s been having. The dreams contain flashbacks to a confusing night from his youth when his mother hosted a “spirit circle” in their home. Beth tries, unsuccessfully, to help Will understand the dreams. As Will walks home after the event, he receives a visit from an unearthly being, a demon or spirit, perhaps a hallucination, he’s not sure. He hurries the rest of the way to his apartment, where he is greeted by a ringing telephone and the news that his mother is in the hospital, unconscious. Will returns to his small New England hometown to care for his mother, who suffered a head injury. During his visit, he reconnects with a long list of characters from his childhood and tries to determine what happened on that fateful night from his youth that continues to haunt his dreams. Will begins to detect secrets about the people he grew up with and how those secrets may have impacted his own life. Yet, every time he moves closer to discovering the central mystery, another obstacle materializes to thwart his efforts and make him question his path. Written in a fast-paced, colloquial prose, the text will pull readers in right from the start. Drawing on New England’s historical connection to witchcraft and mob hysteria, the author brings to life contemporary covens and small-town reactions to the unexplainable. Despite the novel’s heavy emphasis on flashbacks and retelling of family folklore, which can feel overly convoluted, the author creates nuanced and realistic interpersonal relationships that lend much-needed grounding to this darkly supernatural story. Equal parts engaging and creepy, this twisty tale deftly examines how secrets and regret can continue to reverberate through generations.
A suspenseful story that examines how families haunt each other in life and death; possibly too creepy for late-night reading.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-335-21755-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Everything is not quite as it seems in this quick, satisfying read.
A woman is on the run with cash, a burner phone, and plans that have taken most of a year to build. But can she escape?
Beth Murphy, from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, has planned every detail of her departure meticulously; from her new name to her new appearance and car, she is leaving nothing to chance. But the person she is fleeing continues to be an overwhelming presence in her mind, and she expects to see him hiding in every shadow. He has trained her well through years of abuse, and she knows that he will find her—the only question is when. Her jumpiness during the days and terror-soaked nights are hardly going unnoticed, and it becomes obvious to her new co-workers and rooming-house neighbors that she is not who she says she is. From her new life as a cleaner in Atlanta, Beth obsessively tracks the media coverage of a missing woman from Pine Bluff, Sabine Hardison, and the police’s search for her. Sabine is a successful realtor who disappeared one afternoon while her husband was away on business, but as the police dig deeper, it becomes clear that this was not a happy marriage. Suspense author Belle (Three Days Missing, 2018, etc.) switches among three points of view as the story unfolds, giving insights into Beth and her efforts to re-create herself; Sabine’s husband, Jeffrey, who is picking up the pieces left behind by his wife's disappearance while coming to terms with the aggressive publicity around his marriage’s shortcomings; and the detective, Marcus, who has been assigned to find out where Sabine has gone. Is Beth actually Sabine? Is she not? Are those continuity errors the whisper of red herrings or just the different ways multiple characters perceive the same events? An unexpected ending hinges on information missing from the story.
Everything is not quite as it seems in this quick, satisfying read.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7783-0859-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Park Row Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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