A sharp, surprisingly affecting debut.
A cobbled-together family of money launderers is in big trouble after their newly hired runner disappears with $250,000.
The Brooklyn-based operation is headed by seasoned schemer Shecky Keenan. It includes two orphans: Henry Vek, 21, whom "Uncle Shecky" took in at age 9 after the boy's boozing mother (Shecky's cousin) died in a car crash, and Kerasha Brown, 23, the daughter of another of Shecky's ill-fated cousins. A brilliant thief and break-in artist, Kerasha recently joined the household after having served six years in prison. Though all the members of this makeshift family are "mixed race, Henry and Shecky look white, and Kerasha, black." When the runner, Emil, a talented artist friend of Henry's, goes missing, Shecky must answer to the intimidating client whose money was lost. Meanwhile, Kerasha, who like her late mother is drawn to heroin, becomes obsessed with a contentious, court-appointed psychologist with the power to send her back into custody. Written in a jumpy, time-hopping, and sometimes hallucinatory style, this first novel is loaded with damaged characters. Shecky is haunted by the rape and murder of his sister and a squalid upbringing by three vicious uncles. Zera, a cop on the trail of human traffickers, was herself bought and sold as an orphan child in her native Montenegro. A seasoned legal investigator, Selfon has firsthand knowledge of laundering schemes and the people who devise them. More importantly, he is attuned to questions of identity and belonging. Not all of the characters click, and the book contains more narrative noise than it needs, but the poetry-loving, sharply reflective Kerasha alone makes the book worth reading. She deserves a sequel all her own.
A sharp, surprisingly affecting debut.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-374-22201-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
A return to form for this popular author.
Spectral danger and human evil stalk Sager’s latest stalwart heroine.
When Maggie Holt’s father, Ewan, dies, she’s shocked to discover that she has inherited Baneberry Hall. Ewan made his name as a writer—and ruined her life—by writing a supposedly nonfiction account of the terrors their family endured while living in this grand Victorian mansion with a dark history. Determined to find out the truth behind her father’s sensational bestseller, Maggie returns to Baneberry Hall. Horror aficionados will feel quite cozy as they settle into this narrative, and Sager’s fans will recognize a familiar formula. As he has in his previous three novels, the author makes contemporary fiction out of time-honored tropes. Final Girls (2017) remains his most fresh and inventive novel, but his latest is significantly more satisfying than the two novels that followed. Interspersing Maggie’s story with chapters from her father’s book, Sager delivers something like a cross between The Haunting of Hill House and The Amityville Horror with a tough female protagonist. Ewan and Maggie both behave with the dogged idiocy common among people who buy haunted houses, but doubt about the veracity of Ewan’s book and Maggie’s desperate need to understand her own past make them both compelling characters. The ghosts and poltergeist activity Sager conjures are truly chilling, and he does a masterful job of keeping readers guessing until the very end. As was the case with past novels, though—especially The Last Time I Lied (2018)—Sager sets his story in the present while he seems to be writing about the past. For example, when the Holt family moved into Baneberry Hall in 1995 or thereabouts, Ewan—a professional journalist—worked on a typewriter. When Maggie wants to learn more about the history of Baneberry Hall, she drives to the town library instead of going online. Sager is already asking readers to suspend disbelief, and he makes that more difficult because it’s such a jolt when a character pulls out an iPhone or mentions eBay. This is, however, a minor complaint about what is a generally entertaining work of psychological suspense.
A return to form for this popular author.Pub Date: June 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4517-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.
A disturbing household secret has far-reaching consequences in this dark, unusual ghost story.
Mallory Quinn, fresh out of rehab and recovering from a recent tragedy, has taken a job as a nanny for an affluent couple living in the upscale suburb of Spring Brook, New Jersey, when a series of strange events start to make her (and her employers) question her own sanity. Teddy, the precocious and shy 5-year-old boy she's charged with watching, seems to be haunted by a ghost who channels his body to draw pictures that are far too complex and well formed for such a young child. At first, these drawings are rather typical: rabbits, hot air balloons, trees. But then the illustrations take a dark turn, showcasing the details of a gruesome murder; the inclusion of the drawings, which start out as stick figures and grow increasingly more disturbing and sophisticated, brings the reader right into the story. With the help of an attractive young gardener and a psychic neighbor and using only the drawings as clues, Mallory must solve the mystery of the house's grizzly past before it's too late. Rekulak does a great job with character development: Mallory, who narrates in the first person, has an engaging voice; the Maxwells' slightly overbearing parenting style and passive-aggressive quips feel very familiar; and Teddy is so three-dimensional that he sometimes feels like a real child.
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-81934-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
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