Stevenson locks his remarkably small cast in a cage where they do unspeakable things to each other.
Australian stand-up comedian Stevenson’s fiction debut is anything but funny: It’s the dark-hued story of a true-crime television producer whose miniseries is instrumental in freeing a wrongly convicted killer who might not be so innocent after all.
“I’m not a journalist,” Jack Quick tells anyone who’ll listen, and you have to admit he has a point. His TV series on the murder of English backpacker Eliza Dacey, which throws serious doubt on the culpability of Curtis Wade, the restaurateur on whose property Eliza’s strangled, mutilated corpse was found, made him just as famous as Curtis and tied him even more inescapably to his notorious subject from the moment a new trial set Curtis free four years after his conviction. An even more important disqualification than Jack’s celebrity is the need he feels to lie to Curtis and his kid sister, Lauren, his lawyer, Alexis White, prosecuting attorney Theodore Piper, Sgt. Andrew Freeman of the New South Wales Police, and even Detective Ian McCarthy, the NSWP ally who keeps feeding him information. The sad truth is that much as Jack hates lying, he’s gotten used to it ever since a devastating childhood accident left his older brother, Liam, in a persistent vegetative state. His unexpected discomfort with Curtis’ release is multiplied a thousandfold by a second murder with unmistakable echoes of the first. Is a copycat trying to get Curtis locked up again, or is Curtis celebrating his newfound freedom by acting out in fury against the enemies who locked him up in the first place? Although the threats to Jack’s life multiply, he’s actually facing psychological threats much worse than death.
Stevenson locks his remarkably small cast in a cage where they do unspeakable things to each other.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-9115-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A top-notch psychological thriller.
In Hoag’s (The 9th Girl, 2013, etc.) latest, talented young newscaster Dana Nolan is left to navigate a psychological maze after escaping a serial killer.
While recuperating at home in Shelby Mills, Indiana, Dana meets her former high school classmates John Villante and Tim Carver. Football hero Tim is ashamed of flunking out of West Point, and now he’s a sheriff’s deputy. After Iraq and Afghanistan tours, John’s home with PTSD, "angry and bitter and dark." Dana survived abduction by serial killer Doc Holiday, but she still suffers from the gruesome attack by "the man who ruined her life, destroyed her career, shattered her sense of self, damaged her brain and her face." What binds the trio is their friend Casey Grant, who's been missing five years, perhaps also a Holiday victim, even if "[t]he odds against that kind of coincidence had to be astronomical." Hoag’s first 100 pages are a gut-wrenching dissection of the aftereffects of traumatic brain injury: Dana is plagued by "[f]ear, panic, grief, and anger" and haunted by fractured memories and nightmares. "Before Dana had believed in the inherent good in people. After Dana knew firsthand their capacity for evil." Impulsive and paranoid, Dana obsesses over linking Casey’s disappearance to Holiday, with her misfiring brain convincing her that "finding the truth about what had happened to Casey [was] her chance of redemption." But then Hoag tosses suspects into the narrative faster than Dana can count: Roger Mercer, Dana’s self-absorbed state senator stepfather; Mack Villante, who left son John with "no memories of his father that didn’t include drunkenness and cruelty"; even Hardy, the hard-bitten, cancer-stricken detective who investigated Casey’s disappearance. Tense, tightly woven, with every minor character, from Dana’s fiercely protective aunt to Mercer’s pudgy campaign chief, ratcheting up the tension, Hoag’s narrative explodes with an unexpected but believable conclusion.
A top-notch psychological thriller.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-525-95454-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
Period details and charm abound in a mystery that packs some real surprises.
Who killed the milkman?
Unlike other companies that keep cows in crowded and unhealthy conditions right in New York City and add things like chalk and plaster to make their milk look better, Clarence Pritchard’s milk processing firm delivers pasteurized, unadulterated milk from upstate farms. The Pritchards’ daughter, Theda, is married to Nelson Ellsworth, whose parents are neighbors of detectives Sarah and Frank Malloy (Murder on Union Square, 2018, etc.). Before they attend a dinner party at the Ellsworths’ home, the Malloys are warned that Pritchard is seriously nettled that the upcoming year of 1900 will not be celebrated as the turn of the century. When Pritchard’s body is found strangled on the first day of the new year (though not the first of the new century) after he’s spent the night pestering people about his theory, it’s clear that someone’s paid off the police to ignore the case. Theda demands an investigation by Malloy and his partner, Gino Donatelli, both of whom were New York police officers before Frank’s sudden wealth encouraged him to open a private investigation agency. Sarah, a former midwife from a society family, subsidizes a home for unwed mothers whose recent clients include Jocelyn Vane. Because Jocelyn’s wealthy parents won’t let her keep her child, Sarah hatches a plot to marry her to Black Jack Robinson, a handsome, wealthy, cultured criminal with aspirations to join society. Pritchard’s murder is still unsolved when his son, Harvey, is also strangled. Malloy discovers that Mrs. Pritchard had a longtime lover who poses as a family friend and that Harvey’s gambling addiction forced his father to allow someone to use their milk delivery wagons to move stolen goods. Since both deaths may be connected to deeper criminal enterprises, Malloy must be cautious in his investigation and rely on help from Robinson if he’s not to become the next victim.
Period details and charm abound in a mystery that packs some real surprises.Pub Date: April 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-58663-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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