An inventive but uneven foray into a nightmarish landscape.
In this novel, a young woman, reeling from the death of her celebrity sister, embarks on a psychological thrill ride through a glassy and digital mirror world.
Erica Westfield faces a string of daily challenges. She’s run ragged driving for Lyft and otherwise underemployed. Her life is cast in the shadow of her “international superstar” sister, Dianne, a famous singer. But then, during a routine assignment, Erica discovers that Dianne is dead (“I was driving on the Interstate 5, finishing up my last ride, when I heard my passenger casually mention that the police had found Dianne’s body”). Soon, the lost and grieving Erica receives a ghostly message from Dianne’s Facebook Messenger account. This event jump-starts a mystery that will launch Erica from one plane to another: a journey to a cybermirror realm where the ghostly presences of Macy Abigayle, who died on the Oregon Trail in the 1800s, and the sinister Bloody Mary are entrapped. To save Macy and herself, Erica must dive into the mirrors and confront her memories of her sister and their childhood battles and Bloody Mary. The premise is both eerie and intriguing, a phantom message calling out from a deceased sibling’s account. But in practice, the tale is quite convoluted and bizarre. Farmer tries to explain the logistics of the plot, the location of the mirror realm, and the menacing nature of Bloody Mary, but the novel ultimately comes off as a bit exhausting. The excitement conjured by such an original idea for a story is drained after clichéd passages pop up throughout the book, such as “I stared into the void. It stared back at me” (the mirror realm is also called “the void”); “Some monsters are born. Other monsters are created”; and “My life flashed before my eyes” before, repeatedly, also flashing “over and over again.” These phrases do little to flesh out the captivating elements of this mysterious realm. The author’s worldbuilding is hampered by the elegant but meaningless images of infinite reflections, and the riddle “is...and is not.” Farmer is an exceptionally ambitious writer. But this project is perhaps too unwieldy even for the most impressive author’s pen.
An inventive but uneven foray into a nightmarish landscape.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2022
ISBN: 979-8985226904
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Austin Farmer
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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
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