A highly topical and bleak thriller about American gun culture hampered by shallow characterization.
The murder of a senator’s daughter unveils a darkness at the core of the American dream in Davidson’s debut novel.
The novel starts with a mass shooting of 13 people, including the daughter of pro–gun rights U.S. Sen. Marco Barros, in an apartment complex in Los Angeles. Special Agent Miranda Lopez of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives oversees the investigation into the crime, which was carried out with an AR-15, the most common rifle in the United States. The story follows a number of other characters, as well: Cal, an assassin for hire, who gets a job to find Arianna Barros’ murderer before the police do; D’Andre, a young, studious Black teenager in Chicago, and his friend Russ, whose lives are about to take a turn for the worse; Ryan, a bigoted 18-year-old Arizonan gun seller who discovers others who share his vile views; and Jimmy McClean, the junior U.S. senator from Texas and a close friend of the Barros family. These lives slowly intertwine as Miranda works hard to get to the bottom of the mystery, not only so she can get justice for Arianna and the other victims, but also, to a lesser extent, to prove herself to her estranged girlfriend, Camilla. The story bounces back and forth among the various characters in a sparse, movie script–like narrative that often states what the various players are feeling rather than showing it through their actions; as a result, many of them feel like cardboard caricatures that exist only to pontificate. Still, Davidson manages to build up an intricate portrait of the United States that highlights the intersections of corruption, religion, and government power and explores right-wing extremism, the radicalization of White youth, and the United States’ lax gun laws. In the end, the author presents an often powerful indictment of American gun culture in all its facets as it follows the titular rifle, an AR-15 that changes hands over the course of the story.
A highly topical and bleak thriller about American gun culture hampered by shallow characterization.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73651-962-2
Page Count: 286
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.
A woman fears she made a fatal mistake by taking in a blood-soaked tween during a storm.
High winds and torrential rain are forecast for “The Middle of Nowhere, New Hampshire,” making Casey question the structural integrity of her ramshackle rental cabin. Still, she’s loath to seek shelter with her lecherous landlord or her paternalistic neighbor, so instead she just crosses her fingers, gathers some candles, and hopes for the best. Casey is cooking dinner when she notices a light in her shed. She grabs her gun and investigates, only to find a rail-thin girl hiding in the corner under a blanket. She’s clutching a knife with “Eleanor” written on the handle in black marker, and though her clothes are bloody, she appears uninjured. The weather is rapidly worsening, so before she can second-guess herself, former Boston-area teacher Casey invites the girl—whom she judges to be 12 or 13—inside to eat and get warm. A wary but starving Eleanor accepts in exchange for Casey promising not to call the police—a deal Casey comes to regret after the phones go down, the power goes out, and her hostile, sullen guest drops something that’s a big surprise. Meanwhile, in interspersed chapters labeled “Before,” middle-schooler Ella befriends fellow outcast Anton, who helps her endure life in Medford, Massachusetts, with her abusive, neglectful hoarder of a mother. As per her usual, McFadden lulls readers using a seemingly straightforward thriller setup before launching headlong into a series of progressively seismic (and increasingly bonkers) plot twists. The visceral first-person, present-tense narrative alternates perspectives, fostering tension and immediacy while establishing character and engendering empathy. Ella and Anton’s relationship particularly shines, its heartrending authenticity counterbalancing some of the story’s soapier turns.
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781464260919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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