Fans of Star Trek, dime-store detective novels, or behind-the-scenes Hollywood tales will enjoy this quick read.
Spiner combines his life as an actor on Star Trek: The Next Generation with the tale of a murderously obsessive fan.
In the early 1990s, when The Next Generation is at its peak, Brent Spiner is living the life he’d always dreamed of. He plays Cmdr. Data, and aside from having to use kerosene to remove the gold makeup that turns him into his android character every day, things are going great. Then he gets a severed pig penis in the mail. The delusional fan continues to send disturbing gifts and threatens to kill Brent and other cast members. At first, Brent is wary, but he's more concerned with the show, his relationships, and the odd detective assigned to his case (who has a TNG script to plug. Hey, this is Hollywood, baby!). Then razor blades and bullets get involved, and so does the FBI. Brent soon is tangled up with a sexy FBI agent and her identical twin sister, who’s also his bodyguard; has run-ins with fans ranging from sincere to downright bizarre; and has to worry about making one of the most beloved shows on television while not actually dying. Panic attacks, nightmares, and sometimes hilarity ensue. Author Spiner calls his debut a “mem-noir,” because he weaves together Hollywood and Trekkie trivia, his experiences with real-life TNG cast and crew, his own traumatic childhood with an abusive stepfather, and an obsessive fan scenario that's not entirely made up, either. The story is quite accessible to non-Trekkies while never being overexplainy in ways fans would find tedious. Because it’s all told in a campy, dime-store–noir voice, one can never be sure what’s true and what’s fiction. Because Spiner is the victim, not the detective, he doesn’t get to break down doors or solve the crime, which makes the book less satisfying than it might have been. Spiner also sticks with the noir penchant for defining female characters by their looks, which is unfortunate. Though the writing is pithy and humorous, the book feels like it's directed at the stereotypical middle-aged, cis, male fans of the show even though TNG itself appeals to a much wider audience.
Fans of Star Trek, dime-store detective novels, or behind-the-scenes Hollywood tales will enjoy this quick read.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-2502-7436-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.
Dexter meets Killing Eve in Wallace’s dark comic thriller debut.
While accepting condolences following her father’s funeral, 30-something narrator Claire receives an email saying that one of her paintings is a finalist for a prize. But her joy is short-circuited the next morning when she learns in a second apologetic note that the initial email had been sent to the wrong Claire. The sender, Lucas Kane, is “terribly, terribly sorry” for his mistake. Claire, torn between her anger and suicidal thoughts, has doubts about his sincerity and stalks him to a London pub, where his fate is sealed: “I stare at Lucas Kane in real life, and within moments I know. He doesn’t look sorry.” She dispatches and buries Lucas in her back garden, but this crime does not go unnoticed. Proud of her meticulous standards as a serial killer, Claire wonders if her grief for her father is making her reckless as she seeks to identify the blackmailer among the members of her weekly bereavement support group. The female serial killer as antihero is a growing subgenre (see Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, 2018), and Wallace’s sociopathic protagonist is a mordantly amusing addition; the tool she uses to interact with ordinary people while hiding her homicidal nature is especially sardonic: “Whenever I’m unsure of how I’m expected to respond, I use a cliché. Even if I’m not sure what it means, even if I use it incorrectly, no one ever seems to mind.” The well-written storyline tackles some tough subjects—dementia, elder abuse, and parental cruelty—but the convoluted plot starts to drag at the halfway point. Given the lack of empathy in Claire’s narration, most of the characters come across as not very likable, and the reader tires of her sneering contempt.
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780143136170
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.
The loss of her police officer father and the discovery of an abandoned car in a local lake raise chilling questions regarding a young woman’s family history.
When Hazel Sharp returns to her hometown of Mirror Lake, North Carolina, for her father’s memorial, she and the other townspeople are confronted by a challenging double whammy: As they’re grieving the loss of beloved longtime police officer Detective Perry Holt, a disturbing sight appears in the lake, whose waterline is receding because of an ongoing drought—an old, unidentifiable car, which has likely been lurking there for years. Hazel temporarily leaves her Charlotte-based building-renovation business in the capable hands of her partners and reconnects with her brothers, Caden and Gage; her Uncle Roy; her old fling and neighbor, Nico; and her schoolfriend, Jamie, now a mother and married to Caden. Tiny, relentless suspicions rise to the metaphorical surface along with that waterlogged vehicle: There have been a slew of minor break-ins; two people go missing; and then, a second abandoned car is discovered. The novel digs deeper into Hazel’s family history—her father was a widow when he married Hazel’s mother, who later left the family, absconding with money and jewels—and Miranda, a consummate professional when it comes to exposing the small community tensions that naturally arise when people live in close proximity for generations, exposes revelation after twisty revelation: “Everything mattered disproportionately in a small town. Your success, but also your failure. Everyone knows might as well have been our town motto.”
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781668010440
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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