A knotty detective story from a skilled author.
Violence and tragedy stalk a rookie homicide detective in this police procedural.
“It was a good night to kill a lawyer.” So begins this terse and twisty novel full of dialogue and brisk exposition. Who needs exposition when even someone sitting and stewing at home reads like an action scene? Brenham moves readers quickly through scenes as Fort Worth, Texas, homicide detective Kit Hanover tackles her first murder case, partnered with unflappable and bigoted fellow investigator Wade Shepard. The mystery involves the aforementioned attorney, whose corpse is fished out of Marine Creek Lake. The cops’ relationship doesn’t start well, as Wade doesn’t like having a new partner and has sexist and anti-Native American tendencies; Kit was an adoptee from a Comanche reservation in Oklahoma. Kit sometimes ignores his comments, and other times returns his insults: “I figured you to be a Walmart greeter, not a detective,” she tells Wayne after he says that he “figured [her] for a school teacher on the reservation.” One can be forgiven, at first, for thinking the characters are stuck in a remake of The Enforcer (1976), with Wayne and Kit in the roles played by Clint Eastwood and Tyne Daly. However, after the obligatory rookie’s-first-autopsy scene, Kit is moved to the vice squad, and before the murder victim is identified, she’s walking the streets undercover. Brenham shifts gears so quietly that readers will only notice it in retrospect. The first indication of his storytelling prowess feels almost pedestrian, as he tells of a man in a pickup truck slowing down near the undercover Kit, and then hurriedly speeding away. Did he make her as a cop, or did he recognize her as Kit? After all, she thinks she’s seen him somewhere before. Aside from the first line, the book features few memorable sentences; fortunately, that line is enough to grab the reader, who may go back through the book after the first frenzied read to see how deftly the story is set in motion—and how the clues fit together before everything falls apart.
A knotty detective story from a skilled author.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2023
ISBN: 9798862890624
Page Count: 425
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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