A graphic, gripping start to a new series.
A handsome, rich, successful ad exec tormented by his past discovers that, contrary to the slogan, what happens in Vegas doesn’t necessarily stay there.
Royce’s first book in her Neon Diaries series features Craig Keller, one of four partners (another partner is Jane, his spicy second wife) in a midsize advertising agency in Santa Monica, California. Craig was not the favorite child of brilliant, wealthy serial cheater Donovan C. Keller; the preferred son and heir apparent to his father’s law firm was the now-deceased Donovan James “D.J.” Keller. After the elder Donovan’s sudden death, it’s Craig who speaks at his father’s memorial service, calling him “brutal, unforgiving, full of rage and fury.” In attendance are countless friends and business associates—platinum-haired, steely-eyed Luuk Van Ness was both. Craig muses that though Luuk “was something of an unofficial godfather,” he never knew if he could trust him. Luuk owns the Regal Oasis, a high-end Las Vegas resort; in the late 1980s, Donovan successfully defended a mobster who was an Oasis regular. Donovan’s law practice made him incredibly wealthy, and D.J. would have taken the firm over had it not been for a tragedy nearly 30 years earlier. It was Craig’s 17th birthday, and he and D.J. and some of D.J.’s law school buddies were partying until they passed out on Donovan’s yacht. When D.J. came to and the waves got choppy, he looked below deck for Craig. Instead of his brother, he found a tall, burly man and bags of cocaine. “Dude, you’re…running dope on my father’s yacht?” D.J. blurted out. They fought and toppled into the water, close to the yacht’s propeller; only body parts were found. Craig blames himself for his brother’s death. He is haunted by the tragedy, to the point of thinking he sees his brother from time to time. He constantly worries about losing others, even Jane, who pledges she is his (even though she, like him, has an adulterous past). When their ad agency gets involved with Luuk and his chain-smoking son Hendrik on the rebranding of the Oasis, jealousy mounts, as does danger, particularly when a mobster who went to jail due to a mistake made by Donovan’s firm is paroled.
Though the novel is plot-driven, it has rich character development. There are enough characters—casino kingpins, mobsters, ad agency staff, and family members—to stir up the story and lead to sequels, but not so many that a scorecard is needed. Aside from Craig’s four children (two with Jane, two with the ex), no one is beyond reproach. Every character is compelling, particularly Craig, who “could dazzle clients by being good-looking and glib,” and Hendrik, whose shoulder-length blond hair streams down “like rays of light.” The language can be gritty, and the sex can get steamy—Jane has a thing for getting her clothes ripped off. Rich descriptions fill the narrative: Craig’s teeth are “unusually straight and white, with slightly elongated canines”; Jane calls them his “vampire teeth.”
A graphic, gripping start to a new series.Pub Date: June 20, 2024
ISBN: 9798990326903
Page Count: 398
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
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
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