Fans of contemporary monster tales will be taken with Klavan's thriller, and others who are willing to indulge the book's...
On the hunt for a nefarious European crime boss, Texas supercop Zach "Cowboy" Adams desperately searches for himself after being turned into a werewolf.
Dominic Abend is not your everyday mobster. A German-Russian worth billions, he's thought to be in possession of a 15th-century dagger that gives him unthinkable black powers. Having taken over the American underworld, he plans to take over the world. After linking Abend to a hideous massacre in Texas, Zach travels to Germany to consult with a female sword and dagger expert. She takes him into the Black Forest, seemingly talking nonsense, where she undergoes a bizarre transformation and...changes Zach. When he comes face to face with the elusive Abend in a desolate building, he's attacked by horrific giant bugs. And that's not all that's making his life miserable. There's the one-nighter with a beautiful stalker he has to explain to his devout Christian wife. And there are charges that his wisecracking partner, Martin “Broadway Joe” Goulart, is dirty. While there's no getting around the book's hokey premise, multiple Edgar Award winner Klavan does his best to transcend it in exploring the extreme thoughts and emotions his protagonist experiences. What chance does Zach's human conscience have of overcoming his beastly desires? It won't spoil anyone's enjoyment to say this may not be the last time he's faced with those questions.
Fans of contemporary monster tales will be taken with Klavan's thriller, and others who are willing to indulge the book's hairy trappings will appreciate its existential musings.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-60598-698-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: Jan. 6, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Looks like Neal Carey, the peripatetic agent of that free- lance justice troop Friends of the Family, will never get back to New York to write his dissertation on Tobias Smollett. This time he's sprung from three years in a Chinese monastery (The Trail to Buddha's Mirror, 1992) only to be sent undercover as a ranch-hand in the Nevada plains to scout out the Sons of Seth, a white- supremacist flock that's his best hope for locating two-year-old Cody McCall, snatched from his Hollywood mother during a paternal weekend. Neal settles in deep, of course, and his ritual ordeals- -having to sell out the rancher who took him in, breaking off his romance with tough schoolmarm Karen Hawley, going up against rotten-apple Cal Strekker, getting ordered to kill his Friendly mentor Joe Graham—are as predictable as the trademark dose of mysticism as the bodies pile up, and as the certainty that when the dust settles, Neal won't be back at school. Winslow's Aryan crazies don't have the threatening solidity of Stephen Greenleaf's (Southern Cross, p. 1102 ), but Neal's latest adventure is full of entertaining derring-do.
Pub Date: Nov. 16, 1993
ISBN: 0-312-09934-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1993
O'Brien proves to be the Oliver Stone of literature, reiterating the same Vietnam stories endlessly without adding any insight. Politician John Wade has just lost an election, and he and his wife, Kathy, have retired to a lakeside cabin to plan their future when she suddenly disappears. O'Brien manages to stretch out this simple premise by sticking in chapters consisting of quotes from various sources (both actual and fictional) that relate to John and Kathy. An unnamed author — an irritating device that recalls the better-handled but still imperfect "Tim O'Brien" narrator of The Things They Carried (1990) — also includes lengthy footnotes about his own experiences in Vietnam. While the sections covering John in the third person are dry, these first-person footnotes are unbearable. O'Brien uses a coy tone (it's as though he's constantly whispering "Ooooh, spooky!"), but there is no suspense: The reader is acquainted with Kathy for only a few pages before her disappearance, so it's impossible to work up any interest in her fate. The same could be said of John, even though he is the focus of the book. Flashbacks and quotes reveal that John was present at the infamous Thuan Yen massacre (for those too thick-headed to understand the connection to My Lai, O'Brien includes numerous real-life references). The symbolism here is beyond cloying. As a child John liked to perform magic tricks, and he was subsequently nicknamed "Sorcerer" by his fellow soldiers — he could make things disappear, get it? John has been troubled for some time. He used to spy on Kathy when they were in college, and his father's habit of calling the chubby boy "Jiggling John" apparently wounded him. All of this is awkwardly uncovered through a pretentious structure that cannot disguise the fact that there is no story here. Sinks like a stone.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 061870986X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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