Sublimely drawn characters fuel a slasher romp that delivers the goods.
In this second installment of a horror series, a Los Angeles family’s holiday getaway turns into a violent melee with a crazed killer.
The Werner siblings aren’t terribly excited about this year’s Christmas at a rental cottage in the secluded woods. Teenager Austin and his tween sister, Fiona, know they’ll be stuck in a tiny home with their always-bickering parents, who are on the verge of divorce. But the kids harbor resentments as well. Austin can’t help but feel their parents shower his sister with all their attention while Fiona, who has juvenile idiopathic arthritis and walks with a cane, believes it’s her fault that the family is in disarray. But there may be more things to worry about, especially after they hear that a fire 10 years ago at the “old Thornton house”—the place they’re renting—killed a family of four (“Just a tragic accident caused by faulty tree lights”). Yet some claim that teenager Candy Cain slaughtered them first. Surely that’s only an urban legend, but then who’s that humming songs and creeping around the cottage? Slasher fans certainly won’t be disappointed with McAuley’s short horror novel. Staples of the genre (particularly the films) are in full force, from gory deaths accommodating the holiday theme to a stalking, seemingly unstoppable killer who, in this case, sings off-key Christmas carols. Readers will sympathize and root for the Werners, as the story provides insight into each family member, like Austin, a closeted gay teen who’s crushing on his best friend. The cast further includes people with a variety of reasons to stop by the rental home, providing the killer with a string of potential victims. While the author satisfies the genre by showcasing the brutal murders, there’s ample suspense, as a genuinely scary killer roams the property during a snowstorm that makes escape an unlikely option. The frenzied final act, although sometimes predictable, offers a few surprises as well.
Sublimely drawn characters fuel a slasher romp that delivers the goods.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 173
Publisher: Shortwave Media
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2023
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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