Thirty years after the rape-murder of his childhood girlfriend Coleen Brennan in his West Side Chicago neighborhood—a crime for which a retarded African-American man was executed—young Latino cop Bobby Vargas finds himself accused of the killing.
Meanwhile, Coleen's twin sister Arleen, an actress, is targeted by criminal elements after fatally shooting a member of the Korean mafia on a police sting she was forced into by Bobby's older brother Ruben, also a cop. Bobby's and Arleen's chances of survival: not great. Doing for the Windy City what The Wire did for Baltimore and James Ellroy's novels did for Los Angeles, this book uncovers with sardonic intensity the deep and seemingly irreversible connections between crime, politics, business and tabloid journalism. Chicago is re-bidding for the 2016 Olympics (Rio, which won the bid in real life, has dropped out in the novel), meaning the City Hall will do anything to protect its image. With star crime reporter Tracy Moens on the prowl for juicy exposes for the fictional Chicago Herald, that's going to take some doing. Hardly a page is turned in this headlong melodrama without someone getting threatened, beat up, shot, killed or, in Bobby’s case, framed for the abuse of a 7-year-old "peewee gangster." Even with matters of life and death playing out around him, Bobby, a blues-guitar aficionado since a childhood encounter with Howlin' Wolf, is desperate not to blow an opportunity to perform with the legendary Memphis Horns. Arleen is equally desperate not to ruin her odds-on chance of winning the role of Blanche DuBois in a major revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire" (opposite Judd Law!). In the midst of all the violence and madness, these career concerns seem unrealistic. But in fiction as audaciously dialed up as this, a little more fantasy can't hurt.
Following up Calumet City (2008), Newton delivers an even more thrilling, densely packed novel that makes most Chicago crime thrillers seem tame.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-385-53469-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | THRILLER | GENERAL & DOMESTIC THRILLER
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | SUSPENSE
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