A dark, tense tale befitting the seedy characters who populate it.
In Wilkinson (co-author: The Will Changer: Unholy Trinity, 2017, etc.) and debut author Cusumano’s thriller, an aspiring competitive fighter struggles to free himself from his family’s mob-tied business while also dodging a serial killer.
Chicagoan Jimmy Malchiovelli, 25, wants to become the greatest Brazilian-jujitsu fighter in history. But his father, Maurice, wants his son to go to law school so he can take over the family business. Jimmy is reluctant, primarily because that business, M&M Accounting, secretly launders money for “the Outfit,” a notorious criminal organization. He’s also feeling pressure from his girlfriend, Rachel Goldberg, who wants a husband with a stable career. One night, while at a snazzy new nightclub, Jimmy and Rachel catch the eye of serial murderer Rich Branton, who’s desperately hunting new victims for fear that he’s lost his homicidal “mojo.” Rich, who runs Branton Construction, is resisting making a deal with the Outfit, which threatens that organization’s multibillion-dollar operation. So thugs pay Rich a visit, which only succeeds in agitating him further. He plans to use Jimmy’s link to the Outfit as a way to enact bloody retribution, which forces the young fighter to protect his family. This is an engrossing crime story, overall. Rich is a particularly absorbing character, although he’s no more frightening than his gangster enemies, who garner no sympathy as his potential victims. The straightforward prose helps to maintain a swift pace as Jimmy, who’s already suffered the loss of his mother to cancer and the disappearance of his sister Laurie, faces a host of new obstacles. Other characters further beef up the intrigue: federal agent Kate Michaels, for example, may be working with or against Outfit underboss Vincent “Crazy Vinnie” Salvano (while hiding a personal vendetta); meanwhile, members of a Miami cartel head to Chicago to negotiate a new treaty with the Outfit. The ending offers a clear setup for a potential sequel.
A dark, tense tale befitting the seedy characters who populate it.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5355-7982-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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