An entertaining and distinctive revenge tale.
In this debut action-thriller, a man’s ferocious search for his wife’s killer incites someone’s retaliation, putting him in grave danger.
When John Avery Malaki catches his wife, Elizabeth, in bed with his best friend, Bill, he demands they both leave the house. But the bad news keeps coming: A few days later, cops inform John that Elizabeth is dead from an apparent suicide. He’s skeptical, and the evidence agrees, eventually designating the death as murder and John as the prime suspect. But a taunting voice on his answering machine takes credit for Elizabeth’s homicide and suggests John lay low. He doesn’t comply and soon finds himself framed for another murder. John then goes on the offensive, turning the tables on and demanding answers from people suddenly trying to kill him. Using combat skills (the origins of which are unclear), he tracks down others who can direct him to Elizabeth’s murderer, with occasional help from a secret ally. It seems an organization with the acronym SOTE wants John dead, believing he’s learned too much during his corpse-riddled hunt for a killer. With both sides determined to mete out rage-fueled vengeance, the body count is bound to rise exponentially before it’s all over. Eaton’s book is rife with explicit sex scenes and violence. The sex is provocative, especially with consenting participants, but the action can be downright sadistic and lingers on the gory parts. There’s mystery as well, including murky backstories for John and Elizabeth. Though one twist is revealed early (perspective from a revenge-minded individual in SOTE), there are additional surprises, from shocking deaths to the identity of the person aiding John. The enjoyable story is unfortunately diluted by excessive blunders: misspellings (“Chlorophorm”), grammatical and punctuation errors (“Some was from both our families”; “My brothers other vehicle”), and alternating past/present tense throughout. An editor’s eye would be valuable, as beyond those mistakes lies writing that’s comical (Elizabeth’s suicide raises a “shit load of red flags”) and razor-sharp (“My anger quickly subsided, and shame walked in”).
An entertaining and distinctive revenge tale.Pub Date: Dec. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5462-2154-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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