A paranormal whodunit that offers a gripping battle between good and evil.
An aging Texas Ranger investigates a series of murders committed after an ancient, evil force is unleashed in Central Texas in McCandless’ historical horror novel.
It’s 1908, and Ranger Jewel Lightfoot is recovering from a hangover and an attempt on his life. However, his boss, Col. Al Woodard, has a new assignment for him. The bodies of four members of a farm family, recent immigrants from Sweden, have been found in their burned-out house. Only the couple’s little girl escaped the devastation to report what happened. On the grounds of the property, the local sheriff found an unusual and frightening club-shaped weapon featuring razor-sharp obsidian blades. The fire damage makes it difficult to determine the specific cause of the victims’ deaths, so Lightfoot is put on the case. First, he must pay a visit to Ernst-Michael Kitzinger at the University of Texas at Austin; he’s an expert on ancient Indigenous culture who may be able to shed some light on the mysterious club. It turns out that it’s a macahuitl—a deadly, ancient, and priceless Mayan weapon. Lightfoot becomes convinced that the farm family was murdered before the fire occurred, so he begins what becomes a violent, supernatural quest to find the killers. In this prequel to McCandless’ 2011 horror novel Sour Lake, the author combines a bit of real-life history, including Indigenous people’s fight for Yucatan independence, with a solid dose of mysticism, even adding in a poignant love story for good measure. He also presents vivid descriptions of bleak landscapes and unspeakable brutality. He even manages a touch of humor, as in this sketch of the pompous Kitzinger: “his face seemed custom-made for wedging into cracks and crevices.” Lightfoot comes off as a remarkable tragic hero who’s tormented by visions of people he’s killed, unable to express emotion when it counts, and relentlessly driven to destroy a demon and his acolytes.
A paranormal whodunit that offers a gripping battle between good and evil.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Ninth Planet Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
At turns spooky and funny, with bits of inside baseball and a swimming pool’s worth of blood.
Hill, son of the master, turns in a near-perfect homage to Stephen King.
Arthur Oakes has problems. One is that his mom, a social justice warrior, has landed in the slammer for unintentional manslaughter. And he’s one of just three Black kids at an expensive college (in Maine, of course), an easy target. A local townie drug dealer extorts him into stealing rare books from the school’s library, including one bound in human skin. The unwilling donor of said skin turns up, and so do various sinister people, one reminiscent of Tolkien’s Gollum, another a hick who lives—well, sort of—to kill. Then there’s Colin Wren, whose grandfather collects things occult. As will happen, an excursion into that arcana conjures up the title character, a very evil dragon, who strikes an agreement with fine print requiring Arthur and his circle to provide him with a sacrifice every Easter. “It’s a bad idea to make a deal with them,” says Arthur, belatedly. “Language is one of their weapons…as much as the fire they breathe or the tail that can knock down a house.” King Sorrow roasts his first victims, and the years roll by, with Arthur becoming a medieval scholar (fittingly enough, with a critical scene set at King Arthur’s fortress at Tintagel), Colin a tech billionaire with Muskian undertones (“King Sorrow was a dragon, but Colin was some sort of dark sorcerer”), and others of their circle suffering from either messing with dragons or living in an America of despair. There’s never a dull moment, and though Hill’s yarn is very long, it’s full of twists and turns and, beg pardon, Easter eggs pointing to Kingly takes on politics, literature, and internet trolls (a meta MAGA remark comes from an online review of Arthur’s book on dragons: “i was up for a good book about finding magical sords and stabbing dragons and rescuing hot babes in chainmail panties but instead i got a lot of WOKE nonsense.…and UGH it just goes on and on, couldve been hundreds of pages shorter”).
At turns spooky and funny, with bits of inside baseball and a swimming pool’s worth of blood.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9780062200600
Page Count: 896
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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