Frank’s legal wiles give him sound instincts, but his determination makes him a worthy gumshoe.
In the second of Carson’s (RVR, 2010) McManus Thrillers series, the attorney’s two most recent cases have something in common—an illegal aliens/drugs smuggling scheme.
Frank, Jack McManus' brother, is a personal injury lawyer maintaining a low profile in Palmdale, California. His pal Shocker Schwartz, bartender and fellow claims adjuster back in the day, steers an injury case his way in the form of Roland “Rolly the Clown” Waxman, run down by a Hummer. Frank has concurrently lined up a possible sexual harassment suit: Tanya Tookers lost her job at an airplane boneyard for not succumbing to boss Mushti Mushtiffe’s unambiguous advances. Shocker and Frank track the Hummer to Evangalina Fortescue, vice president of a casket-manufacturing company, and the men are both shocked when further surveillance reveals a late-night meeting between Evangalina and Mushti. This apparent link between Frank’s cases is subsequently confirmed: Evangalina and Mushti show up to their individual depositions with the same lawyer. Frank suspects that the two are part of a devious plot to transport people and drugs in caskets. He has also spotted a red pickup truck constantly shadowing him. His predicament suddenly becomes more dire when people tied to the cases vanish and others turn up dead. Jorge Rivera, who’s behind the nefarious operation, thinks Frank knows too much and targets him for murder. This novel offers noticeably fewer courtroom scenes than RVR, but readers shouldn’t mind. They’ll be charmed by Frank and Shocker as amateur detectives; Shocker may hate surveillance but he’s exceptionally good at it, and when a lead points Frank to Miami, he follows it without hesitation. Carson doesn’t delve too deeply into Jorge’s smuggling business, but he establishes Jorge as the main villain who makes even his own employees nervous. The plot is more exhilarating than the preceding book’s, particularly because the protagonist is so often in danger. Frank has an unnerving encounter with Jorge in Miami, while someone holds Frank’s truck driver girlfriend, Christine Pulaski, at gunpoint. There aren’t many surprises regarding Frank’s investigation, with Jorge’s perspective giving readers an antagonist so early. But Carson still manages twists, including at least one unexpected (and brutal) murder.
Frank’s legal wiles give him sound instincts, but his determination makes him a worthy gumshoe.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 150
Publisher: KaleBoy Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
