A brisk and affecting chase narrative with dynamic, well-developed characters.
An Oklahoma teenager and her drug-addicted mother find themselves on the run from cops and a sadistic hit man in McKay’s thriller.
Liberty Justice’s days are filled with misery and heartbreak. The 13-year-old girl cares for her mom, JJ, who spends much of her time in a heroin haze. The two live in a run-down mobile home and barely have money for groceries, and none of JJ’s past boyfriends have been much help over the years; some of them were even abusive. One day, a drug dealer shoves his way through their front door, claiming that JJ has stolen from him. He seems intent on killing them both, so they fight back, resulting in his death. Liberty—who’s convinced that police will put her in foster care even if they believe the death was accidental—and JJ hop into their van and speed away. But it’s not only the cops they have to worry about; soon, someone else sics an assassin on them. The hit man’s name is Jon Grinder; his kills leave no trace, and he’s notorious for his brutal, torturous ways. As he hunts the mother and daughter, they use what little cash they have to stay alive and keep ahead of the authorities. Most of their friends and family members aren’t willing or able to help; however, some of them are dealers, and if JJ doesn’t give in to her heroin cravings, she’ll soon be facing serious withdrawal. Liberty is smart and resilient enough to get herself and her mother far—but how far must one go to escape a hellbent professional killer?
Over the course of this crime novel, McKay, the author of Tree of Souls (2020), develops his characters exceedingly well. Liberty, in particular, is a superlative hero; she doesn’t suffer bullies gladly, and she refuses to give up on her mom. Indeed, her relationship with her mother is the novel’s highlight, and it offers a realistically somber portrayal of the effects of a debilitating addiction on a family. JJ is also sympathetic; in between highs, she proves to be a capable, protective parent. Grinder is revealed to have history with JJ and a desire for revenge; he’s just one of a cast of grim souls who are prone to violence and betrayal. Fortunately, Detective Clay Baxter, the cop chasing Liberty and JJ, provides a glimmer of hope; he finds a way to communicate with the teen, and they manage to find common ground, as he also once lived with an addict mother. McKay’s unadorned prose helps the novel keep up a narrative pace that, like its main characters, rarely slows down. Still, quieter moments shine; in one such scene, Grinder chillingly weighs the pros and cons of killing a random couple when they’re about to discover the body of a person he killed. The suspense ramps up in the final act, as Liberty, JJ, and others inevitably clash, and a few twists and a surprise villain are revealed before a stellar ending.
A brisk and affecting chase narrative with dynamic, well-developed characters.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-948051-79-8
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Red Adept Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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