by C. A. McGroarty ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 28, 2014
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McGroarty’s debut novel tells the story of a troubled ex-con and a city bus driver who has visions.
The story focuses on the strangely intertwined lives of Jake Mott and Charlie Boone. Jake is a man just exiting prison after a stay of 30 years, and bus driver Charlie is a young husband and father with a troublesome past and disturbed sleep. Jake fears God but has never confessed the extent of his crimes; Charlie sees imaginary people and hears voices. Charlie’s marriage is suffering, his job performance isn’t up to snuff, and his catatonic mother doesn’t recognize him. His wife, Lisa, takes him to a psychic, who tells him that he’s destined for a hard, lonely life; meanwhile, his escalating visions seem to have something to do with a wildfire in California. At the same time, Jake settles into a camper in a park nearby. When the two men’s paths converge when Charlie’s son loses his puppy, Charlie is immediately struck by a strong sense of recognition. It soon becomes clear that the two men share a connection that neither could have ever anticipated. When they meet again in a neighborhood bar, Charlie thinks, “This was it. It was all about this man.” It turns out that there’s a spot in the California desert where remnants of Jake’s past lie buried. On their way to find it, Jake and Charlie take a journey that transforms and restores them both. McGroarty handles his diverse cast of characters well, from aging felon Jake to Charlie’s severely mentally ill mother. The members of the Boone family, as well as the Mott family of Jake’s memory, respond realistically to hardships and share sometimes-strained bonds. McGroarty’s decision to put his protagonists on the road allows him to vividly detail who they are and who they become against the backdrop of the Midwest and West. He also includes rich regional nuances and even an appropriate musical soundtrack: “She was reminded of a line from that Nat King Cole song. ‘When I give my heart, it will be completely.’ Well, years ago she’d given her heart to Charlie, and there’d be no taking it back...ever.”
A well-told story of destiny and redemption set against a distinctly American backdrop.
Pub Date: May 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0615977539
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Basking Ridge Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Blake Crouch ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 26, 2016
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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by Karin Slaughter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 29, 2015
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
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Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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