An unsettling tale that downplays its sci-fi elements to great effect.
In Matthews’ (Revelation, 2015, etc.) sci-fi-tinged thriller, a string of bizarre events leads a psychologist to an alarming secret that he may not live long enough to expose.
Dr. Bradley Jordan has his share of hurdles in the small town of Rock Mills, Michigan. He works with a troubled young patient, Doug Belle, and he’s not quite over his wife Toni’s infidelity from six years ago, even as they try to conceive a child; then he’s almost killed in a car accident, which certainly doesn’t help matters. Later, he and Toni discover nearby Emersville, a quaint city full of touristy shops. There, a store owner, Annabelle St. Crux, has an apparent seizure in front of them while muttering cryptically about, among other things, her hatred of water. Brad purchases a Raggedy Ann-type doll named Thumbkin at the store, which unsettlingly seems to stare at him with its button eyes. Later, Brad finds a strange, metallic item hidden inside it. Toni adds to Brad’s unease by mentioning a “Green Queen” who “wants the world” and then promptly forgetting that she said anything about her. When Brad brings Thumbkin to his office, Doug is inexplicably hit with an electrical surge. Shadowy figures subsequently attack the psychologist at his house, looking for the doll. Soon, other people go missing, and Brad and his detective pal, Frank Swinicki, believe that answers lie in Emersville and its strange, unblinking townsfolk. The author peppers his tale with hints of science fiction, such as Brad’s dream of perpetually sailing in outer space. Still, much of the fun is in the story’s uncertainty; is the eerie Thumbkin, for example, making cinematic images appear in Brad’s head, or is he merely remembering movies about dolls that scared him as a child? As the revelations stack up, Matthews amps up the violence, making the story consistently unnerving. This tension diminishes a bit after it becomes clear what’s actually happening, although the main characters effectively remain in danger. Readers will likely surmise most of the final act’s revelations before they occur, but the plentiful plot turns still offer a few surprises before the unforgettable open ending.
An unsettling tale that downplays its sci-fi elements to great effect.Pub Date: June 17, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-945373-00-8
Page Count: 260
Publisher: JournalStone
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2016
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
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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