A work with a compelling hook and fine character development, although its lack of resolution is disappointing.
Several Angelenos become embroiled in identity crises following contact with a strange artifact in this SF novel.
Mega-rich tycoon Evan York, 67, has spared no expense or trouble to track down a Mayan relic he calls the Encanto. But something goes wrong during the handover, and the seller, Luis Luna, is later found dead, beaten to death with a baseball bat by a paraplegic man in a wheelchair. Investigating the case is police detective Saul Parker, an avid amateur magician who’s acutely conscious of his weight. Meanwhile, 36-year-old Gray Wilson dreams of quitting his job as a “code-writing robot” in a cubicle to take up painting again, although he’s in denial about his drinking problem and his family is in financial straits ever since his wife, Claire, quit her job to take care of their young daughter. Claire suffers from insomnia and spends her days in an exhausted haze; one of her few recreations is following the career of Ashley York—Evan’s daughter, who’s a Paris Hilton–like aspiring actress. It’s just one of many connections that form between the novel’s many players. Wayob, a sinister, murderous figure connected with the evil Encanto, interferes in these disparate lives, creating confounding intersections as part of his own diabolical plan. In his second SF novel, Swan offers an intriguing premise that centers on the mysterious artifact. The book’s chief strength, however, is not in how it details the paranormal elements but in how those elements serve characterization. Swan lays crucial groundwork early, sketching out players that are multifaceted, complex, flawed, and struggling to grasp their hearts’ desires. He then ups the ante by shaking up their existences and making the characters fruitfully reexamine their identities, relationships, and choices. The novel ends, however, with many loose strings dangling—too many, really, even for the first book in a planned series.
A work with a compelling hook and fine character development, although its lack of resolution is disappointing.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9965605-3-5
Page Count: 286
Publisher: Swanfall
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.
A disturbing household secret has far-reaching consequences in this dark, unusual ghost story.
Mallory Quinn, fresh out of rehab and recovering from a recent tragedy, has taken a job as a nanny for an affluent couple living in the upscale suburb of Spring Brook, New Jersey, when a series of strange events start to make her (and her employers) question her own sanity. Teddy, the precocious and shy 5-year-old boy she's charged with watching, seems to be haunted by a ghost who channels his body to draw pictures that are far too complex and well formed for such a young child. At first, these drawings are rather typical: rabbits, hot air balloons, trees. But then the illustrations take a dark turn, showcasing the details of a gruesome murder; the inclusion of the drawings, which start out as stick figures and grow increasingly more disturbing and sophisticated, brings the reader right into the story. With the help of an attractive young gardener and a psychic neighbor and using only the drawings as clues, Mallory must solve the mystery of the house's grizzly past before it's too late. Rekulak does a great job with character development: Mallory, who narrates in the first person, has an engaging voice; the Maxwells' slightly overbearing parenting style and passive-aggressive quips feel very familiar; and Teddy is so three-dimensional that he sometimes feels like a real child.
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-81934-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
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