Twisted exercise in melodrama involving dueling yuppies—one good, the other conveniently psychotic—making mayhem in the boardrooms and boatyards surrounding Boston. Eidson’s fourth thriller (The Guardian, 1996, etc.) is his most compact yet. Steve Dern, the good yuppie, works tirelessly for the conglomerate Jantsen Enterprises in a picturesque boat/office that he shares with perfect wife Lisa, who comforts him through his nightmares relating to the death of a friend—a death he feels responsible for. Geoff Mann, the bad yuppie who clawed his way to the top of Jantsen’s San Francisco operations (the opening scene of Mann challenging a bicycle messenger to a no-brakes downhill bicycle race is as satisfying as any Bond movie teaser), is all nerve and nastiness. A compulsive risk-taker whose cravings for excitement lead him into questionable financial deals, Mann comes to Boston hoping for a promotion that will tip his bank balance into the black. During a tour of the city’s tenderloin district, Mann, who’s also a karate master, blithely saves a prostitute, Carly, from her sadistic pimp, who vows revenge. When Dern gets the promotion, Mann also vows revenge. He kills his boss, plus a few others who get in his way, and gets Carly to help him kidnap Dern’s wife. Meanwhile, sensibility problems stall the story: If Mann’s irreverent wickedness is fueled by his fear of being bored, as he tells Carly, then how could he have ever endured the diffident corporate environment in which worker-bee Dern so happily thrives? And why must the hold-your-breath underwater climax require Dern to learn to take risks, if only so that he can atone for the traumatic failure that has given him nightmares all these years? Despite some terrific scenes involving stylish ultraviolence, and a passing appreciation for corporate chicanery and the life on Boston’s low seas: a suspenser ultimately stranded by shallow characterizations and soggy plotting.
Pub Date: May 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-312-86600-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1998
The jaws are those of a shark which makes quick work of a pretty young woman on the Long Island shore (Amity) where the disaster is kept quiet in the (financial) interest of the town's summer rentals. This is no longer possible after the next victim—a youngster—and police chief Brody is wrongly blamed for not closing the beaches sconer. He has other troubles — namely a restless young wife who remembers better days playing country club tennis and she is not immune to a visiting ichthyologist, the only one fascinated by the local shark. The finale entails some ugly, lashing action against the big one that's been getting away and all of it is designed to jolt that maneating masculine readership who probably won't notice that it ""should of"" been better written.
Pub Date: Jan. 18, 1973
ISBN: 978-0-345-54414-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1973
This thriller aims right for the heart and never lets go.
A tense thriller explores the bond between sisters and family dynamics that give new meaning to the term “dysfunctional.”
Three years ago, 17-year-old Emma Tanner and her 15-year-old sister, Cassandra, left home, disappearing into the night; as Walker's (All Is Not Forgotten, 2016, etc.) book opens, Cass shows up at her family’s house—without Emma. Dr. Abby Walker of the FBI, a forensic psychiatrist who’s been on the case from the beginning, is desperate to find out what happened and to find Emma before it’s too late. Cass tells Abby she and Emma had been arguing the night they took off and that it soon became obvious that Emma was packing up to leave. Cass, hoping to get her sister in trouble, hid in the car when Emma drove off, heading to the beach, where she was met by a man and woman Cass didn't recognize. When Cass revealed herself, they decided to take her with them as they left for a remote island off the coast of Maine. Emma was pregnant, Cass says, and the couple had offered to help her, but what they really had planned was to keep the baby for themselves. Cass finally managed to escape, she says, but without Emma. It’s a harrowing tale, and Cass says all she wants is to find Emma, but Abby suspects she's hiding something. Cass’ first-person narrative, interspersed with Abby’s investigation, paints a shocking picture of Cass’ ordeal and her family’s disturbing history. Her mother, Judy Martin, has always used her beauty and charm to manipulate her family, and her girls had to flatter her to win her affection. She was jealous of the attention given to her beautiful daughters, which threatened her fragile ego, and she was always scheming to get what she wanted—even seducing her stepson, Hunter, who was obsessed with Emma. Cass is a survivor, forced to become an adult very quickly, and readers will root for her as she tells her disturbing story and looks back on what could have been, when hope was all she and Emma had.
This thriller aims right for the heart and never lets go.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-14143-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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