An engaging thriller for crime and mystery fans looking for an unconventional sleuth.
In this novel, a Texas nun becomes involved in the plights of two victims of Mexico’s kidnapping epidemic.
East Austin’s Sister Bridget Ann Rincón-Keller is shocked to discover a newborn infant on the grounds of her parish and then the blood-soaked Isabel Ortiz, the baby’s 15-year-old mother, who disappeared from her home in Mexico the year before. Isabel’s harrowing journey included being abducted by the monstrous serial kidnapper and drug trafficker El Gigante, being arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and escaping from the agency’s custody. The cards continue to be stacked against her when she is separated from her baby by a most determined foster parent. When Isabel steals her baby in a frantic, albeit ill-advised, bid to flee toward the border, Sister Bridget does what she can to protect her. But Isabel is safer than her friend JuanaSan Miguel, another El Gigante kidnap victim, who is still in his custody. Sister Bridget is determined to rescue Juana and heads down to Mexico, where she is joined by Austin police Det. Estevez of the Human Trafficking Unit. The two develop a bond that will test Sister Bridget’s vows. “Being with you or not being with you are two good choices,” she tells him. “I believe that either way is fine with God…as long as my faith and trust in God is not shaken.” This is Kolda’s second multicultural thriller to feature Sister Bridget, who is known as “a bit of a crime solver.” This outing is more character study than mystery (El Gigante is outed as the perpetrator early on), and it fleshes out Sister Bridget as a woman of unshakeable compassion and faith as well as resourcefulness and sharp-eyed cunning (she makes a keen observation about the foster mother’s home that the police miss). Sister Bridget disappears for a lengthy section when an older couple take Isabel under their wing, but they are engaging characters in their own rights, and the teen’s flight generates page-turning tension. There are only mild profanities, but some may find the descriptions of El Gigante’s crimes and scenes of violence disturbing.
An engaging thriller for crime and mystery fans looking for an unconventional sleuth.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5092-4217-7
Page Count: 302
Publisher: Wild Rose Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2022
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
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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