Both creepy and dull.
One man’s quest to avenge a relative’s murder becomes an obsession in this lame debut novel.
Narrator Owen Patterson, a software-manual writer in Los Angeles, meets Patricia Stocking on the Lake Tahoe ski slopes; after a whirlwind romance, they marry. But their honeymoon is interrupted by a tragedy. Patty’s younger brother Calvin Junior (CJ) has been murdered. Her parents (aggressively masculine Calvin Senior, daffy Minerva) are devastated; Patty wears black year-round and spends her time watching old videos of CJ. The killer, Henry Joseph Raven, though not admitting guilt, gets a sentence of 20 years. Owen decides to ease his wife’s misery by punishing Raven himself. He plans to entrap Raven emotionally through letters supposedly written by a lonely, available female; once Raven is hooked, the woman will end the relationship, Raven will be crushed and Patty will find closure; until then, Owen will keep his “mission” secret. It’s as far-fetched as it sounds. For starters, Owen is a wimp, incapable of a bold ruse; it’s Patty who calls the shots. Secondly, he has reason to believe Raven already has a woman of his own. Nonetheless, he goes ahead, inventing a woman, Lily, who with the help of computer-generated photos arouses Raven’s interest. He even dons Patty’s panties to feel like a woman, but a would-be humorous scene, when he’s caught wearing the panties in a restroom, falls flat. Their correspondence and its ramifications take up much of the novel. We also learn more about the crime (a botched carjacking) and CJ (a bratty college kid, quite unsympathetic). As Patty heals, discarding black and boxing the videos, Owen deteriorates, getting a guilty thrill out of writing to a killer, and even identifying with Raven in a sexual fantasy he has created. When Patty discovers the letters, she leaves, and Owen becomes further isolated from reality. The novel ends with a series of improbable surprises that land Owen in the slammer.
Both creepy and dull.Pub Date: May 22, 2007
ISBN: 1-59051-263-4
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Handsel/Other Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hall (Waiting for the Flood, 2015, etc.) takes 10,000 geeky inside jokes and weaves them together with the challenges facing...
A young gamer meets the girl of his dreams in a massively multiplayer online game and is surprisingly OK with the discovery that the hot dark elf is a guy IRL.
Drew lives in two different worlds: The Real World, where he’s studying to be a game designer; and “Heroes of Legend,” where he and his avatar, Orcarella, have just joined a new gaming guild. He’s got friends in the real world, but he’d rather hang out with the Guild—particularly Solace, a beautiful healer he finds himself going on separate quests with and having plenty of late-night chats with, too. But now he’s in a crisis. Turns out Solace, his dream girl, isn’t actually a girl. Does Drew like guys? Or just this one? Or even this one? When he finally meets Kit in person, Drew is surprised by how OK he is with the fact that he's a man. The spark they discovered in “Heroes of Legend” is still there, and they're both willing to pursue it. As they fall deeper into a relationship that alternates between making out and playing video games, an intervention by Drew's IRL friends makes him wonder if he's too attached, both to Kit and the game. What starts out as a dense, vaguely tedious online gaming transcript evolves into a deeply real consideration of the ways people choose to pursue their passions and live their lives and people’s perceptions of those ways. The first chapter has the potential to lose marginally interested nongamers, but holding on drops the reader into the mind of Drew, who is at times incredibly well-adjusted and at others completely hopeless—in other words, a pretty authentic college student.
Hall (Waiting for the Flood, 2015, etc.) takes 10,000 geeky inside jokes and weaves them together with the challenges facing young people, whether they're nerdy or not, including game/life balance, understanding different kinds of friendship, and all the stops and starts of coming into yourself.Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62649-446-6
Page Count: 345
Publisher: Riptide
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters...
Female rivalry is again the main preoccupation of Hannah’s latest Pacific Northwest sob saga (Firefly Lane, 2008, etc.).
At Water’s Edge, the family seat overlooking Hood Canal, Vivi Ann, youngest and prettiest of the Grey sisters and a champion horsewoman, has persuaded embittered patriarch Henry to turn the tumbledown ranch into a Western-style equestrian arena. Eldest sister Winona, a respected lawyer in the nearby village of Oyster Shores, hires taciturn ranch hand Dallas Raintree, a half-Native American. Middle sister Aurora, stay-at-home mother of twins, languishes in a dull marriage. Winona, overweight since adolescence, envies Vivi, whose looks get her everything she wants, especially men. Indeed, Winona’s childhood crush Luke recently proposed to Vivi. Despite Aurora’s urging (her principal role is as sisterly referee), Winona won’t tell Vivi she loves Luke. Yearning for Dallas, Vivi stands up Luke to fall into bed with the enigmatic, tattooed cowboy. Winona snitches to Luke: engagement off. Vivi marries Dallas over Henry’s objections. The love-match triumphs, and Dallas, though scarred by child abuse, is an exemplary father to son Noah. One Christmas Eve, the town floozy is raped and murdered. An eyewitness and forensic evidence incriminate Dallas. Winona refuses to represent him, consigning him to the inept services of a public defender. After a guilty verdict, he’s sentenced to life without parole. A decade later, Winona has reached an uneasy truce with Vivi, who’s still pining for Dallas. Noah is a sullen teen, Aurora a brittle but resigned divorcée. Noah learns about the Seattle Innocence Project. Could modern DNA testing methods exonerate Dallas? Will Aunt Winona redeem herself by reopening the case? The outcome, while predictable, is achieved with more suspense and less sentimental histrionics than usual for Hannah.
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters and understanding of family dynamics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-312-36410-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2008
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