For someone trained in reading subtle cues, Jess seems oblivious to the warning signs all around her. But her sleuthing does...
The psychotherapist heroine of The House on the Cliff (2014) entangles herself in the dangerous world of fine arts.
Elinor Powell has been claustrophobic and unable to paint ever since she came into her art studio in Cardiff and found her mother’s body. The police think Mrs. Powell was murdered when she surprised someone stealing a valuable family painting. In a session with therapist Jessica Mayhew, Elinor bemoans the scrutiny that she, her twin sister, and her sister’s husband, Blake, are getting from the police, although Elinor is suspicious and fearful of Blake too. Jess is sympathetic toward the needy, childlike Elinor—and intrigued by the art scene her new client introduces her to. At a party in honor of the new (but absent) art sensation Hefin Morris, Jess meets Jacob Dresler, a London art critic who gives a lecture about the reclusive Morris. Jacob shows such interest in Jess that he helps her forget she’s a middle-aged mother of two and that her estranged husband is involved with a younger woman. After a passionate night with Jacob, Jess agrees to go away for a weekend with him at an inn in Cwm Du, the Black Valley, which happens to be in the same area where Elinor has camped by herself. But the romantic getaway at the inn built around a ruined 12th-century castle becomes a nightmare when Elinor and Blake converge on the inn and Blake is found dead at the foot of the tower. Jess had misgivings about him, but now she can’t help wondering about the other people she’s recently become close to. And her theory about the mysterious Morris may be difficult to prove—especially if the next death is hers.
For someone trained in reading subtle cues, Jess seems oblivious to the warning signs all around her. But her sleuthing does get her out of her office and into a complex puzzle that keeps you reading in spite of the plot contrivances.Pub Date: June 30, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-237126-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Bourbon Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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
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